ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)— For many Americans, Memorial Day is simply an extra day of rest. But for millions of others, it’s a day of memories and reflections on the friends and family who sacrificed everything in the defense of freedom. 

Here are three stories of ordinary Christians—in their own words—who faced extraordinary situations and still celebrate the hope found in Christ in times of crisis and loss.
 

Chaplain (Maj. Gen.) Doug Carver 

“For the most part, it’s been a quiet day in Baghdad. Units in other locations report an increase of suicide bombers, anti-Coalition sentiment and discovery of mass graves. Spending most of the afternoon preparing for the Memorial Day service at 1800 hours.”—Journal Entry 1, May 26, 2003

Chaplain (Maj. Gen.) Doug Carver It was Monday, May 26, 2003. I was at Victory Base Complex, just on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq, with the U.S. Army’s V Corps. This Memorial Day would be especially meaningful to our troops as we remembered the 146 Americans killed in action in Iraq to date.

I planned on focusing the Protestant Memorial Day service on a celebration of the lives of our fallen, as we also used the time to celebrate the new life and freedom that God gave to us through Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection. I used Proverbs 10:7 as my primary text (“The memory of the righteous is a blessing.”) The Camp Victory Chapel was packed. Even the V Corps commander and his staff took time out of their battle schedule to attend the service.

No sooner had I pronounced the benediction and walked out of the chapel with my commanding general than we received the bad news. Five soldiers were dead from various enemy attacks and accidents. All of them took place within the very hour of our Memorial Day Service. 

One of those killed in action was a young 25-year-old from Missouri, PFC Jeremiah D. Smith. His vehicle had hit an improvised explosive device in Bagdad, marking the beginning of the enemy’s concerted effort to hit, maim and kill our troops with this new weapon that most of us had never heard of previously. I’ll never forget Memorial Day 2003. We had paused in a war zone to think about life, to thank the Lord for those who’d paid the full measure of devotion to duty to our country and to celebrate the Good News of Jesus Christ. And then, with a prayer and the “amen,” you’re brought right back to the fact that here we are in a combat zone where young men and women are standing in harm’s way, and the war continues. 

“The commanding general was visibly shaken and upset from today’s casualties. Job 1:21: ‘The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.’”—Journal Entry 2, May 26, 2003

Chaplain Carver retired from his position as chief of chaplains of the U.S. Army in 2011 and now serves as the North American Mission Board’s executive director of chaplaincy.

Ernest DePaul Roy Jr.

I never knew my daddy. He only saw me one time when I was three days old. He was at Parris Island (Marine Corps Recruitment Depot) back in 1944, and I was born in Mobile, Ala. They weren’t going to give him a pass to come home, because he was about ready to ship out. The Red Cross stepped in and got a three-day pass for him. That was it—a three-day pass. He came and stayed 21 hours, and he didn’t sleep at all. He slept on the train coming down, and he slept on the train going back. That was it. He shipped out and never come back home. Ernest DePaul Roy Jr. at flag relay.He got killed in Okinawa when I was about five months old. He got there May the 5th, in 1945, and he was killed on May the 12th, which was my mom’s birthday. So we didn’t celebrate birthdays for her for a good while. She always thought of that as the day her husband got killed. We talked a lot about him, and I know a lot of stories that people told me about him and everything.

I (recently) went to Okinawa and saw where he got killed. My nephew took me, and we visited around all the camps and bases. We found a guy who was a historian over there and gave him my daddy’s name, so he looked him up on the registry. We got to see just about where he got killed. I’ve heard that, back in those days, Marines hung their hand-grenades on their vest, you know, and sometimes a bullet would hit one. That guy over in Okinawa said that’s the way my daddy died, too. A bullet hit the hand grenade. My mother never got personal stuff back.

Even though I never knew him, I do know my daddy was adopted, and I have an adopted son, too. My grandmother adopted Daddy out of Wilmer Hall in Mobile when he was 9 years old. My wife and I had been married 19 years when the good Lord gave us our son. 

Ernest “Sonny” Roy Jr. is a retiree and truck driver living in Mobile, Ala.

Gunnery Sgt. Leland Stephens

As Marines, we train the way we train because we never want to be the guy or the girl that has to put on a dress blue uniform and knock on a door to tell a family they’ve lost a member. The value is placed on the Marine to your right and your left, knowing that you have to trust them to do their job and they have to trust you to do your job. As Christians, our actions, they don’t just cost a life. We’re talking about an eternal soul here. At the end of the day, when that life is lost, it can’t be re-won. As Marine Christians, it’s our job to try to be an influence to lead others to a relationship with Christ, so that regardless of what happens on a battlefield, the eternity is secured. 

