{"id":1106,"date":"2012-07-31T11:35:58","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T15:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/?p=1106"},"modified":"2012-07-31T11:36:04","modified_gmt":"2012-07-31T15:36:04","slug":"the-u-s-supreme-court-and-religious-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/the-u-s-supreme-court-and-religious-liberty\/","title":{"rendered":"The U.S. Supreme Court and Religious Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The most important decision issued by the U. S. Supreme Court this year was not its decision on President Obama’s healthcare legislation, important as that issue is for the future of America.\u00a0 The most significant\u00a0ruling in my opinion was given in the Hosanna-Tabor case.\u00a0 This case was heard by the Court last October and the verdict given in January of this year (2012).\u00a0 I have a printed copy which can easily be found online.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This case involved the dismissal of a called minister of a local Lutheran congregation.\u00a0 The issue started with some disability questions involving the minister and Christian school teacher.\u00a0 Eventually, the church had to give the position to another person in order for the ministry to be carried out.\u00a0 When the original minister wanted to come back and pursue the position again, the church refused — a course had been set.\u00a0 The minister challenged the decision to let someone else continue in the position.\u00a0 The church told the minister to follow the appeal procedures used within the Lutheran Church’s hierarchy to handle disputes.\u00a0 The minister refused and instead sued the Church.\u00a0 The Hosanna-Tabor congregation viewed this unwillingness to follow the procedures for handling disputes as insubordination and rescinded the call\u00a0of this minister.\u00a0 The case went all the way to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In a stunning 9-0 decision, a unanimous Court dismissed the lawsuit.\u00a0 Churches under the First Amendment, the Court said,\u00a0have the right to choose and dismiss\u00a0their own ministers for whatever reason. \u00a0The government should not intrude. \u00a0This is part of religious liberty.\u00a0 This is the first time in American history that this specific conclusion has been drawn so tightly and so clearly.\u00a0 It is surprising to see such a forceful and\u00a0lucid decision\u00a0in a day when government encroachment into the details of American lives is a growing, daily burden.\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the decisions regarding religious liberty have been about individual liberty to worship, etc.\u00a0 Here the government is prevented from sticking the camel’s nose into the tent of religious organizations.\u00a0 The potential ramifications are huge.\u00a0 This may head off the move to force churches to hire those who disagree with the lifestyle they teach.\u00a0 It\u00a0is an interesting decision in light of the present\u00a0Administration’s\u00a0efforts to force\u00a0religous employers (the issue is primarly\u00a0Roman Catholics) to pay for health care to cover things contrary to what the Church believes such as contraception.\u00a0 The\u00a0decision does not allow church leaders to be free from criminal prosecution when they violate the law (think priests who have molested children).\u00a0 The issue is freedom of churches to choose their own leaders.\u00a0 Churches do not choose the political leaders of the land.\u00a0 Political leaders should have no say in determining who leads in our churches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The most important decision issued by the U. S. Supreme Court this year was not its decision on President Obama’s healthcare legislation, important as that issue is for the future of America.\u00a0 The most significant\u00a0ruling in my opinion was given in the Hosanna-Tabor case.\u00a0 This case was heard by the Court last October and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,41,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1106"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1111,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106\/revisions\/1111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}