PHILADELPHIA (BNG)—A federal appeals court ruled accommodations in the Affordable Care Act are adequate to protect the religious freedom rights of employers who do not qualify for exemptions but who object to contraception coverage in worker insurance plans on religious grounds.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed injunctions by two lower courts. The previous rulings prevented the federal government from forcing religious nonprofits and schools to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives in student and employee health care plans or to certify they object to the services on moral grounds.

Once the employers advise the government they will not pay for contraception, responsibility for coverage for those services shifts to a separate insurance issuer or a third-party administrator. No premium or fee on the group health plan or plan participants and beneficiaries is imposed.

‘Burdensome’ requirement

The faith-based organizations contended the requirement to register their intent not to participate in contraceptive coverage not only was burdensome, but also resulted in giving workers access to forms of birth control that prevent pregnancy after conception, makes the employers complicit in killing human life.

A three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. Justices reasoned the act of stating on a self-certification form employers object on religious grounds to providing such coverage “is a declaration that they will not be complicit in providing coverage.”

The act of opting out does not facilitate the provision of contraceptive coverage by third parties, the court concluded. Instead, the third parties providing coverage do so as a result of legal obligations imposed by the Affordable Care Act.

The court further rejected the argument that automatically exempting religious employers while requiring faith-based colleges and hospitals to self-report divides “good works” or “faith-in-action” employers from “house-of-worship employers” and entitling the burden-free exercise of religion by one group and not the other.

Distinction same as one used by the IRS

The appellate court responded the distinction used by the Obama administration is the same one used by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS allows religious employers like churches and their integrated auxiliaries to enjoy tax advantages over other entities without being thought to violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

The appeals court decision agreed with earlier findings of the 6th, 7th and District of Columbia circuits.

GuideStone Christian Resources, insurer for the Southern Baptist Convention, won an injunction preventing the government from enforcing the contraceptive mandate in December 2013. That ruling is under appeal in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—As President Obama seeks to ramp up military action against the terrorist group known as the Islamic State or ISIS, Americans remain uneasy over the place of Islam in the United States and in the world.

More than a third—37 percent—say they are worried about Sharia law, an Islamic legal and moral code, being applied in America.

More than one-fourth —27 percent—believe the terrorist group ISIS reflects the true nature of Islam, while 43 percent believe Islam can create a peaceful society.

More than three-quarters of Protestant senior pastors—76 percent—say they support military action against ISIS.

Those are among the results of two surveys of 1,000 Americans each, along with a survey of 1,000 senior pastors of Protestant churches, from Nashville-based LifeWay Research.

“ISIS has stirred an odd religious debate in America today,” said Ed Stetzer, executive director of LifeWay Research. “In a nation that has long espoused religious freedom, Americans are thinking long and hard about the kind of society Islam fosters—especially the more radical groups that say they are Islamic—and whether Sharia law would ever be adopted here.”

Terror attacks and concept of Islam

A terrorist attack on a satirical magazine in Paris last month and the rise of ISIS have renewed concerns over extremist versions of Islam. ISIS fighters executed numerous prisoners over the past year, most recently a pilot from Jordan and a Japanese journalist. A young American aid worker also died recently after being kidnapped by ISIS, and the group has terrorized civilians in large swaths of Syria and northern Iraq.

Since last year, the U.S. military has helped conduct air strikes against ISIS. President Obama and other U.S. leaders have argued the group—also know as ISIL—is a terrorist organization, not a religious group.

“Now let’s make two things clear,” the president said in a Sept. 10, 2014, address to the nation. “ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents.”

Many Americans reject that view. About half—48 percent—disagree with the statement, “ISIS is not Islamic.” More than one in five—22 percent—agree, while three in 10 are not sure.

But few Americans believe ISIS reflects what a society shaped by Islam looks like. About a quarter—27 percent—agree with the statement, “ISIS is a true indication of what Islam looks like when Islam controls a society.” Close to half—47 percent—disagree, and 26 percent are not sure.

Pastors support military action

LifeWay Research also surveyed 1,000 Protestant senior pastors about Islam and ISIS. Researchers found widespread support for military action against ISIS.

Three-fourths of pastors—76 percent—say, “Air strikes against ISIS are needed to protect Christians in Syria and Iraq.” Only 13 percent disagree.

Support of airstrikes was similar among white (76 percent), African-American (75 percent), evangelical (79 percent) and Mainline (71 percent) pastors. Two-thirds of younger pastors—those 18 to 44—support the air strikes, as do 85 percent of pastors over 65.

Stetzer believes the overwhelming support from Protestant pastors will bolster President Obama’s case for more military action against ISIS.

“Pastors and Americans are clearly behind greater military engagement,” he said.