Gunnery Sgt. Leland Stephens and wife Jenniffer.I think one thing I’ve noticed in coming out of the Marine Corps is there’s less of a sense of urgency when it comes to sharing your faith outside of the military. In the military, we realize at any moment, at any time during any training exercise or during any wartime event, lives that never made a decision or never heard the name Jesus can be lost. As Christians outside of the military, I’ve noticed that, maybe, there’s less of a sense of urgency because the danger doesn’t seem as real within America as it does when you’re deployed overseas. 

As a Marine, you’re constantly hearing stories of heroic actions—of people who endured just the worst possible conditions to give us the freedom that we have in America today. I think Memorial Day is of even greater importance to those of us who have served, because we’re constantly confronted with the mistreatment of it, of the freedom that people bled and died to give us. It’s a direct parallel to the gift that Christ gave us and talked about in John 15:13, and he’s not just talking about death. I think he’s talking about the choices we make, as well. But there’s such parallelism in what we see in America today and what Jesus did because of the mistreatment of the gift that was offered. 

And I think that’s why I value Memorial Day so much, because it really has so many parallels into both sides of my life—my military life, as well as my Christian life.

Gunnery Sgt. Leland Stephens recently retired from military service after more than 17 years in the Marines. He is studying at a Denver seminary to prepare for ministry to fellow service members.

WASHINGTON (BNG)—The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Southern Baptist Convention Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission joined other faith groups in announcing a new coalition to combat predatory lending.

The new Faith for Just Lending coalition, announced at a press conference in Washington, unites groups from varied backgrounds and traditions in a common belief that just lending is a matter of biblical morality and religious concern. 

George Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, told reporters on Capitol Hill that payday lenders are “a scourge upon the land.” (BNG Photo by Chris Sanders)“It is time for a return to traditional lending practices that acknowledge usury as immoral and detrimental to communities,” said Stephen Reeves, associate coordinator of partnerships and advocacy for the Decatur, Ga.-based CBF. 

“Our elected officials should take note that the faith community stands united in our call to put the law back on the side of struggling families rather than those creating debt-traps for profit.” 

Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s moral concerns agency, denounced payday lending—short-term, high-interest loans that commonly trap borrowers in a cycle of recurring debt—as “a form of economic predation that grinds the faces of the poor into the ground.”

“As Christians, we are called by Jesus, by the prophets and by the apostles to care for the poor, individually, and also about the way social and political and corporate structures contribute to the misery of the impoverished,” Moore said. 

“Groups across this diverse coalition don’t agree on every issue in the public square, but I am happy to work together on this issue to stand against unchecked usury and work for economic justice, human dignity and family stability.”

Other members of the coalition include the Center for Public Justice; Ecumenical Poverty Initiative; National Association of Evangelicals; National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., USA, Inc.; National Latino Evangelical Coalition; and the PICO National Network.

Principles for just lending

The coalition released a set of principles for just lending:

• Individuals should manage their resources responsibly and conduct their affairs ethically, saving for emergencies and being willing to provide support to others in need.

• Churches should teach and model responsible stewardship, offering help to neighbors in times of crisis.

• Lenders should extend loans at reasonable interest rates based on ability to repay within the original loan period, taking into account the borrower’s income and expenses.

• Government should prohibit usury and predatory or deceptive lending practices.

With those principles in mind, the coalition called on churches, lenders, individuals and government to do their part to teach stewardship, offer responsible products, use credit wisely, encourage just lending and put an end to predatory loans.

The coalition is calling for an end to the exploitation of households and families through the payday debt trap.

‘Scourge upon the land’

George Mason, senior pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, described usurious practices of payday lenders as “a scourge upon the land.”

“Exploiting the poor while pretending to serve them is a greedy and sinful business,” said Mason, pastor of a predominantly Anglo congregation, who has worked with African-American Pastor Frederick Haynes of Friendship-West Baptist Church to oppose payday lending in Dallas.

“We are calling on lawmakers to remember that when virtue fails, laws are made to restrain evil and protect the vulnerable,” Mason said. “Even those who believe strongly in limited government know the value of promoting fairness and honesty in the marketplace.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—A dispute over who can lead student religious groups has left Americans uneasy, but few want to see groups punished for requiring their leaders to hold specific beliefs or practices.

A new study from Nashville-based LifeWay Research finds mixed opinions about whether student religious groups should be allowed to mandate leaders’ beliefs or, because of their religious beliefs, restrict LGBT members from leadership roles. Yet nearly seven in 10 say colleges should not withhold funding or meeting space from such organizations.

The issue has emerged in recent years on college campuses from California to Maine. Student groups say their belief statements and ethics define their identity. College officials—citing what are known as “all-comers” rules—insist groups and their leadership be open to all students, no matter what.

