The Logic of the Spirit
The Logic of the Spirit
By Jack Kinsella
Some time back, the Salvation Army refused to hire an atheist on the grounds that a person couldn’t work for a Christian organization if he didn’t believe in Christ.
The New York Civil Liberties Union launched an immediate lawsuit charging the organization with religious discrimination.
The case arose after The Salvation Army began to require all employees in its Social Services for Children division to fill out a form on which they:
a) identify their church affiliation and all other churches attended for the past decade,
b) authorize their religious leaders to reveal private communications to the Salvation Army; and
c) pledge to adhere to the religious mission of The Salvation Army which, according to The Salvation Army, is to “preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The mainstream media went ballistic. Headlines like “Non-Christians Need Not Apply” gave way to “the Salvation Army’s War on the Poor” and “A Tale of a Greedy Charity.”
When the ACLU isn’t going after the Salvation Army for religious discrimination, it is going after the Boy Scouts for sexual discrimination.
It sounds like the punch line for a joke: “What are you gonna do? Sue the Salvation Army for being religious?”
Or maybe a challenge…“Sure. I’ll believe that when the Boy Scouts get sued for not having gay scoutmasters.”
I mean, it sounds crazy. The Salvation Army being sued for expecting its employees to concur with the organization’s mission statement.
The employee who filed the lawsuit said she worked for the Salvation Army for 25 years and was ‘blindsided’ by the organization’s ‘new’ rules.
(Gasp! The Salvation Army is Christian??? So THAT’S what that ‘Salvation’ part stands for…who knew?)
It is difficult to imagine a more ridiculous lawsuit.
The Salvation Army was founded in 1865 by William and Catherine Booth and was dedicated from its inception to the mission of “bringing Christian salvation to the poor, destitute and hungry by meeting both their physical and spiritual needs.”
But the plaintiff in the suit worked for the Sally Ann for a quarter century, starting on that job more than a hundred years after that organization wrote its mission statement, and complained in her suit that she was ‘blindsided’ to learn it was dedicated to the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Assessment
On the other side of the spectrum, a Christian biologist has filed a lawsuit against the federally-funded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
Nathaniel Abraham was fired in 2004 because he did not believe in evolution. Abraham is a ‘zebrafish specialist’ (whatever that means) and he claims his civil rights were violated by his firing.
He claims that shortly after he told his supervisor that he believed the Bible presented an accurate account of creation, he was dismissed for his beliefs.
Abraham, who was dismissed eight months after he was hired, said he was willing to do research using evolutionary concepts but drew the line at the choice between accepting Darwin’s theory of evolution as scientific fact or losing his job.
The Woods Hole group said in a statement it firmly believed its actions and those of its employees in the case were “entirely lawful” and that it does not discriminate.
The reason that Abraham was forced to file a lawsuit was because the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination dismissed his complaint, ruling in favor of Woods Hole.
It argued (perfectly logically) that it would be difficult for Woods Hole to employ someone to advance a theory that the employee disagrees with — and upheld his firing.
I say it was ‘perfectly logical’ to dismiss Abraham under these circumstances because it IS perfectly logical.
The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination concluded that Abraham knew, or should have known, that Woods Hole’s biology was rooted in the theory of evolution.
Once again, that is completely logical. If I was planning to hire an editorial assistant, I wouldn’t hire a Buddhist, or a Muslim, or even just any old Christian.
Since the Omega Letter approaches Scripture from a premillennial, Dispensational perspective, I wouldn’t hire a preterist, for example.
That isn’t discrimination — I don’t care WHAT they believe. I just care what they teach in my name.
Abraham’s argument makes as much sense logically as a high-school French teacher complaining about being dismissed for opposing French classes.
So why is it so hard for the courts to apply the same logic when it comes to Christian ministries or issues of Christian faith? If Woods Hole can require a belief in evolution, why is it discriminatory for the Salvation Army to require a belief in God?
Or for the Boy Scouts to refuse to hire adult supervisors who may view young boys as sex objects? There is no corresponding effort to legitimize men as Girl Scout leaders for the same good and logical reasons.
Why does this same logic reverse itself when the target is a Christian organization?
Things that are natural are natural, that is to say, they follow a natural, logical progression. So logically, a creationist would make a lousy researcher on evolution, and, if one continues to follow the logic, dismissing him makes as much sense as would the Salvation Army dismissing an atheist.
But while the courts can see the logic in the Wood’s Hole case, they cannot grasp it when it comes to the Boy Scouts or the Salvation Army. This is evidence of both the existence of God and the Divine truth of the Scriptures.
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1st Corinthians 2:14)