Right to Opine

Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal published an excerpt from Alain de Botton’s upcoming book “Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believers Guide to the Uses of Religion.” If this snippet is representative of the whole it should be an interesting read, particularly for those of us who are not atheists.

Botton recognizes the valuable contribution of religion to society and even acknowledges that secular attempts to replace it have fallen far short—all the while heading down a dead end in an attempt at such a replacement. Seeing the good that comes from some of the trappings of faith—such as a real sense of community and the breaking down of economic and racial divisions—he nevertheless makes the classic atheist mistake of confusing causation and correlation. The societal benefit of “religion” isn’t a result of shared ritual, important and valuable though that may be. It comes from the underlying acknowledgment of a power greater than we, to which we are commonly accountable and without which the ritual is meaningless.

Sadly, he misses the reason secular humanism has failed to replace faith. You can’t replace a personal relationship with God by community meals or any other human construct. The purpose of the Eucharist and Passover is not to create a sense of community, but to remind each of us what God has done for us. Botton’s “Agape Restaurant” tries to reproduce a side effect of the ritual while removing its very core ingredient. Without that direct connection the ritual he so admires is merely a sort of collective psychological masturbation. There may be some pleasure in it, but its benefit is entirely transitory and fleeting. It can never be a substitute for the real thing.

This story is not getting nearly the airplay it deserves.

In a very rare unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled—against Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—that religious organizations do, in fact, have the authority to determine who they employ and are protected by the First Amendment from government interference in this vital function.

First, the background. A Lutheran church in Michigan which runs a private school employs two types of teachers: called and lay. A called teacher must be a minister of the church, completing a specific course of theological study and being designated as an official church minister. Lay teachers have no such ministerial designation, and do not even have to be members of the Lutheran Church.

A called teacher developed narcolepsy, and was unable to teach for an extended period of time. The church, in the meantime, filled her position with a lay teacher. When she was ready to return to teaching, the church notified her that the position had been filled. Contrary to church rules for Lutheran ministers, which require that a minister with a complaint take such to an internal arbitration board, she threatened to (and eventually did) file suit in court. The church, in accordance with longstanding policy, removed her calling and terminated her employment.

To complicate matters, the teacher in question was originally hired as a lay teacher. She later specifically accepted the designation as a called teacher—a minister of the church. She spent six years of study, lay work, and church examination to attain that designation. She also claimed a special ministerial tax exemption for a housing allowance.

But I digress. The teacher, with the backing and legal representation of the Obama EEOC, claimed her employ was illegally terminated in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The church contended the firing was the result of violation of church policy regarding lawsuits vs. arbitration. The lower court sided with the church, but on appeal the EEOC prevailed with the argument that the ADA trumped the church’s First Amendment protection. The Supreme Court ruled against the appeals court in favor of the church.

The full decision is here. It’s very much worth a read, as the court eviscerates the EEOC case in under 40 pages while still managing to provide important historic context, precedent, and original arguments for the decision. Any time the SC hands out a unanimous decision against the administration, you know the White House has failed to grasp the meaning of the Constitution. This, of course, comes as no surprise to most of us.

If you refuse to read the whole decision, you should at least read Justice Roberts’ majority opinion. Thomas and Alito filed concurring opinions (with Kagan joining Alito—will surprises never cease!), but Roberts writes a masterful piece. Those of you on the Left who like to bash conservatives for their ignorance, lack of education, blah blah blah, should read Roberts’ decision and note that all of the liberals on the court (save Kagan) joined him with nary a comment. His portion goes back to the Magna Carta, and gives a masterful exposition on religious freedom over the ensuing millenium.

For those of you too lazy to read the court’s full decision, let me pull out some juicy snippets. (These are, by very nature, out of context. If you have a beef, read the dang thing!)