Groups at more than two-dozen campuses have lost their official standing over this disagreement. One dispute, at the Hastings College of Law in California, went before the U.S. Supreme Court. Lawmakers in several states have proposed laws that would bar colleges from applying “all-comers” rules to on-campus religious groups.

Enforced diversity vs. religious freedoms

“Recent university restrictions on beliefs and practices of student group leadership are a sharp contrast to admissions offices that celebrate pluralism, residential programs that encourage diversity, and schools that encourage new thinking,” said Ed Stetzer, executive director of LifeWay Research. “Oddly, these ‘all-comers’ policies lead to the idea that even Oscar Mayer should be allowed to lead the Vegetarian Club.”

LifeWay Research asked 1,000 Americans to respond to this statement in a phone survey: “Should student religious organizations, recognized by publicly funded colleges, be allowed to require their leaders to hold specific beliefs?”

About half (48 percent) say no. A similar number (46 percent) say yes.

Evangelicals (51 percent) are more likely to say groups can require specific beliefs than those with no religious preference (33 percent).

Private colleges

LifeWay Research asked a similar question about student groups at private colleges. A little more than half (51 percent) of Americans say those groups should be allowed to have required beliefs. Forty-four percent say they should not.

Researchers also asked Americans whether colleges should restrict student groups that do not allow gay and lesbian students to be leaders. Evangelicals and Catholics often believe sexual behavior outside of marriage and homosexual behavior disqualifies a person from certain leadership roles.

More than a third (38 percent) say colleges should give funding and meeting space only to groups that allow gay and lesbian leaders. About six in 10 (57 percent) disagree with that restriction.

Nones—people with no religious preference—are more likely (48 percent) to want to see limits on groups that ban gay leaders than Christians (37 percent) or those from other faiths (25 percent). Catholics (50 percent) are more likely to want to see limits than Protestants (32 percent) or evangelicals (27 percent).

Religious objections

Yet support for a restriction lessens when religious objections come into play. Those who support the restriction were asked whether colleges should “exempt religious organizations that object to homosexual behavior from this requirement.” More than a quarter (29 percent) of this subset affirmed religious organizations should be exempt.

The combined response to the two questions indicates 68 percent of Americans believe colleges should not withhold funding or meeting space from religious student organizations that do not allow gay and lesbian students to be in leadership roles. Twenty-six percent believe colleges should withhold funding or meeting space from such organizations, while 7 percent are unsure.

“Religious groups are defined by belief and practice,” Stetzer said. “An increasing number of universities are not permitting student leadership in religious groups to be defined by their own beliefs and practices. More than two-thirds of Americans stop short of denying funding or meeting space on campus despite the groups’ increasingly unpopular religious beliefs and practices.”

Survey methodology

The phone survey of Americans was conducted Sept. 26-Oct. 5, 2014, using Random Digit Dialing. Sixty percent of completes were among landlines, and 40 percent were among cell phones. Analysts used maximum quotas and slight weights for gender, region, age, ethnicity and education to reflect the population more accurately. The completed sample is 1,000 surveys. The sample provides 95 percent confidence the sampling error does not exceed plus or minus 3.5 percent. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Beheadings, enslavement, kidnappings and rape plague minority religious communities across the Middle East, and it’s time for President Obama to fill a job created to address their plight, a group of prominent evangelicals, scholars and other religious leaders told the White House.

Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Russell Moore, right, leads a June 9, 2014, panel discussion as David Platt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, listens. (RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks)“The persecution and even eradication of religious minorities in the Middle East right now is the biggest humanitarian and national security crisis that we face,” said Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “There is a moral imperative to do everything we can to advocate for imperiled religious minorities.”

The Washington-based International Religious Freedom Roundtable sent a letter to Obama, signed by Moore and 22 other religious freedom activists, including National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson and Joel Hunter of Northland Church in Central Florida. More than 30 groups also signed, including Coptic Solidarity, the Chaldean Community Foundation, International Christian Concern and the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Church & Society.

“The Islamic State’s murderous reach has extended beyond Iraq and Syria,” the letter reads, asking Obama to find a candidate “swiftly” for the envoy job. “Doing so would signal to beleaguered communities in the Middle East, and beyond, that America stands with them.”

Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, said violent rampages by the Islamic State, Boko Haram, al-Qaida, al-Shabab and other Muslim extremist groups amount to the ethnic cleansing of Christians. Other religious minorities in the Middle East and elsewhere, including the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Pakistan, Baha’is in Iran and Yazidis in Iraq, also are suffering grievously.

A Red Cross worker comforts a mourner as bodies of the students killed in an April 2, 2015, attack on a Kenyan university arrive at the Chiromo Mortuary in Nairobi. The assault by Somali militants killed 148 people. (Photo: REUTERS/Herman Kariuki)The new push echoes earlier calls for Obama to fill the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom position, which sat vacant for months. Rabbi David Saperstein was confirmed for that post in December.