Pastors, researchers found, also are critical about the nature of Islam, with 61 percent of 

Protestant senior pastors disagreeing with the statement, “True Islam creates a peaceful society.” Three in 10 agree. African-American pastors (50 percent) are more likely to say Islam can create a peaceful society than white pastors (30 percent).

Less than one-fourth—23 percent—of evangelical pastors agree, but that number jumps to 42 percent for Mainline pastors.

Pastors are split on whether ISIS gives a true indication of what an Islamic society looks like, with 45 percent agreeing and 47 percent disagreeing.

Evangelical and mainline pastors also are divided on this question. About half of evangelicals—51 percent—agree, but a little more than a third—36 percent—of mainliners agree.

Americans have varied views of Islam

Overall, LifeWay Research found American views about Islam are split along demographic lines, with older Americans more skeptical of Islam than younger Americans.

That’s especially true in the case of Sharia law. Overall, more than one-third—37 percent—of Americans are worried about Sharia law being applied in the United States.That includes 47 percent of those over 45. Only about a quarter—27 percent—of those 18 to 44 worry about Sharia.

Americans also are divided over how peaceful Islam is at heart, with 43 percent who agree with the statement, “True Islam creates a peaceful society.” A similar number—39 percent—disagree, and 18 percent are unsure.

More than half—52 percent—of younger Americans, age 18 to 34, say Islam can create a peaceful society. By contrast, 40 percent of those 35 and older say Islam can create a peaceful society.

Demographic differences

LifeWay Research also found other demographic differences in how Americans see Islam.

Women (42 percent) are more likely to worry about Sharia law than men (33 percent). They are also less likely (19 percent) to agree ISIS is not Islamic than men (26 percent).

While half of evangelicals—51 percent—worry about Sharia, only 34 percent of Catholics or 21 percent of Nones—those with no religious preference—share their concerns.

Evangelicals are particularly skeptical about Islam’s role in public life. Only a third  agree true Islam creates a peaceful society. Catholics (49 percent) and Nones (47 percent) are more likely to see a positive role for Islam.

“Every religion has a broad spectrum of groups that fall under their umbrella,” said Stetzer. “Who is mainstream or extreme, who is orthodox or heretical is often a topic of fierce debate.”

Survey methodology

Researchers conducted phone surveys of Americans Sept. 19 to Oct. 5, 2014. The calling utilized Random Digit Dialing. Sixty percent of completes were among landlines and 40 percent among cell phones. Maximum quotas and slight weights were used for gender, region, age, ethnicity and education to reflect the population more accurately. 

The completed sample for all questions is 1,000 surveys. The sample provides 95 percent confidence that the sampling error does not exceed plus or minus 3.5 percent. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.

The phone survey of Protestant pastors was conducted Sept. 11-18, 2014. The calling list was a stratified random sample drawn from a list of all Protestant churches. Each interview was conducted with the senior pastor, minister or priest of the church called. Responses were weighted by region to reflect the population more accurately. The completed sample is 1,000 surveys. The sample provides 95 percent confidence that the sampling error does not exceed plus or minus 3.1 percent. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Religious and secular advocacy groups jointly called for greater clarity by the Internal Revenue Service regarding nonprofits and political activity.

In a rare combined front, leaders of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, Alliance Defending Freedom, Public Citizen and the Center for American Progress met at the National Press Club to discuss how the tax agency could help nonprofits know what they can and cannot do under the law.

Michael Batts, who chaired a commission of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability that recommended Internal Revenue Service policy changes, speaks at the National Press Club on Jan. 29, 2015. Behind him is Ezra Reese, a member of the drafting committee of Public Citizen’s Bright Lines Project. (RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks)“Something needs to change,” said Dan Busby, president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. “We agree that clear and brighter lines must be adopted.”

In 2013, an ECFA-appointed commission issued a 91-page report recommending clergy should be able to say “whatever they believe is appropriate” from the pulpit without fear of IRS reprisal. Current IRS rules, dating to 1954, permit clergy to address issues but prohibit candidate endorsements.

But those rules are broken routinely, with little or no consequence.

Michael Batts, who chaired the ECFA’s Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations, said the IRS should hesitate to enforce some of its current rules, which could cause constitutional and public relations problems.

“The IRS itself needs an exit strategy, and churches and charities need freedom of speech and the freedom to exercise religion,” he said.

Erik Stanley, a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom, talks about the need for legislative fixes for Internal Revenue Service policy at the National Press Club on Jan. 29, 2015. (RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks)Erik Stanley, a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom, said IRS laws about “indirect” campaigning are too vague, and the IRS is not enforcing its rules about direct campaigning. About 4,000 “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” pastors have self-reported to the IRS they have talked about candidates, often supporting or opposing particular ones, during a worship service, he added.

“There’s been no prosecutions to date,” he said, noting legislative fixes are needed for IRS policy.

The IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2013, a Treasury Department inspector general determined the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” when questioning some applications for tax-exempt status by Tea Party and other groups. Evangelist Franklin Graham complained when the organizations he leads—the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse—were audited after the BGEA ran election-related ads.

Although all the groups at the Press Club event agreed on the need for more clarity from the IRS, they differ in the specifics of how its rules should be changed.

Ezra Reese, a member of the drafting committee of Public Citizen’s Bright Lines Project, worried some nonprofits might take advantage of rules supported by the ECFA to fund more issue-oriented ads.

“You will have a much larger amount of tax-deductible dollars influencing elections,” he said.

But differences aside, the lack of clarity is creating confusion for a range of nonprofits, said Alex DeMots, vice president and deputy general counsel for the Center for American Progress.

“It’s just bad public policy for a small charity or church or community organization to have to hire a lawyer to figure out what it can and can’t do,” he said.

Abortion opponents—marking the annual March for Life in Washington and anticipating legislative gains in the Republican-dominated Congress—were thrown into disarray when GOP leaders unexpectedly withdrew an anti-abortion bill they considered a done deal.

The bill, called the “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” would have banned abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. But concerns over restrictive language on rape exceptions and a potential backlash from women and younger voters prompted about two dozen House Republicans, mainly women, to press party leaders to drop the bill.

The sudden reversal stunned abortion foes. They expected to celebrate House passage of the bill during their annual demonstration against the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion.

Instead, they were left wondering about the once-promising future of their agenda and organizing protests at the offices of House members they feel betrayed them.

“I am disgusted by this act of moral cowardice,” Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, wrote. “If the House Republicans cannot pass something as basic as restricting the abortion of five-month, pain-capable unborn children, what can they get done?”

“The Republicans in Congress should come and explain this atrocity to the hundreds of thousands of people gathering here in the nation’s capital to march for life,” Moore said.

Some GOP leaders tried to reassure Christian conservatives the bill that could be tweaked and might return in another form.

Religious liberty advocates said a U.S. Supreme Court decision Jan. 20 affirming a devout Muslim prisoner’s right to grow a beard for religious reasons is a win for the religious liberty of all Americans.

Gregory Holt. (Photo courtesy of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, via Arkansas Corrections)The unanimous decision written by Justice Samuel Alito says an Arkansas Department of Corrections policy prohibiting inmates to grow beards except for medical reasons does not satisfy demands of a federal law that prohibits a state or local government from substantially burdening the religious exercise of institutionalized persons without a compelling interest and by the least restrictive means.

The case argued in October, Holt v. Hobbs, pitted the religious freedom of Arkansas inmate Gregory Holt, also known as Abdul Maalik Muhammad, against security concerns about prisoners hiding contraband in prison or avoiding capture if they escape and change their appearance quickly by shaving off their facial hair.

Holt claimed his religion teaches men should not cut their beards at all but offered a compromise of keeping his trimmed to one-half inch in length. The policy allows for beards of one-quarter inch if there is a skin problem that would be aggravated by shaving.

Lower courts said a half-inch beard did not appear to pose a major concern but decided to defer to prison officials in matters of security and control of inmate populations. Alito, however, said the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 does not allow such “unquestioning acceptance” of policies that infringe on religious liberty.

Failed to prove ‘compelling interest’

While recognizing the state has a compelling interest in regulating contraband, the justices said the Department of Corrections failed to prove the grooming policy furthers that interest. They said the department could not demonstrate why a one-half-inch beard for religious reasons is more significantly more dangerous than a quarter-inch-beard for medical reasons, nor explain why there isn’t a similar restriction on hair length, which likely is a better place to hide a weapon or drugs and could also be cut off to quickly alter appearance in the event of escape.

Even if prison officials had met that burden, the justices said, a complete ban on facial hair is not the least restrictive means of furthering those interests. Prisons could, for example, photograph prisoners clean-shaven when they enter prison and then later take another photo showing how they look both with and without facial hair.

Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and co-counsel in the case, called the Supreme Court ruling “a huge win for religious freedom and for all Americans.”

Victory ‘for every American’

“What the Supreme Court said today was that government officials cannot impose arbitrary restrictions on religious liberty just because they think government knows best,” Rassbach said. “This is a victory not just for one prisoner in Arkansas, but for every American who believes and wants the freedom to act on those beliefs.”

Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the Supreme Court did the right thing in the case.

“Religious liberty isn’t a prize earned by those with the most political clout,” Moore said. “Religious liberty is a right given by God to all people. The court here respected liberty of conscience and free exercise.”

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, which worked with dozens of religious and civil liberties organizations to secure passage of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act 15 years ago, also signed a brief siding with the Muslim prisoner in May.