• The First Amendment provides, in part, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Familiar with life under the established Church of England, the founding generation sought to foreclose the possibility of a national church. By forbidding the “establishment of religion” and guaranteeing the “free exercise thereof,” the Religion Clauses ensured that the new Federal Government—unlike the English Crown—would have no role in filling ecclesiastical offices.
• […] it is impermissible for the government to contradict a church’s determination of who can act as its ministers.
• Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments. According the state the power to determine which individuals will minister to the faithful also violates the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government involvement in such ecclesiastical decisions.
• The Court cannot accept the remarkable view [of the EEOC] that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers.
• The present case […] concerns government interference with an internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church itself.

You must not miss this one:

• Any suggestion that Hosanna-Tabor’s asserted religious reason for firing Perich was pretextual misses the point of the ministerial exception. The purpose of the exception is not to safeguard a church’s decision to fire a minister only when it is made for a religious reason. The exception instead ensures that the authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful is the church’s alone.

Read that again. Its impact is vital to religious freedom in our nation!

• By forbidding the “establishment of religion” and guaranteeing the “free exercise thereof,” the Religion Clauses ensured that the new Federal Government—unlike the English Crown— would have no role in filling ecclesiastical offices. The Establishment Clause prevents the Government from appointing ministers, and the Free Exercise Clause prevents it from interfering with the freedom of religious groups to select their own.
• The “scrupulous policy of the Constitution in guarding against a political interference with religious affairs,” Madison explained, prevented the Government from rendering an opinion on the “selection of ecclesiastical individuals.”
• the First Amendment “permit[s] hierarchical religious organizations to establish their own rules and regulations for internal discipline and government, and to create tribunals for adjudicating disputes over these matters.”

To mollify Leftist readers, from (conservative) Roberts’ opinion:

The case before us is an employment discrimination suit brought on behalf of a minister, challenging her church’s decision to fire her. Today we hold only that the ministe- rial exception bars such a suit. We express no view on whether the exception bars other types of suits, including actions by employees alleging breach of contract or tor- tious conduct by their religious employers. There will be time enough to address the applicability of the exception to other circumstances if and when they arise.

This is not carte blanche for religious organizations to discriminate against anyone for any reason at will.

Continuing:

• Religious groups are the archetype of associations formed for expressive purposes, and their fundamental rights surely include the freedom to choose who is qualified to serve as a voice for their faith.
• When it comes to the expression and inculcation of religious doctrine, there can be no doubt that the messenger matters.
• A religion cannot depend on someone to be an effective advocate for its religious vision if that person’s conduct fails to live up to the religious precepts that he or she espouses. For this reason, a religious body’s right to self-governance must include the ability to select, and to be selective about, those who will serve as the very “embodiment of its message” and “its voice to the faithful.”

Kudos to our Justices for that rare instance in which ALL agree in favor of the religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.

This story is not getting nearly the airplay it deserves.

In a very rare unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled—against Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—that religious organizations do, in fact, have the authority to determine who they employ and are protected by the First Amendment from government interference in this vital function.

First, the background. A Lutheran church in Michigan which runs a private school employs two types of teachers: called and lay. A called teacher must be a minister of the church, completing a specific course of theological study and being designated as an official church minister. Lay teachers have no such ministerial designation, and do not even have to be members of the Lutheran Church.

A called teacher developed narcolepsy, and was unable to teach for an extended period of time. The church, in the meantime, filled her position with a lay teacher. When she was ready to return to teaching, the church notified her that the position had been filled. Contrary to church rules for Lutheran ministers, which require that a minister with a complaint take such to an internal arbitration board, she threatened to (and eventually did) file suit in court. The church, in accordance with longstanding policy, removed her calling and terminated her employment.

To complicate matters, the teacher in question was originally hired as a lay teacher. She later specifically accepted the designation as a called teacher—a minister of the church. She spent six years of study, lay work, and church examination to attain that designation. She also claimed a special ministerial tax exemption for a housing allowance.

But I digress. The teacher, with the backing and legal representation of the Obama EEOC, claimed her employ was illegally terminated in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The church contended the firing was the result of violation of church policy regarding lawsuits vs. arbitration. The lower court sided with the church, but on appeal the EEOC prevailed with the argument that the ADA trumped the church’s First Amendment protection. The Supreme Court ruled against the appeals court in favor of the church.

