The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday supported religious liberty in their ruling over an employment discrimination suit against a campus ministry. Here’s the story from WorldMag:

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship on Thursday, maintaining a broad constitutional right for ministries to control their hiring and firing practices. This is one of the first major rulings under the precedent set by the Supreme Court’s 2012 determination in Hosanna Tabor v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

In 2011, supervisors in InterVarsity’s Grand Rapids, Mich., office put a “spiritual formation specialist," Alyce Conlon, on paid leave to work on repairing her marriage. Later that year, the organization fired her when she and her husband moved forward with a divorce. In 2013, Conlon sued the campus ministry for wrongful termination, saying the ministry fired her but not two male employees in similar marital situations.

The 6th Circuit found it unnecessary to dwell on the details of the case because of the broad protections ministries have to make their own personnel decisions.

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Response: The court in this case affirmed religious liberty for allied ministries to choose their own requirements for leaders and employment. The decision was based upon a SCOTUS ruling in 2012. The same underlying principles should help 100’s of ministries in their cases against the Obama administration’s HHS Mandate which are still working their way through the courts.

Shouldn’t the same principles also apply to the choice of student leaders? Universities and colleges all across the country are kicking Christian ministries like Intervarsity off campus because they require the student leaders to be actual Christians. The new trend for educators is to call it religious ‘discrimination’ but in reality it is in effect actual persecution and discrimination against Christians.            *Top