If you’ve been keeping up with the news, then you have probably seen a brewing controversy involving arts and crafts store Hobby Lobby. One of the effects of the new health care program that has been put into place is that business owners must now purchase insurance for their employees that the government provides. What’s the big deal with this? Part of what business owners are buying is health coverage that includes abortifacient drugs (those that evangelical Christians believe have the potential to terminate early pregnancies) to be used as birth control. Hobby Lobby is owned by evangelical Christians with convictions against supporting such birth control that is used as an agent of death. What has Hobby Lobby done?
They have filed a charge against the Federal Government that their religious liberty that is protected by the Bill of Rights is being taken away as they are being forced to support and fund something that directly contradicts their religous convictions. For each day that Hobby Lobby doesn’t abide by these sanctions, they will be fined 1. 3 million dollars. Let that sink in. 1.3 million dollars a day. This essentially is a death sentence for their business if they do not conform to the world. But Hobby Lobby is fighting and holding to their convictions.
You might read about this and think, “big deal, what’s having one less arts and crafts store going to mean for me? Can’t I just go to another one to get my art on?” If this is you, I want to challenge you to think about the importance of religious liberty in our country. Each week we have the ability to gather to worship the risen Christ without fear of the government finding us out and taking our lives from us. We are not in rebellion against the governing authorities because we have the right in our country to worship freely. Part of worshipping freely includes allowing your religious convictions to affect the way you think about the world, communicate with others, and how you spend your money and time. We often take this for granted. We enjoy the privileges of religious liberty without remembering that in the New Testament times, this liberty was not afforded to followers of the Way (Christianity). All over our world today their are believers of other tongues and ethnicities that secretly gather to worship the same God we worship. They understand experientially what Scripture means when it calls us to count the costs and be prepared to be persecuted. They like we are called to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth for the purposes of God’s glory. The difference is that they must risk their lives in doing so, while we occasionally must risk our reputations or having the approval of someone else. In other parts of the world, they get beaten and killed and stones are thrown at them. Because of our religious liberty, we instead, have dirty looks thrown our way. For this we should be thankful.
What if this were happening to a Muslim organization? Should we as Christians who stand opposed to the false religion and worship of Islam care about the religious liberty of Muslims in the United States? Your initial thought might be no, but it should be yes! Why? Because if religious liberty is taken away from someone who holds to different views than us, it is only a matter of time until the government will take away our religious liberties as well. It seems ok if it doesn’t immediately affect our worship and evangelism, but this is only a mirage of liberty because the decision on what is and isn’t appropriate worship has been taken from the people and been put into the governments hands. That is a dangerous thing. We live in a world with eroding values, a world where most don’t believe in absolute truth, a world with a culture that promotes tolerance as the highest virtue. We live in a world and are surrounded by a culture that clashes with the Christian worldview. Standing up for your faith will get you labeled as a bigot, fundamentalist, and close-minded fool by our “enlightened” peers. And yet, in the midst of this culture, we still have the freedom to worship and believe as we please because of our religious liberties.
Does Hobby Lobby being forced to conform to the world and go against their convictions necessarily mean all of your religious liberties will be taken away from you. No, not yet. We don’t need to go down that slippery slope, but we do need to recognize that when the governing authorities overstep their bounds and begin to promote and force others to go against God’s standards, we will be forced with a decision as to who our ultimate loyalty is to, God or the governing authorities. We must seek to submit to the authorities God has placed in our lives as the book of Romans and 1 Peter call us to. But we must also remember that we have a higher allegiance that trumps this and when these come into conflict we are called to stand against authorities that have overstepped their God given authority and are using it in ways not intended by Him. We must not be unaware of these movements and shifts within our world. Instead, with a keen eye on God’s word and a sharp glance at our culture and world, we must seek wisdom in when we are called to submit and when we, like Hobby Lobby, are called to stand against threats to our religious freedom and our ability to promote the gospel of Jesus Christ in our culture.