The full decision is here. It’s very much worth a read, as the court eviscerates the EEOC case in under 40 pages while still managing to provide important historic context, precedent, and original arguments for the decision. Any time the SC hands out a unanimous decision against the administration, you know the White House has failed to grasp the meaning of the Constitution. This, of course, comes as no surprise to most of us.

If you refuse to read the whole decision, you should at least read Justice Roberts’ majority opinion. Thomas and Alito filed concurring opinions (with Kagan joining Alito—will surprises never cease!), but Roberts writes a masterful piece. Those of you on the Left who like to bash conservatives for their ignorance, lack of education, blah blah blah, should read Roberts’ decision and note that all of the liberals on the court (save Kagan) joined him with nary a comment. His portion goes back to the Magna Carta, and gives a masterful exposition on religious freedom over the ensuing millenium.

For those of you too lazy to read the court’s full decision, let me pull out some juicy snippets. (These are, by very nature, out of context. If you have a beef, read the dang thing!)

• The First Amendment provides, in part, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Familiar with life under the established Church of England, the founding generation sought to foreclose the possibility of a national church. By forbidding the “establishment of religion” and guaranteeing the “free exercise thereof,” the Religion Clauses ensured that the new Federal Government—unlike the English Crown—would have no role in filling ecclesiastical offices.
• […] it is impermissible for the government to contradict a church’s determination of who can act as its ministers.
• Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments. According the state the power to determine which individuals will minister to the faithful also violates the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government involvement in such ecclesiastical decisions.
• The Court cannot accept the remarkable view [of the EEOC] that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers.
• The present case […] concerns government interference with an internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church itself.

You must not miss this one:

• Any suggestion that Hosanna-Tabor’s asserted religious reason for firing Perich was pretextual misses the point of the ministerial exception. The purpose of the exception is not to safeguard a church’s decision to fire a minister only when it is made for a religious reason. The exception instead ensures that the authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful is the church’s alone.

Read that again. Its impact is vital to religious freedom in our nation!

• By forbidding the “establishment of religion” and guaranteeing the “free exercise thereof,” the Religion Clauses ensured that the new Federal Government—unlike the English Crown— would have no role in filling ecclesiastical offices. The Establishment Clause prevents the Government from appointing ministers, and the Free Exercise Clause prevents it from interfering with the freedom of religious groups to select their own.
• The “scrupulous policy of the Constitution in guarding against a political interference with religious affairs,” Madison explained, prevented the Government from rendering an opinion on the “selection of ecclesiastical individuals.”
• the First Amendment “permit[s] hierarchical religious organizations to establish their own rules and regulations for internal discipline and government, and to create tribunals for adjudicating disputes over these matters.”

To mollify Leftist readers, from (conservative) Roberts’ opinion:

The case before us is an employment discrimination suit brought on behalf of a minister, challenging her church’s decision to fire her. Today we hold only that the ministe- rial exception bars such a suit. We express no view on whether the exception bars other types of suits, including actions by employees alleging breach of contract or tor- tious conduct by their religious employers. There will be time enough to address the applicability of the exception to other circumstances if and when they arise.

This is not carte blanche for religious organizations to discriminate against anyone for any reason at will.

Continuing:

• Religious groups are the archetype of associations formed for expressive purposes, and their fundamental rights surely include the freedom to choose who is qualified to serve as a voice for their faith.
• When it comes to the expression and inculcation of religious doctrine, there can be no doubt that the messenger matters.
• A religion cannot depend on someone to be an effective advocate for its religious vision if that person’s conduct fails to live up to the religious precepts that he or she espouses. For this reason, a religious body’s right to self-governance must include the ability to select, and to be selective about, those who will serve as the very “embodiment of its message” and “its voice to the faithful.”

Kudos to our Justices for that rare instance in which ALL agree in favor of the religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.

