Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Ministerial Exception -- and Paul's Estimation

Churches have the authority to hire and fire individuals whether they confirm or conform to the values of their faith.

If a religious community does not condone single parenthood, sexual relationships outside of marriage, or other personal habits, they deserve to maintain their power to dismiss individual employees who do not respect those standards.

The United States Supreme Court's decision in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC has upheld the ministerial exception of religious corporations to protect them from federal discrimination lawsuits. Churches and missionary establishments have one mission -- promote the Good News. They do not deserve to be tied down with lawsuits from disgruntled former employees who regret their dismissal for not adhering the statures of their employers. Called ministers must understand that by choosing to serve a religious community, they are not merely seeking a compensated position, but they are taking on a task greater than the political intrigues that dominated religious communities. Human infighting is inevitable in all church communities. Rather than demanding that church boards play fair, ministers ought to emphasize to themselves that their calling to preach the Good News of the Gospel.

Any religious community that calls on an ordained individual to minister may impose considerable limitations on what they may do and say. A preacher of the Word of God does not have to be limited by such agreements. If necessary, every believer in the Body of Christ can dispense with these limiting beliefs and go forth to share the Good News, regardless of one's status in a congregation.

Paul the apostle has denounced the lawsuit spirit that has invaded the church. To the Corinthians, he exhorted them to their shame:

"Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?

"Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

"Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

"If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.

"I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?

"But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.

"Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?

"Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren." (1 Corinthians 6: 1-8)

Paul was appalled that the Corinthians refused to settle disputes among themselves. As temples of the Holy Spirit each and every one, what reason did they have to seek the advise of unbelievers in secular courts? If they suffered wrong at the hand of another, why bother suing for redress?

Everything is yours, Paul wrote to them previously(cf 1 Corinthians 3:22), so why sue anyone? If the Body of Christ would only recognize who they are in Christ, there would be far less in-fighting, less recourse to legal sanctions for wrongdoing, and a restored emphasis to sharing the Gospel with the lost.

The ministerial exception inadvertently restores this tenet in Paul's First Epistle -- there is no place of church-related grievances in man's court of law, where God's rule is not respected.

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