Even with Saperstein in place, the United States also needs a special envoy for religious minorities in the Middle East and South Central Asia, Shea said, noting the extreme and widespread violence these groups face.

Shea blamed U.S. political and religious leaders for failing to publicly recognize victims of this violence are targeted because of their religion. Gunmen from al-Shabab hunted down Christian students when they killed 148 people at a Kenyan university on April 2, for example.

Obama and other leaders shy away from relevant religious labels, Shea continued, as if “Christians are the oppressors, and they can’t be victims.”

American Christians are trying to do something about violence against Christians and other minorities in the Mideast, Moore said. 

“I see Christians praying for the persecuted church more than they ever have,” he observed. “I see Christians contacting their members of Congress and asking for actions on these issues more than I ever have before.”

But “Americans across the board aren’t as alarmed as they should be because I think they’ve grown callous to violence in the Middle East, and some Americans wrongly assume that violence in the Middle East is something we should just expect,” Moore added.

The White House did not have an immediate response to the letter.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—As the nine Supreme Court justices took up the vexing question of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage April 28, arguments came down to two competing visions of marriage—what it’s been or what it should be—and who gets to decide.

The day before the Supreme Court took up the same-sex marriages debate, people were already making their case known through signs, posters, flags and even costumes. (Photo: John Rutledge, Baptist Standard)Outside the court, hundreds of demonstrators echoed both sides. Opponents of same-sex marriage carried signs proclaiming, “Man & Woman: United for Life, Open to Life.” Gay rights supporters chanting “Love Must Win!” tried to drown out sidewalk preachers with their megaphones.

Beyond the arcane and real-life arguments over the state’s sanction of private relationships, the court must decide the very nature and purpose of marriage—or at least which nature will be reflected in civil law.

Justice Anthony Kennedy—the swing vote and the author of the court’s major gay rights decisions the past 20 years—struggled to understand how the Supreme Court in 2015 could alter the definition of marriage.

Before the Supreme Court considered arguments about legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, supporters and opponents outside used imaginative displays to proclaim their positions. (Photo: John Rutledge, Baptist Standard)“This definition has been with us for millennia,” he said. “And it—it’s very difficult for the court to say, ‘Oh, well, we—we know better.’”

In that vein, the court’s conservative wing pressed lawyers for gay and lesbian couples in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Michigan about the nature of the institution they were fighting so hard to access. The questions boiled down to this: Is marriage about a civil contract between two adults or a societal covenant for the rearing of children?

Michigan’s Special Assistant Attorney General John Bursch, arguing to keep his state’s ban on gay marriage intact, repeatedly stressed marriage is about securing bonds between parents and their biological or adopted children. 

“There’s harm if you change the definition of marriage because, in people’s minds, if marriage and creating children don’t have anything to do with each other, then what do you expect? You expect more children outside of marriage,” he said.

People had been camping on the sidewalk outside the Supreme Court building since the Friday before the justices heard the same-sex marriage arguments April 28. (Photo: John Rutledge, Baptist Standard)Justice Elena Kagan, perhaps the court’s most aggressive questioner on this issue, seemed dumbfounded.

“Do you think that that’s what it would do, Mr. Bursch, that if one allowed same-sex marriage, one would be announcing to the world that marriage and children have nothing to do with each other? she asked, saying she found his warnings unrealistic, either in the “abstract or the concrete.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, also needling proponents of maintaining the existing bans in 13 states, played down the link between procreation and marriage, noting elderly couples, infertile couples and even some prisoners could get state blessing on their marriages.

“Suppose a couple, a 70-year-old couple, comes in and they want to get married,” said Ginsburg, an 82-year-old widow. “You don’t have to ask them any questions. You know they are not going to have any children.”

Ginsburg noted society’s understanding of marriage itself has evolved, now shunning the notion of “a dominant male (married) to a subordinate female.”

The pro-life organization Faith2Action, led by Janet Porter (center), held a press conference April 27 in front of the Supreme Court, encouraging support for a bill to block federal courts from ruling on marriage. The bill was introduced the previous week by Rep. Steve King in the House and Sen. Ted Cruz in the Senate. (Photo: John Rutledge, Baptist Standard)The court’s most outspoken conservative members—Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito—wondered early and often what would prevent an even further redefinition of marriage to include multiple spouses, or even child brides. “Would there be any ground for denying them a license?” Alito wanted to know.

On the other side, proponents of same-sex couples argued if the court really cares about the well-being of children, it must not overlook the estimated 210,000 children being raised by same-sex parents without “the stabilizing structure and the many benefits of marriage.” For them, marriage is a solemn covenant of commitment between two consenting adults, supporters of gay marriage asserted. 