“Everyone’s religious liberty is precious, but that of incarcerated persons is particularly fragile,” said Brent Walker, executive director of the BJC. “Both RLUIPA and the court’s opinion appropriately balance that right with the need of penal institutions to preserve prison safety and security.”

In its friend-of-the-court brief with the American Jewish Committee and three other organizations, the Baptist Joint Committee said part of the law’s intended purpose was to elevate religious needs to a similar level as other considerations.

“In light of the high degree of protection that RLUIPA gives to inmates’ religious rights, it is illogical for the same institution to provide an almost identical accommodation for medical reasons, while denying that same accommodation for religious purposes,” the filing said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to resolve the national debate over same-sex marriage once and for all.

The justices will consider four cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. They will be consolidated and heard together.

The court likely will hear oral arguments in April and issue a ruling before its term ends in late June.

A split among federal appellate courts forced the justices’ hands after the federal 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld marriage bans in those four states last November. While homosexuals can marry in 36 states, the practice is banned in those four states, along with 10 others.

Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the court’s ruling “could potentially transform the cultural landscape of America.” The court sidestepped the issue in October, when it let stand appeals court rulings striking down gay-marriage bans in Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Utah. Those rulings and a later appeals court decision affecting Idaho and Nevada drew in neighboring states as well. As a result, more than 70 percent of Americans live in states where gay marriages are legal, and thousands of couples have tied the knot.

Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, predicted a far-ranging outcome.

“This case could potentially transform the cultural landscape of America,” Moore said in an ERLC release. “We should pray for the court, that they will not seek to redefine marriage. Marriage was not created by government action and shouldn’t be re-created by government action.

“Even more than that, we should pray for churches who will know how to articulate and embody a Christian vision of marriage as the one-flesh union of a man and a woman in the tumultuous years to come.”

Both sides happy, for now

The high court’s long-awaited decision to intervene pleases both sides in the debate. National gay-rights groups have been pressing for a 50-state solution. The National Organization for Marriage, which opposes gay and lesbian unions, also wanted the court to step in.

The new challenge is destined to become even more of a landmark case than those decided by the court in 2013—United States v. Windsor, which forced the federal government to recognize gay marriages, and Hollingsworth v. Perry, which made California the 13th state to allow them.

Those rulings, while historic, did not resolve the threshold questions in the debate—whether gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry, or whether states have the right to ban the practice.

Justices remain divided

Since the gay-marriage movement gained steam in the 1990s, 30 states have passed constitutional bans. Eleven states and the District of Columbia legalized same-sex marriage by legislative action or voter initiatives. In 33 more states, judges have made the same call, although some of those decisions were delayed or overruled.

Most of the progress by gay-rights groups has come in the last two years: The number of states where gays and lesbians can marry has nearly doubled since October and tripled since the court’s 2013 rulings.

The justices appear as split today as they were then, when Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the 5-4 decision striking down a key part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia predicted it would lead to exactly what has happened since—a flurry of court rulings using the high court’s equal protection reasoning to strike down state bans.

But while divided, the justices have made a series of procedural moves that allowed same-sex marriage to proliferate, particularly by refusing to hear five states’ appeals in October. They even refused to halt gay and lesbian marriages in Idaho while the state challenges the verdict of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals—something they did last year in Utah and Virginia.

The swing vote remains Kennedy, who has written the last three major rulings advancing the cause of gay rights. On one hand, he has defended voter-approved constitutional amendments, most recently in a Michigan case last year that upheld the state’s ban against racial preferences in university admissions. But he struck down the federal same-sex marriage ban as an affront to the constitutional rights of gays and lesbians.

Pivotal question: Equal protection

Since then, dozens of federal and state court judges have toppled marriage bans for the same reason the Supreme Court ruled against the Defense of Marriage Act, mostly citing gay and lesbian couples’ right to equal protection or due process under the Constitution. Since September, however, three federal courts have gone the other way—in Louisiana, Puerto Rico and the four-state 6th Circuit.

Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton issued that 42-page appellate decision, with fellow GOP nominee Deborah Cook concurring. He said lower court judges’ hands are tied by a one-sentence Supreme Court ruling in 1972 that “upheld the right of the people of a state to define marriage as they see it.”

In response, couples in all four states asked the Supreme Court to hear their appeals. State officials in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky, though victorious, agreed the justices should weigh in. Gay couples and state officials in Louisiana sought to have their case considered before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rules, but the justices denied that request.

Other states where same-sex marriage remains illegal include Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Texas.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Sunday morning remains one of the most segregated hours in American life, with more than eight in 10 congregations made up of one predominant racial group.

And most worshippers like it that way.

Two-thirds of American churchgoers (67 percent) say their church has done enough to become racially diverse.

And less than half think their church should become more diverse.