No real surprises here. Yet another hit piece to brand Christian Conservatives as knuckle-dragging bigots. There’s nothing quite like sprinkling your piece with phrases such as,

So long as a candidate makes bland, predictable affirmations of religious faith, he or she has adequately punched the religion card.

to make your bias crystal clear. And the author’s portrayal of many Christians’ view of Mormonism betrays his ignorance of Christianity. Mormonism is a cult, and Mormons are not Christians. You can decry that statement as “utterly distasteful” but that won’t change its inherent truth.

Mike Adams is always worth a read. In this three-parter he rather poignantly discusses God’s gifts and how we choose to use them.

1. The Dance
2. In My Life
3. Tangled up in Blue

In a recent Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece, Richard Stearns—the head of World Vision, a charity I personally support financially—makes some good points in a compelling argument for American aid to other countries…but not for government aid.

He states that,

Yes, individuals and churches play a vital role in aid and development. But governments play a unique and vital role that private organizations cannot.

But he fails to provide a single example of such a government role. Christian aid organizations have smaller budgets but are much more efficient than the government, with a significantly higher portion of their funds going to aid rather than to bureaucracy. Further, our federal aid far too often props up governments which not only oppress Christians (and adherents to other locally minority religions) but bear little resemblance to anything we would recognize as democracy—one of his (correctly) stated goals of foreign aid.

Stearns is also confused about the meaning of the word “dependence”:

And at a time when more than a billion people do not have enough food to eat, President Obama’s Feed the Future initiative provides nutrition assistance and helps 21 South American, African and Asian countries feed themselves, without dependence on aid.

The sentence is self-contradictory. If these countries don’t depend on our aid, then why are we providing it?

He is also perplexed by Christians—who quite rightly should be concerned with the plight of the poor throughout the world—supporting large cuts to our federal foreign aid. As the leader of a Christian aid organization, this shouldn’t be such a puzzle to him. Government aid is strictly secular in nature. Christians, in particular, should prefer that our foreign assistance be accompanied by evangelism—something that can only be done by Christian groups.

Christians do care about the less fortunate among us, both at home and abroad. We are also concerned that our tax dollars are so frequently spent in ways we believe to be contrary to both America’s interests and to the primary calling of the church—to reach the lost for Christ—which the government cannot do.

Not content with the fact that Muslims do indeed enjoy religious freedom in America, expatriate Michael Goldfarb lectures us for not being tolerant of Islam. So much is wrong with this editorial. Let’s begin at the top.

The plan to build Park 51, a Muslim community centre a few blocks north of Ground Zero in New York City, has re-kindled resentment smoldering since 9/11 against the Muslim community in a significant portion of American society.

Consider that originally the building was to be called the “Cordoba House.” Anyone who knows anything about Muslim history knows the name was chosen deliberately. If you’re unaware of its significance, educate yourself. From the beginning, this project was an intentional poke in America’s eye.

Goldfarb notes that a New York Times poll showed that while 62% of New Yorkers believed backers of the center had the right to build it near Ground Zero, 67% said it should not be.

The question raised by the poll is, people have religious freedom but where did the toleration go?

The underlying problem here is that Goldfarb, like many on the left, confuses the freedom or legal right to perform an act with the wisdom or moral correctness of doing so. You may have the legal right to be an idiot, but I do you no great favor by tolerating your idiocy.

Picture a “Christian” group blowing up the Kingdom Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, slaughtering thousands of innocent Saudis. Can you even imagine the outrage that would follow if any other group of Christians—even a legitimate and widely-accepted group—were to propose building a Christian community center on or near the site? That outrage would be justified…and so is ours. The issue is not one of “(legal) right to” but of “ought to.”

(Oh, wait. I forgot. Even having a Bible in your possession in Saudi Arabia is a crime punishable by imprisonment. Converting to Christianity—from, er, Islam—is a capital offense. Ah, yes…we certainly are the intolerant ones.‚

Regarding religious freedom and tolerance, Goldfarb then ponders,

Where do those values of religious tolerance come from? Are they uniquely American?

