I recently explained the importance of the Supreme Court’s decision affirming a church’s right to control whom it employs as a teacher in its religious school in a post you can read here. Unfortunately, the vital protection this case provides for religious freedom has largely been lost on the mainstream media. Instead, they’ve often focused on how this decision may affect teachers at religious schools. One AP article went so far as to assert that a teacher of Jewish Studies at a Jewish school should be seen as a “teacher whose subject is religion, not a religious teacher.” In the context of a religious school, this is completely at odds with the concept of religious freedom.

The Court of Appeals in the Hosanna-Tabor case made a similar argument (which was thankfully rejected by the Supreme Court). It opined that the teacher who sued the religious school wasn’t a minister because she spent six hours a day teaching secular subjects like math, social studies, and music.  Only an hour or so was spent on exclusively religious instruction. The fact that the teacher also lead weekly chapel services, taught a 30-minute religion class four days per week, lead prayer three times per day, and taught a morning devotional was considered to be largely irrelevant.  So the school was prohibited from firing the teacher, even though she violated church teachings regarding mediation of disputes among believers.

The appeals court (and the Associated Press) failed to recognize something even Christians sometimes forget – our biblical worldview and Christian principles affect all aspects of our lives.  That certainly includes how we teach our children all subjects – even those that don’t appear to be “religious” – such as music and social studies.  It even includes math, as demonstrated by the great mathematicians Sir Isaac Newton and Rene Descartes. And it certainly includes religious classes like Jewish Studies at a religious school that has as its purpose inculcating the religious theology and values of a particular religion.

Saying the Hosanna-Tabor case undermines the rights of teachers is like saying the desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education wrongly ignored the rights of teachers who wanted to only teach certain kids. The larger, more important, principle of elimination of racism – or protection of religious freedom in this case – is being missed. Thankfully, all nine Justices of the Supreme Court aren’t influenced by the misguided opinions of the Associated Press.

Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Redmond, Washington, reportedly took a stand against the Washington governor’s recent efforts to legalize same-sex “marriage,” stating:  ”As long as the Bible says it’s wrong, I’m going to fight against it like it’s the last thing I can do. It’s no different than any other sin. If someone walked around and said ‘We want to be a minority because we are divorcees,’ I would fight that just as much.” He believes that if the proponents of the new law succeed, it will profoundly restrict religious freedom, and he’s right.

Proponents of same-sex “marriage” have the ultimate goal of sexual choices being treated the same as race. In other words, they think criticizing someone for engaging in homosexual behavior should be viewed the same as criticizing someone for being Black. The religious freedom implications for this change in the law would be striking. For instance, Title VII protects religious organizations by allowing them to discriminate based on religion when it comes to hiring staff. This exemption makes sense because no one would argue a Catholic school should hire an Atheist to teach religion. But that religious exemption doesn’t apply to discrimination based on race. If the proponents of same-sex marriage are successful in elevating sexual orientation discrimination to the same level as race discrimination, religious organizations that teach biblical truth about sexuality may be forced to hire individuals who engage in homosexual behavior  for some leadership positions like teachers. (You can read more about how the homosexual legal agenda could affect religious freedom here and here.)

Pastor Hutcherson is to be commended for being willing to take a stand that may be politically incorrect, and the foresight to understand the homosexual agenda’s negative implications for religious freedom. We need more religious leaders like him.

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton,  recently addressed the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland on the occasion of International Human Rights Day. Her remarks, which you can read in full here, start out spot on. She acknowledges that rights are not creations of the government but are something we are born with. She said, “rights are not conferred by government; they are the birthright of all people. It does not matter what country we live in, who our leaders are, or even who we
are. Because we are human, we therefore have rights. And because we have rights, governments are bound to protect them.” She’s right. The unalienable rights our Founding Fathers risked their lives for are something governments have a responsibility to protect and no right to take away.

But she ignores the underlying questions of where those rights come from. Many academics today expect us to believe unalienable rights have been evolving along with us as we’ve made the journey from Big Bang fodder, to primal ooze, to self-aware beings at the top of the food chain. But the idea that all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, even if they are not strong enough to assert those rights on their own, contradicts the natural selection principles upon which fundamentalist Darwinism stands. A couple of hours watching the nature channel demonstrates that only humans have “evolved” the characteristic that even the weakest and frailest among us have basic rights that we all must protect. The point of this post isn’t to demonstrate that humanistic theories on the origin of basic rights are flawed. You can read more about that here. Suffice it to say, the only adequate answer to the question of where basic rights come from is God, or as the Founding Fathers often phrased it, our Creator.

So if Secretary of State Clinton is willing to acknowledge that rights aren’t simply something we’ve made up ourselves as we bump along the evolutionary path to self actualization, why didn’t she say they emanate from God?  The simple answer is she probably knows God not only gave us rights, He’s given responsibilities. The whole point of her speech is she believes the freedom to engage in homosexual behavior is a basic human right that even trumps religious freedom. She says, “The third, and perhaps most challenging, issue arises when people cite religious or cultural values as a reason to violate or not to protect the human rights of LGBT citizens.” In other words, even though all three of the major religions in the world teach that homosexual behavior is harmful not only to those who engage it, but society as a whole, that should never be used as a reason to treat those engaging in that behavior differently. She doesn’t acknowledge rights come from God, because that tacitly affirms we should embrace all that God has given us, including responsibilities – such as the duty to resist temptation to engage in sexual relations with anyone except one’s opposite sex spouse. See, e.g., Romans 1:24-27.