Those are among the findings of a study of church segregation by Nashville-based LifeWay Research. Researchers surveyed 994 churchgoers—who attend worship at least at holidays or more often—about race and the church. They also surveyed 1,000 Americans as well as 1,000 Protestant senior pastors.

Churchgoers, researchers found, are lukewarm about diversity. More than half (53 percent) disagree with the statement, “My church needs to become more ethnically diverse.” Four in 10 agree.

Researchers also found churchgoers who oppose more diversity do so with gusto. A third (33 percent) strongly disagree their church needs to be more diverse. More than four in 10 (42 percent) felt strongly their church was doing enough.

Evangelicals (71 percent) are most likely to say their church is diverse enough, while whites (37 percent) are least likely to say their church should become more diverse.

African-Americans (51 percent) and Hispanic-Americans (47 percent) were more likely to say their church needs to be more diverse.

“Surprisingly, most churchgoers are content with the ethnic status quo in their churches,” said Ed Stetzer, executive director of LifeWay Research. “In a world where our culture is increasingly diverse, and many pastors are talking about diversity, it appears most people are happy where they are—and with whom they are.

“Yet, it’s hard for Christians to say they are united in Christ when they are congregating separately.”

Most segregated hour

Not long after giving his famed “I Have A Dream” speech during the March on Washington in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was invited to lecture on race at Western Michigan University.

In a question-and-answer session after the lecture, King said Christians in the United States fail to live out the tenets of their faith.

“We must face the fact that in America the church is still the most segregated major institution in America,” he said. “At 11:00 on Sunday morning when we stand and sing and Christ has no east or west, we stand at the most segregated hour in this nation. This is tragic.”

A previous study of Protestant pastors by LifeWay Research found more than eight in 10 (86 percent) have congregations with one predominant racial group. The National Congregations Study found a similar lack of diversity in houses of worship.

As part of the study on segregation, LifeWay Research also surveyed 1,000 Americans about race. They found only about a third (34 percent) of Americans have regularly attended a house of worship where they were a minority.

Among those who had attended a church as a minority, one in five said their ethnicity hindered their involvement. Of those who have not been a minority in church, nearly a quarter (22 percent) say being a minority in a congregation would make them feel uncomfortable.

Still, many Americans believe churches should be more diverse. Half (50 percent) agree with the statement, “Churches in America are too segregated.” Four in 10 (44 percent) disagree.

“It’s fair to say churchgoers in communities with little ethnic diversity perhaps cannot relate to a multi-ethnic expectation,” Stetzer said. “But in urban settings, other ethnic groups are not far away.”

Pastors value diversity more than churchgoers do

In a survey of 1,000 Protestant senior pastors, LifeWay Research found many have some diversity in their professional and social circles.

Most (84 percent) say they have spoken with a friend from a different ethnic group within the last week. Two-thirds (63 percent) say they’ve met with ministers from another ethnic group in the past month.

Still, for many pastors, the issue of racial reconciliation seldom comes up in sermons. Four in 10 (43 percent) say they speak on the issue once a year or less. Twenty-nine percent of pastors rarely or never do.

About a third (35 percent) speak several times a year. In addition, one in five speak about race at least once a month.

“The Bible talks a lot about men and women from every tongue, tribe and nation being in heaven, so it might be good to get accustomed to that heavenly expression here and now,” Stetzer said.

Previous LifeWay Research studies have found nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of Protestant senior pastors say their church is involved personally in racial reconciliation. Almost all (90 percent) say racial reconciliation is mandated by the gospel.

Researchers also found most Americans (82 percent) believe diversity is good for the country. Three-quarters of Americans (74 percent) say the country has made progress on race relations. But eight in 10 (81 percent) say there still is a long way to go.

All survey samples provide 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)—Before she and her husband adopted a son and daughter from Ethiopia, popular evangelical blogger Jen Hatmaker had a different view about race in America.

“A couple years ago, I would’ve said we’re moving to a post-racial society, because I was so under-exposed to people of color and the issues they deal with on a daily basis,” said the white Christian author, whose home renovation to make space for their growing family of seven was featured on HGTV.

Jen Hatmaker with her adopted daughter Remy. (RNS Photo courtesy of Jen Hatmaker)As evangelicals turned their attention toward adoption in the past decade, families like the Hatmakers began grappling with race relations in a profoundly personal way. The perspective intensified as national news spotlighted racial tension in New York; Ferguson, Mo.; and elsewhere.

And evangelicals aren’t alone: A new Gallup poll revealed 13 percent of Americans believe racism is the country’s most important problem, the highest figure since the 1992 verdict in the Rodney King case sparked riots in Los Angeles.

And, as Gallup noted: “After barely registering with Americans as the top problem for two decades, race relations now matches the economy in Americans’ mentions of the country’s top problem, and is just slightly behind government, (15 percent).”