Stickers, placards and streamers added to the carnival atmosphere outside the Supreme Court before the same-sex marriage arguments April 28. (Photo: John Rutledge, Baptist Standard)Arguments about children and parentage are important, they said, but also a sideshow to more fundamental questions about human dignity and civil rights.

“The right to be married is as basic a liberty, as basic a fundamental liberty … which has existed for all of human civilization,” Justice Stephen Breyer said, expressing dismay at the idea government would “offer that to almost everyone, but exclude a group.”

Kennedy, again clearly grappling with a decision that could define his tenure on the bench, wrestled with the idea of withholding the “dignity-bestowing” access to marriage, echoing his earlier decisions that same-sex couples want nothing more than the “same ennoblement” as everyone else.

Sensing a potentially fatal blow—and the possible loss of Kennedy’s swing vote—Bursch emphasized his view of marriage was about protecting children, not enhancing or harming any adult’s dignity.

Demonstrators speak to a captive audience of people waiting to witness the Supreme Court hear a case the day before it took up the gay-marriage bans in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Michigan on April 28. (Photo: John Rutledge, Baptist Standard)“Dignity may have grown up around marriage as a cultural thing,” he said. “But the state has no interest in bestowing or taking away dignity from anyone, and certainly it’s not the state’s intent to take dignity away from same-sex couples, or from anyone based on their sexual orientation.”

Arguing on behalf of the Obama administration, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli framed the case—and the very nature of marriage—in the broadest terms possible.

“What I would suggest is that in a world in which gay and lesbian couples live openly as our neighbors, they raise their children side by side with the rest of us, they contribute fully as members of the community, that it is simply untenable—untenable—to suggest that they can be denied the right of equal participation in an institution of marriage, or that they can be required to wait until the majority decides that it is ready to treat gay and lesbian people as equals,” he said.

“Gay and lesbian people are equal,” Verrilli insisted. “They deserve equal protection of the laws, and they deserve it now.”

The court is expected to issue its decision by the end of June.

OKLAHOMA CITY (BNG)—An Oklahoma scholarship program to help children with disabilities attend private schools violates the state’s constitution because it uses public funds to support religious instruction, according to a brief filed before the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Interfaith Alliance Foundation asked the court to uphold a district court decision that the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship Program violates the constitution’s strict prohibition of both direct and indirect taxpayer funding of sectarian schools.

Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee. “Oklahoma’s ‘No Aid’ provision is unambiguous,” said Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee. “It broadly prohibits the government from directly or indirectly funding religious schools.”

Twelve Oklahoma taxpayers filed a lawsuit in 2013 challenging a law approved by the legislature in 2010 allowing taxpayer dollars to follow children with disabilities to the school of their parents’ choice.

The Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship Program was named for a daughter of former Gov. Brad Henry and his wife, Kim Henry, who died in infancy. Last August, an Oklahoma County District Court judge ruled the law unconstitutional.

Oklahoma’s constitution states: “No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit or support of any sect, church, denomination or system of religion, or for the use, benefit or support of any priest, preacher, minister or other religious teacher or dignitary or sectarian institution as such.”

Critics of the constitution’s language claim its historical basis is anti-Catholic bias, but the brief says its intent was to prevent Native Americans from being pressured to educate their children in Christian schools.

Tribes in the Indian Territory, in what today is eastern Oklahoma, came to the state in the 1830s after a forced march known as the Trail of Tears. A government program tried to assimilate them by using schools to convert their children to Christianity, something many adults saw as a threat to Native American culture and traditions.

“Voucher programs like Oklahoma’s are little more than a taxpayer-funded handout for religious schools,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “The Oklahoma constitution is crystal clear when it comes to public support of religious schools: It is not allowed.”

The Disabilities Education Act grants special protections and service for students with disabilities in public schools. The friend-of-the-court brief says parents have a right to send their children to private religious schools, but not at taxpayer expense.

“The right to choose a religious education does not include taxpayer financing,” Hollman said.

WASHINGTON (BNG)—A Supreme Court decision this summer to legalize same-sex marriage in America would exacerbate a pattern of restrictions on the free speech of individuals who say publicly they believe homosexuality is a sin, according to a legal brief filed April 2 by leaders of religious bodies including the Southern Baptist Convention.

Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin CochranThe brief cites examples including fired Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, accused of violating department policy by giving a Christian book he wrote condemning homosexuality to members of his staff. The Liberty Institute friend-of-the-court brief says in their zeal to advance gay marriage, many state actors have trampled on the free-speech rights of religious dissenters.

The brief offers “a cautionary tale of a road to potential tyranny” by detailing incidents “where religious dissenters from same-sex marriage have been silenced by state actors and thereby denied access to the marketplace of ideas.”

If the court imposes same-sex marriage nationwide, as many expect, the signers say the number of such conflicts inevitably will increase.