This is very dangerous for those who believe what the Bible actually says (not what many have twisted it to say in an attempt to justify their actions) and do their best to practice it. Under Secretary Clinton’s new rule, sexual freedom trumps religious freedom. A pastor cannot discriminate against a same-sex couple that wants to “marry” in his church and have him officiate the wedding. A church cannot expel a member for engaging in homosexual behavior. And certainly a Christian counselor can never advise a client that they will only be physically and emotionally healthy when they stop engaging in homosexual behavior. That would be discriminatory. It would also be the end of religious freedom.

The idea that we can enjoy God-given rights without accepting God-given responsibilities is not a new one. Adam and Eve eagerly bought this lie in the Garden of Eden. They believed the serpent when he told them that God didn’t really say certain fruit is forbidden. They were just misinterpreting God’s words. And even if He did say it, they won’t die if they eat it. God just made up that rule to restrict their freedom. There will be no consequences.

The apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. Many of us still believe we can enjoy the right God gave us to rule and care for the earth without heeding His instructions regarding how we should live. Secretary of State Clinton’s speech lays the groundwork for building this false teaching into our laws. If she succeeds, don’t be surprised when we experience the same fate as Adam and Eve and lose the God-given freedoms we hold so dear.

The Christmas season reminds us that religious freedom is alive and well in the USA – especially when compared to the restrictions on religion in the rest of the world. It’s easy to get discouraged hearing almost daily reports of the prospect of same-sex “marriage” and increasing attacks on churches in America. But these threats pale in comparison to the oppression many churches experience in other countries.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a study on August 9, 2011, showing that numerous countries around the world place onerous restrictions on religious freedom – ostensibly to “protect” it. The study found: “As of mid-2009, 59 countries (30%) had a law, rule or policy at some level of government forbidding blasphemy (remarks or writings considered to be contemptuous of God), apostasy (abandoning one’s faith) or defamation (disparagement or criticism) of particular religions or religion in general. Penalties for violating these laws, ranging from fines to imprisonment to death, were enforced in 44 of the 59.” These laws prohibiting blasphemy, apostasy, or the defamation of religion were directly tied to an overall decrease in religious freedom.

For instance, a 13-year-old Pakistani girl reportedly made the mistake of writing something in her school work that was deemed “blasphemous.” In Pakistan, criticism of Islam is considered defamation and is punishable by death. Authorities weren’t so harsh in this instance, but did expel the girl from school and forced her mother to change jobs. In Egypt, a court is reported to have sentenced a man to three years in jail and hard labor because he “intentionally insulted the dignity of the Islamic religion and attacked it with insults and ridicule on Facebook.” And in the United Kingdom, a Member of the Scottish Parliament asked Strathlyde Police to investigate the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow because he defended the institution of marriage in a church service.

We would be shocked if anything resembling this religious oppression were to occur here in the United States – and rightfully so. In 1940, our Supreme Court held in Cantwell v. Connecticut that pointing out the errors of the religious beliefs of another is exactly what the Free Speech Clause was designed to protect. And three years later, the court famously affirmed that the government has no power to determine which religious beliefs are acceptable and which are not, stating: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette. We at the ADF Church Project are doing our level best to make sure these important legal precedents are not eroded. If you hear of any situation where church freedom is being restricted, please contact us at speakupmovement.org or 1-800-TELL-ADF.

No, the U.S. does not have a perfect record on religious freedom, but we do score higher than most, if not all, other countries. We should thank God every day for our freedom to worship, especially during this holiday season. And I’m going to commit to praying for our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world that fear for their lives every time they utter the name of Christ in public.

The long standing tax provision that permits churches to provide pastors with a non-taxable housing allowance was recently challenged in the case Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Geitner in a California federal court. The radical group that filed the lawsuit voluntarily dismissed it after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in ACSTO v. Winn  – an ADF case that severely restricts the ability of anti-religious organizations to challenge government programs that acknowledge the autonomy of religious organizations and the benefits they provide our communities.

But the atheist organization filed another lawsuit challenging the housing allowance in the federal court in Wisconsin on September 17, 2011. We at the ADF Church Project are monitoring that case closely and will move to intervene if the Department of Justice does not vigorously defend this important acknowledgment of the value of churches and pastors. Critics of the housing allowance ignore the unique benefits that churches provide communities. For instance, a Baylor University study found that kids attending church in low income neighborhoods have a better chance of staying in school and succeeding academically.  Another study concludes that “Churches and religious groups offer a vast array of services to their local communities …that sometimes are not being provided elsewhere, such as [a]fter-school programs, refugee resettlement, homeless shelters, [and] food banks….”

ADF has church clients that spend all their money on programs and do not even pay their pastors a salary. The only way the pastor of these  small congregations can afford to minister at the church is by taking advantage the housing allowance. Striking it down would not only be a blow to these pastors, but to our communities at large because it will reduce the ability of churches to continue to help the poor and disadvantaged in ways no one else is doing.

Churches can continue to provide  pastors with non-taxable housing allowances, but they should watch for updates on this case that attempts to limit the effectiveness of churches in our country.

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