That same Gallup poll also showed nonwhites are more than twice as likely as whites to call race relations or racism the country’s most important problem.

As the Hatmakers’ son Ben, 11, creeps closer to the ages of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown—unarmed black teenagers whose deaths have put race into a national conversation—the family talks about race more frequently. Her son learned about America’s racial history in public school during Black History Month in February.

“Every time we talk about it, there are tears, there’s confusion,” said Hatmaker, who said her son lives in a “no man’s land” because he’s black but not necessarily African-American. “He didn’t understand he was coming into a culture with a racial bias.”

Brandon Hatmaker reads with son Ben. (RNS Photo courtesy of Jen Hatmaker)As the wife of a pastor, Hatmaker said her Austin church of about 600 people embraces an estimated two or three dozen adoptive families, including many who have adopted interracially. She and a number of female evangelical leaders and Bible teachers who have adopted interracially, like fellow Austin-based author Jennie Allen, are mulling ways to use their influence to discuss race.

“We have to do the humble hard work of listening,” Hatmaker said. “We serve a God of justice and equality, and I’m anxious to see the transformation he’s prepared for us in our culture right now.”

Perhaps more than most religious groups, white evangelicals have a complicated history with race. The Southern Baptist Convention was born with a defense of slavery, and many Southern Christians upheld Jim Crow laws. Even as more recent generations of evangelicals began to oppose racism, sociologists Michael Emerson and Christian Smith’s 2001 book, Divided by Faith, found most white evangelicals see no systematic discrimination against blacks.

Kathryn Joyce, author of The Child Catchers, who has raised questions about evangelical adoptions, has been surprised by the number of conversations about race on adoption forums.

A Hatmaker family photo. (RNS Photo courtesy of Jen Hatmaker)“Self-critique is happening, with a lot of conversations focusing on big issues like racial justice, social justice, class, privilege,” Joyce said, saying she first heard about Martin’s 2012 death on an evangelical adoption forum.

“These parents, mostly moms, were thinking about race early on because they had this personal connection.”

To be sure, Christians have cared for orphans for centuries, but the most recent wave of interest came alongside the focus on the global HIV/AIDS crisis, a shrinking world with the increase of technology and well-known Christians becoming adoptive parents, like musician Steven Curtis Chapman and retired megachurch pastor John Piper.

Piper, a white pastor who grew up in the segregated South and has spoken on his own history of racism, now has an adopted daughter who is black.

“Nothing binds a pastor’s heart to diversity more than having it in his home,” Piper wrote in his 2011 book, Bloodlines.

In any given week, especially when there’s a flashpoint in the culture, Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore says he now hears from white evangelical parents of black children who have concerns about race.

“If anything, adoption exposes evangelicals’ weaknesses as well as strengths,” said Moore, who is white and adopted two white children from Russia. “In any given month, I’m dealing with a couple adopting a child of another race dealing with relatives who object, sometimes in nakedly racist terms.”

The Hargrove Family, 2010. (RNS Photo courtesy of Linda Hargrove)Adoption has forced evangelicals to reconsider all manner of issues, from poverty to race to health and international relations, Moore said.

“I’ve seen predominantly white churches that have become more intentional about reaching out to African-American communities because now the ethnic barrier has been broken within the church,” said Moore, who is president of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

“People who previously assumed that racial prejudice was back in the Jim Crow era are awakened by it with their own kids.”

Interracial adoption can be fraught with unseen road bumps, as some white parents find themselves navigating cultural differences. Linda Hargrove, a black mother of three black adoptive children who lives in North Carolina, said she encourages her white friends who adopt to go the extra step with their children, like helping their black daughters do their hair with up-to-date styles.

“It gets me when anyone says love is colorblind,” Hargrove said. “You want to be able to help them to do well in life, to be aware that some people might treat you differently.”

The colorblind mentality can be prevalent in evangelical churches, said Jaeran Kim, who was adopted into a white evangelical family and is researching evangelical adoption while working on her doctorate from the University of Minnesota.

“There’s a difference between celebrating diversity and understanding racism,” said Kim, who is Korean-American. “While I’ve seen movement toward celebrating diversity, I think we have a long way to go when it comes to racism.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The Senate confirmed David Saperstein—named the most influential rabbi in America by Newsweek magazine in 2009—as the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, making him the first non-Christian to hold the job.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, preaches at a Washington, D.C., service in 2002. (RNS Photo)Saperstein, led the Reform Jewish movement’s Washington office 40 years, focusing on social justice and religious freedom issues. President Obama nominated him in July, and the Senate confirmed his nomination, 62-35, Dec. 12.

“Religious freedom faces daunting and alarming challenges worldwide,” Saperstein said at his confirmation hearing in September. “If confirmed, I will do everything within my abilities and influence to engage every sector of the State Department and the rest of the U.S. government to integrate religious freedom into our nation’s statecraft and foreign policies.”