Ministries joining the argument include the National Religious Broadcasters, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse. Others signing on include former Southern Baptist Convention President Charles Stanley’s In Touch Ministries and Pathway to Victory, the broadcast ministry of Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas.

Dallas Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary joined the argument, along with individuals including Southeastern Seminary President Daniel Akin, Southern Seminary President Al Mohler and Owen Strachan of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

Brief wants court to affirm state laws

The brief asks the Supreme Court to affirm a November ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that state laws defining marriage as only between a man and a woman do not violate the constitutional rights of gays.

The justices consented in January to answer once and for all whether marriage is a constitutional right, combining four cases challenging marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. One of the individuals suing for the right to wed is an openly gay Baptist minister. The cases will be argued April 28, with a decision expected in June.

In recent weeks, controversy arose in states considering religious liberty laws that opponents claim mask a hidden agenda of permitting Christian business owners to refuse services like baking a cake or arranging flowers for a wedding if the couple is gay.

As the culture shifts toward full acceptance of same-sex marriage, the brief contends, the traditional Christian understanding of marriage as involving a husband and wife not only is increasingly a minority view, but also one in danger of being marginalized and silenced.

One case study in the legal argument is the “Houston Five,” pastors ordered to turn over sermons and writings in a lawsuit challenging protections for sexual orientation and gender identity in the city’s nondiscrimination policy.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who is a lesbian, subsequently withdrew subpoenas against the five ministers, who were not parties in the case but had spoken about it, after protests from religious groups across the theological spectrum.

Addressing multiple disputes

Other examples of the kinds of disputes the brief hopes to avoid include:

• A former graduate student at Eastern Michigan University who sued the school after she was kicked out of its counseling program for refusing to counsel gay clients in a way that affirmed their identity.

• A Missouri State University graduate who sued the school, claiming retaliation because she refused to support gay adoption as part of a class project.

• A 19-year Air Force veteran who claimed he was relieved of duty for disagreeing with a lesbian commander over the issue of gay marriage.

• A Seventh-day Adventist preacher who claimed a state public health department rescinded a job offer over sermons he posted online denouncing homosexuality and evolution.

• A Pentecostal Navy chaplain reassigned after his commanding officers received complaints alleging he disregarded his duty to be inclusive in his counseling.

“Millions of Christian ministers, teachers and leaders are compelled by faith and conscience to preach and speak aloud their millennia-old and sincerely held religious view that marriage is the sacred union of one man and one woman,” the brief concludes.

In refusing to overturn state gay-marriage bans, the brief says, the Supreme Court “should reaffirm that the free speech clause of the First Amendment protects religious dissenters who disagree with same-sex marriage and to reaffirm the importance of free debate and free inquiry in this democratic republic.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A leading group of Latino evangelicals has called for an end to state-sanctioned capital punishment, the first national association of evangelicals to do so.

In a unanimous vote, the National Latino Evangelical Coalition urged its 3,000 member congregations to seek and end to capital punishment across the country.

The National Latino Evangelical Coalition urged its 3,000 member congregations to seek an end to capital punishment. (RNS Photo courtesy of Heather Beaudoin)“As Christ followers, we are called to work toward justice for all,” coalition President Gabriel Salguero said. “And as Latinos, we know too well that justice is not always even-handed.”

The decision came after a years-long discernment process that included prayer as well as dialogue with anti-death penalty groups like Equal Justice USA since at least 2013, Salguero said.

“EJUSA has found that evangelicals are eager to take another look at this issue, reflecting what we’re seeing in the country as a whole,” said Shari Silberstein, executive director of Equal Justice USA.

The vote came days after an Arizona court exonerated Debra Milke, a woman who spent more than two decades on death row.

American support for the death penalty has hit the lowest levels in 40 years, and a 2014 poll by Barna Group showed Christian support for the practice also is waning, especially among young adults. According to Barna, only 5 percent of Americans think Jesus would support the government’s ability to execute the worst criminals.

Many religious groups, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, oppose the death penalty, but evangelical groups tend to take a more conservative stance.

The 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, issued a resolution in 2000 supporting “the fair and equitable use of capital punishment.” The Assemblies of God reports opinion among its members is “mixed” but more people associated with the Assemblies favor it for certain types of crimes.

While the Latino coalition was the first to take this stance, “I don’t think they will be the last,” Silberstein said.

The National Association of Evangelicals supports capital punishment. But its position hasn’t been updated since 1973, and sources within the NAE say leadership is considering a change.

“The truth is that a fallen system does not mete out justice with equanimity,” Salguero said. “The gospel calls us to speak out for life, and our unanimous decision today to call for the end of capital punishment is part of that commitment.”

WASHINGTON (BNG)—The head of a watchdog group advocating separation of church and state insists the IRS should investigate whether Liberty University broke the law when U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz announced on campus he is running for president.

Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State wrote IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, urging the agency to crack down on laws that forbid tax-exempt nonprofit groups from partisan politics before the 2016 presidential race hits full steam.

Invitation to defy the law

Barry LynnLynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, also mentioned Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative group that openly defies the ban by inviting preachers to endorse candidates from the pulpit. ADF hopes if churches are sued, the rule added to the tax code in 1954 would be declared unconstitutional.

The electioneering prohibition applies to houses of worship and 501(c)(3) charities like Liberty University, a church-related school founded by the late Jerry Falwell.

It is difficult to see the invitation to Cruz, widely interpreted as an attempt to court evangelical voters, “as anything less than an endorsement of his candidacy, notwithstanding the university president’s perfunctory disclaimer to the contrary,” Lynn said.

Cruz a member of FBC Houston

Cruz, a member of First Baptist Church in Houston, became the first major presidential contender officially announced as a candidate. He kicked off his campaign at the school in Lynchburg, Va., March 23.

“Sen. Cruz wanted potential donors and conservative voters to believe that he has the support of thousands of young people at the largest Christian university in the world,” Lynn wrote.

Liberty University has a long history of mingling politics and faith, he added. Americans United previously reported the school to the IRS three times, most recently in 2010.

A reluctant IRS

Liberty University’s decision “to hold what amounted to a campaign rally” for Cruz is “precisely the sort of activity” that should warrant investigation of its tax status, Lynn said. Unwillingness by the IRS in recent years to launch such investigations, he said, “has had the apparent effect of leading Liberty and other tax-exempt entities to believe they can ignore federal law.”

Many Americans don’t want to see nonprofit groups turned into partisan outposts, Lynn asserted.

“Many Americans are concerned over the abuse of tax-exempt status by organizations with partisan political intent,” he wrote. “With our nation approaching a presidential election, the problem of pulpit politicking will only become more acute.”

OKLAHOMA CITY (RNS)—In an effort to block the state’s involvement with same-sex marriage, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill to abolish marriage licenses in the state.

The legislation, authored by Rep. Todd Russ, R-Cordell, amends language in the state law that governs the responsibilities of court clerks. All references to marriage licenses were removed.

Todd RussThe intent of the bill is to protect court clerks caught between the federal and state governments, Russ said. A federal appeals court overturned Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage last year. Russ, like many Republican legislators in the state, including Gov. Mary Fallin, believes the federal government overstepped its constitutional authority on this issue.

Acknowledging his bill is partially in response to the federal court ruling, Russ told ABC News affiliate KSWO the federal government lacks the power to “force its new definitions of what they believe on independent states.”

The federal government is attempting to change the traditional definition of marriage, Russ said. So, his legislation would place the responsibility for officiating marriages in the hands of clergy.

“Marriage was historically a religious covenant first and a government-recognized contract second,” Russ told The Oklahoman.

‘Pandora’s box’

The legislation has sparked controversy, both in the Legislature and with groups such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Oklahoma Democrats are concerned the legislation will lead to a “Pandora’s box” of issues, including polygamy, once the government’s authority to regulate marriage is removed.

Americans United released a statement opposing the bill, saying it is biased against same-sex couples and nontheists, including atheists. Russ has been unapologetic in defending his exclusion of nontheists from the right to marry.

Spiritual basis

“They don’t have a spiritual basis for a marriage and don’t want to have a clergy member or a priest or someone involved in the spiritual aspect,” Russ told KSWO. “Then they can file an affidavit of common-law marriage.”

The bill would require court clerks to issue certificates of marriage signed by ordained clergy or affidavits of common-law marriage.

The Senate has not yet voted on the measure, and Fallin has not indicated what she will do if the bill passes the Senate.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—When it comes to immigration reform, American evangelicals want it all, and they want it now, a survey reveals.

Nine out of 10 (86 percent) want more border security. Six in 10 (61 percent) support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. More than two-thirds (68 percent) favor both. 

A new survey of evangelical Christians from Nashville-based LifeWay Research, sponsored by the Evangelical Immigration Table and World Relief, found widespread support for immigration reform.

“Evangelicals are united in their desire for significant immigration reform,” said Scott McConnell, vice president of LifeWay Research.

A number of high-profile evangelical groups have promoted immigration reform in recent years, including the National Association of Evangelicals and the National Latino Evangelical Coalition. Many evangelical pastors also support reform.

A November 2014 LifeWay Research study found many pastors want a mix of justice and mercy when it comes to immigration. More than half (54 percent) support a path to citizenship. Most (91 percent) evangelical pastors also say the government should stop illegal immigration.

In the February 2015 study, researchers found similar views among all evangelicals.

Nine out of 10 (88 percent) say reform should respect the rule of law and secure the national borders (86 percent). 