What follows is a couple paragraphs on John Locke followed by a brief explanation of how France has dealt with the issue. I’m not entirely sure why Goldfarb bothers with these, as they both point out exactly how good minority religions have it in America. Locke, taken in context, never suggested that society should tolerate all religions in the way Goldfarb and the modern left would have it—a full and approving embrace. I’m OK. You’re OK. Kumbayah, etc. (Read it. I’m not sure Goldfarb did. The bulk of the essay deals with how Christians of various sects treat each other, an issue deserving as much attention now as when he wrote, but irrelevant to the topic at hand.) Locke argued that the government itself should not play favorites and should view adherents of all religions equally—something America has done at least as well as any other nation on the planet.

And France? They’ve recently banned the full Muslim veil in public. To my knowledge (and a lengthy Google search) no serious American political leader has suggested we do the same. Yes, there have been a few legal cases involving Islam, e.g., requiring Muslim women to unveil in order to have drivers license photographs taken, but there is no great push in the U.S. to curtail Muslims’ religious freedom.

In the furor over Park 51, the more thinking members of the anti-mosque brigade have invoked French reasoning without using the word France, reminding the project’s prime mover, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, that tolerated minorities have reciprocal responsibilities not to tread to [sic] heavily on the feelings of the majority.

Where equality fits into their reasoning is not clear.

That is because the issue is not one of equality. It is completely and solely about the morality or “rightness” of the project.

Curiously Britain, which had no 18th Century revolution and which still bans a Catholic from taking the throne, has had in these times of tensions between Muslims and their fellow citizens, fewer problems.

Mr. Goldfarb must read an entirely different web site than the BBC (for which he writes) I visit daily. Browse their site and determine for yourself whether his assessment of the situation in England is warranted.

Disappointingly, Goldfarb then descends into the all-too-common ploy of simply denigrating America.

…America is on the verge of exploding with intolerance towards Muslims…

…most Americans…don’t know or think much about the world outside the US.

And so on. Ignorant, navel-gazing, intolerant, bigoted Americans. Yada, yada, yada.

The truth is, religious freedom as it is fiercely defended in America is uniquely American. There is no other country which so amicably plays host to the bewildering array of religions as is found here. It’s one of the many distinctive characteristics which make this the number one destination of immigrants from all over the world and, as Michael Medved is fond of saying, “The greatest nation on God’s green earth.”

A friend recently posed an interesting question. What would Jesus be considered most, by His life and teachings: a Capitalist or a Socialist? After pondering the issue a bit, I don’t think He’d have fallen into either camp entirely.

Capitalism is driven strictly by the profit motive. Christ spoke rather often about the problems brought about by the love of money. Not wealth itself—God consistently blessed people throughout the Bible with wealth—but the worship of it. Money cannot be our ultimate goal.

Socialism is driven by government control of economic behavior. Altruism becomes involuntary, as the productive are forced to help their neighbors through taxation. Jesus made it clear that God isn’t interested in enforced obedience, e.g., with His frequent criticism of the legalistic Pharisees. God is after the heart.

So neither system aligns well with Jesus’ teaching. More likely He would want us to embrace the best of each and reject the worst. Let’s briefly examine the good and bad in each system.

Capitalism: Consider the parable of the wicked servant. Given a sum of money, he does nothing with it for fear of losing it, and is condemned, while the servants who increase their money are praised. God wants us to make the most of our talents. That would include, for those with the ability, creation of wealth provided said wealth is not the end—as in capitalism—but is used for good purposes.

Socialism: The desire to help those in need is not only admirable but requisite per Jesus’ teaching. Parables such as the good Samaritan and the sheep and goats speak directly to the subject. Yet virtually every time Christ came in contact with the Pharisees, who were caught up in strict rule-following, He denounced them because though their actions may have appeared right, their motives were wrong. They exerted severe control over their fellow Jews through an intricate system of laws. Socialism regulates “generous” behavior through force of law, but Christ came to free us from the burden of law.

Embrace the good in each system; reject the bad. Be a productive member of society including, where possible, generating wealth. But don’t let wealth become your god. Use what you have—be it time, talents, or money—to help those around you who are less fortunate. Bless others with whatever it is with which God has blessed you, and do it with love and a spirit of generosity rather than out of obligation.