On the eve of the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2014 annual meeting, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), the official Southern Baptist entity tasked with issues of ethics and morality, held a forum on the pressing issue of religious liberty and its implications for today’s Christians. The panelists included ERLC President Dr. Russell Moore, pastor of Saddleback Church Rick Warren, pastor of The Church at Brook Hills David Platt, and founder of National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference Samuel Rodriguez. ERLC Vice President Philip Bethancourt moderated the discussion.
The impetus for the forum, entitled “Hobby Lobby and the Future of Religious Liberty,” was the high profile religious liberty case Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius. Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft stores owned by the Green family, sued the Obama administration over an HHS mandate that required them to provide certain contraceptives to their employees. The Greens are Southern Baptists who believe that providing those contraceptives is tantamount to providing an abortion, and is therefore abhorrent to their religious conscience. Supreme Court observers predict the case will be decided within the next two weeks.
The Hobby Lobby case itself mostly served as a springboard for a broader discussion on religious liberty. A key purpose of the panel was to equip pastors to deal with religious liberty issues as they arise in their community, many of whom aren’t aware of the fact that religious liberty is in peril at all. “…[T]onight, we didn’t bring a team of attorneys…” Dr. Moore said in his opening statement. “I wanted to focus our attention on calling on churches to deal with issues of religious liberty. Before religious liberty is a religious issue or a social issue, it is a Gospel issue.”
A key distinction stressed by almost all panelists was the distinction between simply freedom of worship and the freedom of religion. The freedom of worship protects fundamental expressions of Christian life, such as attending church and prayer, and protects religious beliefs. But the freedom of religion includes the freedom to act upon one’s religion and to live one’s life according to one’s conscience. While virtually all Americans support the right to worship, freedoms of religious conscience are heatedly debated.
“The Constitution doesn’t guarantee freedom of worship, it guarantees the freedom of religion, which is the freedom of practice.” Pastor Warren noted. “If I only have the freedom of worship, than that means the only freedom I have is inside a building one hour a week. I don’t have a chance to build my business on my convictions, to raise a family on my convictions, train my children… all of these issues.”
All four panelists agreed that the threat to religious liberty was not an idle one, but a real one that required vigilance from all Christians. Pastor Pratt noted that Hobby Lobby case “woke up” many Christians to the fact that religious liberty would affect their personal lives, but more need to be alarmed. “They need to know it’s coming.” He said, “It’s going to affect every person in every profession in the church.”
Pastor Rodriguez made it clear that this vigilance included standing up for the rights of not just Christians, but Jews, Muslims, and all people of faith. “Today’s complacency is tomorrow’s captivity,” he cautioned. He predicted that just as racial discrimination was the defining civil rights issue of the 20th Century, religious liberty would be the defining civil rights issue of the 21st Century.
A common thread in the discussion was that American Christians had become complacent by living out a life where their faith was rarely challenged in public, and that a serious change was needed. Pastor Rodriguez warned against a “lukewarm church” more concerned about being labeled a bully than spreading the Gospel. Dr. Moore railed against the “dime-store prosperity gospel” that teaches Christians that God would give everything they want in this life. Pastor Warren said he was glad about the death of cultural Christianity: “The church is never stronger than when it’s in the minority.”
The pastors stressed that depending on how the debate over religious freedom goes, there may need to be personal sacrifices. “This issue may take– just as it did with Martin Luther King Jr.– some pastors going to jail,” Pastor Warren said, before enthusiastically adding, “I’m in!”
Dr. Moore made the same point, saying “I’m doing everything we can to keep out us out of jail, but there is one thing worse than going to jail. And that is staying out of jail and sacrificing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Pastor Platt said that all Christians, not just pastors, need to take risks for the faith. “I hear Pastor Rick say, ‘I’m in,” and I’m with you. And I want to raise up an army, an entire body of members that says, ‘I’m in,’ who are in regardless of what happens in this case.”
There was a general sense of optimism about the outcome of the Hobby Lobby case. “I think we’re going to win this,” Dr. Moore predicted, “I really do.” In particular, he believed that the Court would find that the HHS mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Pastor Warren agreed, specifically citing Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, a 2012 case in which the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the freedom of a Lutheran school to fire employees who don’t believe in Christian principles. “Even liberals and conservatives agree on this one. You don’t touch religious liberty. It’s the foundation of this country.”
The strongest message of the night was that whatever the outcome of Hobby Lobby, and whatever the state of religious liberty in our nation, God still reigns supreme. “If we lose this case, the Gospel is not lost.” Dr. Moore said to applause “If the United States of America crumbles away, the Gospel is not lost.”
The Southern Baptist Convention plans to honor the Green family and the wife of imprisoned Iranian pastor Saeed Abedini Wednesday morning, during an Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission presentation. Live video of that presentation, which is scheduled for 11:17, may be viewed online here.
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