Saperstein will head the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom. He will be tasked with monitoring religious freedom abuses around the world.

The Washington-based Interfaith Alliance applauded Saperstein’s confirmation.

“When David steps into this position, he not only achieves a remarkable capstone to what has been a long and successful career, he brings to our nation’s foreign policy a wealth of knowledge and a fierce dedication to religious freedom and the rights of religious minorities,” said Interfaith Alliance President Welton Gaddy.

“David’s work has always been guided by the Jewish commandment to repair the world—he has now been given an incredible platform to do just that.”

Saperstein was the first chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, created as a watchdog group in the same act of Congress that created the ambassador-at-large position. In 2009, Obama appointed him to the first White House Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Saperstein, 67, is the fourth person to hold the job, which was created by Congress in 1998. He succeeds Suzan Johnson Cook—a Baptist and the first African-American and woman to serve in the position—who resigned in October 2013, saying she needed to earn more to support her family.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Employers have a duty to accommodate the religion of employees—within reason—and avoid discrimination against prospective employees, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and others argued in a brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Samantha ElaufThe Baptist Joint Committee joined the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and more than 10 other groups—including the National Association of Evangelicals, American Civil Liberties Union, Christian Legal Society and American Islamic Congress—in a friend-of-the-court brief defending a person’s right to wear a religiously mandated headscarf while at work.

The case involves Samantha Elauf, who was denied a retail job because of her headscarf, called a “hijab.” Elauf insisted she believes her Muslim faith requires her to wear a hijab, a practice she has followed since age 13. The brief makes clear the case involves more than just an individual’s desire to wear religious garb, saying, “Protection of religiously motivated conduct in the employment setting is highly important to believers of virtually all stripes and to the religious bodies to which they belong.”

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

In her job interview for the Abercrombie Kids store, run by Abercrombie & Fitch, Elauf wore her usual hijab. The interviewer did not inquire about it or suggest wearing one would be prohibited, and she rated Elauf as someone who should be hired.

Abercrombie & Fitch Fifth Avenue store in New York. (Photo: Rob Young/Wikimedia/Flickr)However, a higher-ranking employee said the headscarf would violate Abercrombie’s “Look Policy” that prohibits “caps”—a term not defined. Elauf was not offered a job, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Abercrombie on Elauf’s behalf.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from discriminating against job applicants or employees based on religion. The brief signed by the BJC notes federal law banning religious discrimination in employment requires employers to “reasonably accommodate” all aspects of an employee’s religious practice if it can do so without causing an “undue hardship” on the business.

Conflicts between work and religion are common, but they often can be resolved through conversation between employer and employee, the brief says. The issue at the heart of this case is “how to ensure that employers as well as employees have adequate incentives to initiate and participate in such problem-solving dialogue,” it notes.  

The brief says Title VII’s prohibition on religious discrimination is necessary to protect religious belief and conduct. “Outward displays of one’s faith are usually evident during job interviews, and compromise can often be found” when there is incentive to do so.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc. in the spring.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BNG)—Southern Baptist Convention ethics leader Russell Moore reacted with shock and disbelief to a grand jury decision in Staten Island, N.Y., not to indict a police officer captured on video using a chokehold to subdue a non-compliant but unaggressive black man that led to the man’s death.

Russell Moore, Southern Baptist ethics leader, reacted with shock at the grand jury’s decision in the Eric Garner case. Moore, president of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said in a podcast interview less than an hour after learning about the verdict he was “shocked and grieved” and “wondering what could possibly be the explanation” for the grand jury’s verdict that there wasn’t enough evidence to charge police officer Daniel Pantaleo with a crime in the death of 43-year-old Eric Garner in July.

‘I can’t breathe!’

Garner, a 350-pound man with a history of selling untaxed cigarettes, is seen in video taken by bystanders saying “I can’t breathe” several times before going into cardiac arrest. Medical examiners ruled the cause of death compression of the neck and chest during physical restraint, complicated by asthma, heart disease, obesity and high blood pressure.

“There is no excuse that I can think of for choking a man to death for selling illegal cigarettes,” Moore said. “This is about cigarettes. This isn’t a violent confrontation. This isn’t a threat that anybody has reported, a threat of someone being killed. This is someone being choked to death. We have it on video with the man pleading for his life. There is no excuse for that I can even contemplate or imagine right now.”

A video of Eric Garner’s arrest was posted on YouTube, sparking outcry around the country.Moore, in his second year as Southern Baptists’ top spokesman for moral and religious liberty concerns, said in the 10 days since a grand jury in Ferguson, Mo., reached a similar decision not to indict a white police officer in the death of an 18-year-old black man in August, he has learned there are “some unreconstructed racists in American society,” including “some who continue to come and to sit in pews of churches and pretend as though they are disciples of Jesus Christ.”

