By Chelsea Langston Bombino

On Thursday, July 23, Stanley Carlson-Thies, founder and senior director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, and Chelsea Langston Bombino, director of Sacred Sector, both initiatives of the Center for Public Justice, facilitated a webinar for the Wesleyan Church regarding how recent Supreme Court decisions impact these congregations in terms of their understanding of the legal and public policy implications, their own organizational practices, and their public witness.

Stanley Carlson-Thies covered the basic facts and legal ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County. This 6-3 decision, written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, declared that it is illegal under federal law for an employer to engage in discriminatory employment practices against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Supreme Court has now interpreted the protected class of sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination. Carlson-Thies acknowledged that many faith-based employers have questions and concerns about the consequences of this decision as it relates to their freedom to engage in religious staffing practices. In particular, faith-based organizations that hold theologically conservative beliefs about human sexuality and gender identity now have many unanswered questions about whether they will continue to have the religious freedom only to employ persons wholly aligned with their respective missions.

Carlson-Thies noted that this decision gives faith-based organizations reason for hope: the Court reaffirmed that religious freedom is a central constitutional principle. Carlson-Thies briefly laid out three distinct protections the majority opinion cited for faith-based employers – the religious protection in Title VII, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Ministerial Exception. These protections all function differently and do not alleviate all legitimate concerns about a church or religious organization’s freedom to hire based on faith. However, Carlson-Thies pointed out, the protections the Court notes are long-standing and strong — and they apply only to organizations that are manifestly faith-based and that make faith-based employment decisions. Thus, faith-based employers must make clear what their faith-based standards are, and what the doctrinal ground is for those standards, and then show how their employment policies and practices are rooted in those faith-based expectations. Carlson-Thies explained that this kind of clarity and transparency is vital for legal reasons, and it is vital for missional reasons. How can a faith-based organization be faithful to its animating religious convictions if it has not carefully considered how those convictions should shape its services, its operations, and its internal culture? So, for missional reasons, and not only for legal reasons, faith-based organizations must have clear, consistent, and transparent faith-based policies and practices.

Chelsea Bombino also touched on a 7-2 decision that the government cannot interfere with religious institutions’ ability to select teachers providing devotional religious instruction, meaning religious schools can ensure they hire teachers who align with their spiritual commitments. This decision upheld the freedom of two religious schools (Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James Catholic School v. Biel) to select their religious teachers without government interference. Both of the schools were represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, after they were consolidated by the Court in late 2019. Together, the Court’s opinion on these cases is referred to as Our Lady of Guadalupe. Bombino discussed that the majority held that faith-based organizations should be completely free to choose their ministers and spiritual instructors, those individuals tasked with both personally embodying and transmitting spiritual truths to others, without the government stepping in. Bombino explained that this ruling has implications for churches and all faith-based employers who hire people who instruct others on the sacred precepts of their faith. Justice Alito emphasizes that central to the understanding of the ministerial exception is that it is not a formalistic checklist or solely an emphasis on a teacher’s formal title. Rather, the ministerial exception is meant to consider holistically the actual responsibilities performed by ministerial workers and if these employees are engaged in substantively passing on religious precepts and practices to the next generation.

This webinar emphasized that the best way for churches to avoid legal or reputational harm is through having holistic, transparent, explicit religious staffing policies and cultivating an organizational culture in which spiritually driven values are consistently incarnated and applied. This webinar also discussed the importance of civic pluralism, wherein Christians as individual citizens and institutions, recognize we live in a society that has diverse and varied sacred and secular animating viewpoints and ways of being in the world. Carlson-Thies encouraged participants to consider the example of the balancing of LGBTQ rights and religious freedom. A fitting and lasting solution in our pluralistic America has to protect both faith-based employers and LGBTQ employees. The Bostock decision, with its words affirming the religious staffing rights of faith-based employers, is very good — but it does not have the sharp clarity of legislation. Carlson-Thies urged participants to consider if Congress needs to take up H.R. 5331, the Fairness for All Act, which will give faith-based employers now the clarity that the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) would have already given them seven years ago, had it been passed by Congress.

Chelsea Langston Bombino is the director of Sacred Sector, an initiative of the Center for Public Justice. Sacred Sector is a learning community for faith-based organizations and emerging leaders within the faith-based nonprofit sector to integrate and fully embody their sacred missions in every area of organizational life. Chelsea lives in Maryland with her husband and her infant son.