Protecting Your Ministry, Part 1

This is family policy matter program is produced by the North Carolina family policy Council of profamily research and education organization dedicated to strengthening and preserving the family and up in the studio here is John Rustin, Pres. North Carolina family policy Council, thank you for joining us this week for family policy matters.

It is our pleasure to have Eric Stanley with us on the program. Eric serves as Senior legal Counsel for alliance defending freedom radio Kansas City regional service center where he heads the alliance defending freedom church project. He has filed, briefed and argued numerous trial and appellate cases on constitutional issues throughout the United States.

Eric is with us to talk about a new must-have resource for churches, Christian schools, and other ministries that ADF has produced entitled protecting your ministry 44 page legal manual includes checklists to guide Christian institutions through a process of protecting their religious liberties will be talking about this new resource.

While it is a vital item for churches and where you can go to obtain a free copy Eric. Welcome to the program greatly with you. While it's great to have you with us.

Eric and we so much appreciate our partnership with ADF were very grateful for all your great work and for your willingness to take time out of what I know was a very busy schedule to be with us today tell us about ADF protecting your ministry legal manual and how it came about. This is really a legal manual.

As you said that it is meant to lead churches and Christian organizations and Christian schools through a series of steps to protect themselves to be proactive to take some steps now that could be helpful for them to protect themselves from potential discrimination lawsuits. One of the things that we've seen over the years is a rise in the number of lawsuits related to what we call sexual orientation and gender identity, nondiscrimination, ordinances, and does apply in areas of employment and in housing in places of public accommodation.

And that's been an area that we've been focused on in the past, but we see a potential for that area to really expand and that there will potentially be more litigation that would come down the road, especially considering the Supreme Court's anticipated decision on marriage and what would happen there back to everywhere. That marriage has been redefined. We have seen a rise in the number of discrimination complaints against people of faith and we anticipate that that might happen even more frequently in the future.

So the idea for the manual was to lead these organizations through a series of steps to be proactive to take some steps now so that if there is a legal issue that arises in the future.

They are the most prepared that they can be to have to handle that great and I know that we want a family policy Council or receiving a growing number of calls from churches and other Christian ministries and organizations across the state, wondering what they can do in light of the current environment, especially as it does relate to marriage. These folks are very concerned about what they can do to ensure that they are protected as much as possible from the threat of lawsuits other legal action or just claims of discrimination and that sort of thing. So this is a very timely and important resource for folks who have those concerns. No Eric, I know the ethics and religious liberty commission of the Southern Baptist convention has partnered with ADF on developing this resource. Is it just for Southern Baptist churches will cannot be used by other denominations and faith groups know it's not just for Southern Baptist churches impacted, or every church or religious organization of any any denominational orientation or RFA perspective. So we really want to get into the hands of as many churches and Christian schools, and religious organizations as possible so the partnership with ER.

LC is a way of getting it out into the Southern Baptist churches, but this is not limited to that in fact the statements that she'll stay in there in the manual about marriage and the sample kind of language that we have in the policy and all the different issues are really written just from a generically evangelical perspective and so that's something that I think could be helpful for really any church will that's great.

Want to encourage your listeners to take advantage of this and will talk a little bit later in the program about how they can get their own copy and directed to their pastor will utilize it themselves with their involved in a ministry, but it is important for folks to understand that it does have broad application for evangelical churches and ministries regardless of denomination. Now, earlier Eric, I described the protecting your ministry manual is a must have.

It really is must-have for churches and other ministries, including Christian schools. Why is this resource that every ministry should not only have put to use. Well, one of the things that we've seen in and I think the marriage fission from the Supreme Court is probably the biggest example of this is there is a rise in the conflict between what the conflict we term the conflict between religious freedom and sexual license and we seen this develop over the years where with the application and and the Creation of these nondiscrimination ordinances that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. We see this in a number of different contexts over the years with payment recently with the florists in the cake makers.

The teacher printers and even some others you know and in the professional realm Christian counselors and attorneys and and others who really had the right to live out our faith is is something that is being endangered by the sexual revolution in and in its most recent aspect of folks at this. This battle has confronted churches, religious organizations are Christian school and will continue to confront them in the future and felt really now is the time to take the proactive steps that are necessary to make sure that your state is very strictly defined very clearly defined, I should say and that you your all of your volunteer policies dealing with these issues are in place so that if there's a legal issue that arises you are most protected.