After simply saying Christians should talk about why white and black Americans view the events in Ferguson differently, Moore said he has gotten responses “that are right out of the White Citizen’s Council material from 1964 in my home state of Mississippi, seeing people saying there is no gospel issue involved in racial reconciliation.”

‘Something is wrong with the system’

“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “There is nothing that is clearer in the New Testament than the fact that the gospel breaks down the dividing walls that we have between one another. The gospel is what turns us away from hating our brother, so much so that John says in 1 John 3 that the one who hates his brother is not of the spirit of Christ, but is of the spirit of the evil one, of the spirit of the devil. If that is not a gospel issue, then I don’t know what is.”

Moore agrees with upholding the rule of law, but the Bible says in Romans 13 “that the sword of justice is to be wielded against evildoers.”

“Now, what we too often see still is a situation where our African-American brothers and sisters, especially brothers, in this country are more likely to be arrested, more likely to be executed, more likely to be killed,” he said.

“I just wonder what the defenders of this would possibly say. I just don’t know. But I think we have to acknowledge that something is wrong with the system at this point and that something has to be done.”

MIAMI (RNS)—In announcing his decision to protect nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, President Obama turned to Scripture, calling on Americans to protect the strangers in their land.

President Obama in a thoughtful mood. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza / White House Flickr stream)Yet the president’s decision to bypass Congress and act on his own threatens to fracture a broad—and rare—coalition of religious groups, mostly Christian, including moderate and conservative evangelicals and Catholics, who came together to push for a solution to improve the nation’s immigration system.

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said the president’s move could tear apart that coalition and halt the momentum it established for passing a plan through Congress.

It’s been a difficult road to get so many groups on the same page, Moore said. Can they stay together after the president’s action?

“It certainly didn’t help,” Moore said. “What we have united around is the idea of fixing a broken system with an earned path toward legal status or citizenship, not a blanket amnesty of any kind. This situation doesn’t fix that problem.”

Broad cross-section of interest groups

For the past couple of years, legislators and immigration advocacy groups tried to bring together a broad cross-section of interest groups to support a sweeping rewrite to the nation’s immigration laws. High-tech business leaders worked with farmers and ranchers. Sheriffs and police chiefs talked with minority groups. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce negotiated with top labor unions. And moderate and conservative religious groups spoke with one voice.

“Immigration reform created an incredible, unified coalition of people that don’t normally work together,” said Tony Suarez, a Norfolk, Va., pastor and vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

That coalition helped win enough conservative support to pass a broad immigration bill through the Senate last year, when 14 Republicans joined Democrats in a rare moment of bipartisanship. That momentum seemed to carry over into the House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, had some members gauge his caucus’ support for passing their own version of an immigration bill. Although the Senate bill died in the House, some advocates hoped the new Republican Congress would look to move legislation before the 2016 elections.

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., who worked for years on an immigration bill and tried to muster enough support among his colleagues, said the president’s decision could blow up the tenuous religious coalition that will be critical to any progress in Congress.

“In an area where we started seeing some more unity, in an area that I think had the potential to bring together the American people, the president now, I think, has really driven a very, very large wedge into it,” Diaz-Balart said.

Some faith leaders fear a carefully assembled coalition for immigration reform could be threatened by President Obama’s executive actions. (RNS photo by Heather Adams)Some Christian leaders are disappointed to see how quickly others are running away from immigration in the wake of Obama’s decision.

“It is troubling,” Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski said. “The neo-nativists, or the anti-immigrant faction of the Republican Party, has allowed for this to happen. But it’s not the majority of the party. All these people upset with Obama making this decision just have to take a deep breath.”

Many in the Christian community, Wenski included, see reason for hope.

Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, flew with Obama aboard Air Force One when the president traveled to Las Vegas to start selling his immigration plan.

Salguero told Obama his group supported the president’s decision and assured him the broader religious coalition would stick together to push Congress to pass a long-term solution to the immigration issue. As Salguero put it, religious leaders are unlike politicians and D.C. insiders in one key way.

Evangelicals ‘talk the language of the gospel’

“Sometimes people are so caught up in the partisanship of the Beltway that they think the evangelical community reflects that tenor of conversation,” Salguero said. “We don’t. We’re different. We talk the language we have in common, which is the gospel. So we can have disagreements, but our relationship is strong.”

Religious leaders spoke often in the days before the president’s announcement and knew they would each respond in very different ways, Suarez said. None of those conversations indicated a complete breakup of the coalition, and he remains confident it will be back come January, pressing the new Congress for an immigration bill.

“Anytime you’re going to build a coalition, you have to know when to walk together and when to walk separate,” he said. “You have to know when to give people the opportunity to express themselves and then come back together for the reason that brought us all together.”