Bonhoeffer Deep

A friend of mine, a pastor in our denomination told about a gathering in which a legal expert for the churchwide organization told them that it was likely the federal government would impose hiring laws on the churches. Soon churches could not discriminate against hiring atheists or gays or whomever. And my friend said he had never seen such a rebellion among a bunch of pastors. They all became conservatives that day, he ventured.
The reason this is such a big deal to our denomination is that we often have schools. In fact, there was a period when, in order to start a new church, the church had to pledge to start a school as well. Such was the dedication of these German-Americans to Christian education and the distrust of state-run schools from the land they had come from. Indeed, for a time in my youth, I was on track to become such a church school teacher. Once you graduate from one of the Lutheran teacher colleges you are installed as a (divinely)“called” teacher, just like a minister.
On Wednesday the Supreme Court decided a case about just such a Lutheran Church and School and it wasn’t even close. The Court held that churches have a right to hire and fire “ministers” as a right of “the free exercise thereof” of religion in the First Amendment by a margin of 9-0. That’s right, even the former ACLU queen, Ginsburg, and Kagan, the non-practicing Jewish agnostic voted in favor of the First Amendment and against the Obama administration. Forcing churches to to take religious leaders they don’t want—“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,” wrote Justice Roberts in favoring the decision. “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.” No kidding! Who would order such a thing? Oh, wait, that’s our Prez who approved the EEOC lawsuit, wasn’t it. So with such a slap in the face at his policy, why isn’t anyone from the media asking Obama about this? Why did he follow through with this suit and not call off the EEOC dogs? Does he agree with the EEOC? Who’s in charge there? What kind of faith beliefs does he hold that he considers the church’s religious faith to be less than political correctness? And what does he believe about the First Amendment?
Wish I was part of the press corps. I’d ask the religious questions. (Obama pronounces that ‘corpse’, correctly, perhaps?)
Oh, wait, I think I know the answers! Obama believes in Liberation Theology, that curious belief that says Jesus came to the earth to liberate and play politics, not to save poor sinners from sin. Thus politics is god over everything else in life. And this is the same belief as noted socialists like Karl “The State is God” Marx, of whom Barry was a close follower during his high school and college years. Strange that no one in the media finds this fascinating, controversial, correlating, or significant.
Now that Court ruling in EEOC vs. Hosanna-Tabor still doesn’t mean that the church school can avoid hiring that Islamic radical for janitor. (He’s particularly good with chemicals.) Or that wickan for school cook (who can really concoct strange stuff in a kettle) or that atheist for secretary(whose favorite words are “Jesus Christ!”). Those folks probably won’t qualify for being “ministers” who have what the court calls “ministerial exception”. So don’t expect our church pastors and involved laity to be any less on guard about Obama’s brand of First Amendment rights. And for churches that don’t ordain and install, that use lay people for leadership, have schools but don’t have a churchwide pool of called teachers from which to choose, you need to be on guard too.
And the next time someone crabs about social conservatives who just discriminate against gays that want to get married and unwanted pregnancies, I think I will tell them the issue goes quite a bit deeper. Like Bonhoeffer Resistance deep.