Protect the unity of families

They also want to protect the unity of immigrant families (72 percent) and to respect people’s God-given dignity (82 percent).

More than two-thirds (68 percent) of evangelicals say it is important for Congress to take action on immigration reform this year, and half (50 percent) are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports border security and citizenship.

“Evangelicals care about immigrants and want immigration reform,” said Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals. “We pray for Congress to stop waiting and start legislating.”

Researchers found some differences by age and ethnicity among evangelicals.

Those over age 64 (84 percent) are more likely to want Congress to act than those 18 to 34 (59 percent). Those 18 to 34 are more likely (72 percent) to say reform should include a path to citizenship.

Hispanic evangelicals (79 percent) are more likely than white evangelicals (54 percent) to support a path to citizenship.

Some evangelicals are uneasy about the number of recent immigrants to the United States, according to the survey.

Almost half (48 percent) say immigrants drain the country’s economic resources.

About a quarter (22 percent) say immigrants are a threat to law and order. One in five believe immigrants threaten traditional American customs and culture.

A chance to exhibit love

Other evangelicals view immigration as a chance to love immigrants (40 percent) and or to share Jesus with newcomers (42 percent).

Few evangelicals say their faith directly shapes their views about immigration.

Researchers asked evangelicals to list which factor has most influenced their beliefs about immigration. About one in 10 (12 percent) chose the Bible, and only 2 percent named their church.

Among other influences—relationships with immigrants (17 percent), friends and family (16 percent) and the media (16 percent).

LifeWay Research also found many churches don’t talk about immigration, and few take action on this issue. Two-thirds of evangelicals (68 percent) say their church has never encouraged them to reach out to immigrants.

‘Turn off TV, open the Bible’

Still, evangelicals are interested in what their faith says on this topic. About half (53 percent) are familiar with the Bible’s teaching about immigrants. Two-thirds (68 percent) say they’d value hearing a sermon about the Bible’s views on immigration.

“The sad part of this research on immigration is that American evangelicals are more influenced by the media than by their Bibles and their churches combined,” Anderson said. “We need to turn off our TVs and open up our Bibles.”

Researchers used a demographically balanced online panel to interview American adults Feb. 17-27. Quotas were used to balance gender, ethnicity, age, region and education. Researchers screened respondents to include only those who identify themselves as an evangelical, born-again or fundamentalist Christian, and the resulting report refers to all these as “evangelicals.” The completed sample is 1,000 surveys.

WASHINGTON (BNG)—A Baptist religious liberty group urged the U.S. Supreme Court to allow a Muslim woman to wear a religious head-covering to work.

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a Washington-based organization committed to religious freedom and the separation of church and state, joined religious and civil-liberties groups siding with a Muslim teenager denied a retail job at Abercrombie & Fitch because of her hijab, a headscarf she believes her faith requires her to wear.

Holly HollmanHolly Hollman, general counsel for the BJC, which filed a legal brief in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, said religious belief should not disqualify anyone from employment.

“In many employment contexts, an individual’s religious needs can be met more easily than an employer first assumes,” Hollman said. “This case is about making sure prospective employees are not categorically disqualified from work opportunities based upon religion.”

In 2008, Samantha Elauf, a 17-year-old Palestinian-American, interviewed for a job at an Abercrombie Kids Store in Tulsa, Okla., while wearing her hijab. She wasn’t hired, because a store supervisor said the headscarf violated the company’s “look policy,” which forbids sales staff from wearing hats or black clothing.

Accomodation of religion

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit on her behalf, alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to “accommodate to an employee’s or prospective employee’s religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”

Elauf won her case in a federal district court, but the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision. The BJC joined more than a dozen religious liberty and civil rights organizations in a U.S. Supreme Court brief, saying the appellate court’s decision “is likely to have profound and far-reaching impacts on a wide variety of religiously observant employees and applicants” and “will too often force them to choose, unnecessarily, between a job and their faith.”

After oral arguments before the Supreme Court Feb. 25, Elauf thanked the EEOC for taking her case. 

“I am not only standing up for myself, but for all people who wish to adhere to their faith while at work,” she said. “Observance of my faith should not prevent me from getting a job.”

The ‘burden to explain’

The appeals court said Elauf likely qualified for a religious accommodation to the no-hats rule, but the burden was on her to explain that she wore the head-covering for religious reasons rather than style.

The BJC brief said it should have been obvious to store managers it was a religious head-covering, and the person conducting the interview was in a better position to know company policy than a 17-year-old job applicant.

Eric Baxter, senior counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which also filed a brief on Elauf’s behalf, said employees “shouldn’t have to wear a sign that says, ‘I’m religious’ before they are protected by our civil rights laws that prohibit religious discrimination.”

A ruling in the case is expected in June.