It may not forestall a lawsuit. We can't stop people from suing, but it may help your church or your Christian school or your Christian ministry to get out of a lawsuit faster if you got your policies and documents in order to talk about some of the things included in the manual mentioned the checklists and another one of the things that ADF recommends is for churches and ministries to update their professions of faith with the statement on gender, sexuality and marriage explain this for us and why these three terms in particular are so important to include and to defy in these documents will yeah that's certainly something that a lot of person ministries and churches and even Christian schools have statements of faith. What we are recommending that those be updated and that you include in their very clear statement of what the religious organization or your churches beliefs are on marriage and then on human sexuality and gender in the purpose of that is just to make it abundantly clear what those beliefs are one of the principles the legal principle that has really protected churches and religious ministries throughout the years is that a court will not second-guess what a religious organizations, religious beliefs are and so instead of leaving that up to guessing or having to prove that through testimony at trial or something along those lines.

We know that these issues are arise, especially in relation to marriage and human sexuality and gender and so make that statement of faith, make that very clear marriage in human sexuality. People usually get it now statement about a marriage is only between one man and one woman I human you know any any form of sexuality outside of marriage is prohibited in this organization believes the gender issue is a little bit something that a lot of organizations don't deal with, but we have seen a rise in the so-called transgender issue. The Bruce Jenner situation is that in the situation and that's been in the news recently that I think highlights just how that issue is coming to the forefront and so a lot of religious organizations need to take this opportunity and define what are we gonna do, and how how do we define what our religious beliefs are on the transgender issue to make that very clear in case you have an employee that all of a sudden decide that they need to present the as the opposite sex you have or you have a request to an individual who comes to your church to use the opposite effect. Bathroom you need to take that opportunity to have your religious beliefs very clearly spelled out so that you then you can act on them, and if there ever question the court will not second-guess those I know that another important policy that ADF recommends has to do with specifying the kinds of weddings and which are pastoral pastors of the church will participate as well as what kinds of weddings that will be allowed to take place in those church buildings.

What should the wedding policy include, and more importantly, how will it protect churches against potential future lawsuits or tax will really the two major questions that were different churches is life. The pastor be forced to officiate the same-sex wedding ceremony and then will my church be forced open to be used for same-sex wedding ceremony in the answer to both of those is that we really want to go to the map to protect the rights of pastors, not to be forced to do anything inconsistent with her fate, but also to protect the right of church facility not to be used in ways that are inconsistent with your faith.

There has been a move from some church facilities that type of people who would say well just limit use of your facility to your members only eye I see that it really is a way to retreat, so to speak from the church. The church used to be the center of community churches struggle to continue to reach out to the community and have that to be someplace that the community feel safe and welcome and I think that churches should not feel compelled to retreat. We have a sample facilities usage policy in our protecting your ministry manual and that is something that it all it says really is you have a statement of faith. If you are to be using our facility.

I you agree to that statement of faith that you will not do anything that inconsistent with that and that we will only allow uses of our facility that are consistent with our religious beliefs.

That's important to define in the beginning of the relationship of the user of the facility to have them sign an agreement with that at an end that enables churches to continue to throw open their doors to the community and not have to retreat within the four walls of the church.

So I think it said that, I guess the short answer is that it's a remote possibility right now in the near term that that pastors will be forced officiate, but we want pastors that time to know that that will be willing to protect them no matter what with that, but we do want to encourage churches take this time to update your facilities use policy and make sure that that is an order so that it did in advance of that of that issue now does the facilities use policy that you're talking about just applied to weddings or does it apply to other activities that may potentially take place within that data church facility or the facility that is owned and operated by a religious institution. Yeah it would take place with. It would be a generic policy that would apply to any use of that because what what we want to do is make sure that churches and religious organizations that have facilities are being consistent in how they use those facilities and how they allow the general public or the community to use those facilities so the weight be consistent with that is to say, we will only allow uses that are consistent with our statement of faith and we will not allow any uses that go against, or are inconsistent with that statement affect and that's the way that cannot have that consistency in the use of your facility and that sets up the best possible defense. Should someone say no, your church should be a place of public accommodation and you can't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. And then we can argue none of the church facility religious organizations facility is part and parcel of how this religious organization or church lives out its faith in the community and it should not be forced to violated its faith through allowing uses that are inconsistent with those religious beliefs so this really sets it up in the best possible way for defense. Well, Eric.

Unfortunately, we are out of town for this week, but I want to give you an opportunity to let our listeners know where they can go to access this incredible resource from Lodge defending freedom, protecting your ministry absolutely is very easy. You can go to alliance defending freedom.org/church with alliance defending freedom.org/church. All you have to do is put in your name and your email address there and you can download the manual free or you can request that a printed copy would be sent to you so alliance defending freedom.org/church where Stanley thank you so much for your work at a Lodge defending freedom and for taking time out of your schedule to talk with us today about protecting your ministry legal manual by it's been a pleasure having you on family policy matters and we wish you the best and pray that God will bless you and the continued work of ADF absolutely thanks for having me on in a we look forward to working with United future's family matters.

Information and analysis, future of the North Carolina family policy Council join us weekly for discussion on policy issues affecting the family. If you have questions or comments, please contact 919-807-0800 or visit our website and see family.org