Holy Joys Podcast
A discussion of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church. A ministry of holyjoys.org.
Holy Joys Podcast
The Equality Act and Male and Female in God's Image
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, David Fry and Johnathan Arnold discuss the Equality Act, its impact on churches and Christian organizations, and the void in our culture concerning what it means to be male and female.
And uh and as as pastors, as teachers, I think we need to be making sure that we we disciple, we teach, we preach on what it means to be a human being, um, and especially what it means to be made in the image of God, uh, who is Christ.
SPEAKER_01Uh, the question, by the way, was asked uh of me here a couple days ago uh does this particular piece of legislation threaten uh the tax exempt status of churches? And uh the answer as I understand it right now is no. Uh not not this piece of legislation, uh, but inevitably uh that's something that will be raised down the road as well.
SPEAKER_00You're listening to the Holy Joys podcast, co-hosted by Jonathan Arnold and Dr. David Fry. Visit us at holyjoys.org and stay tuned for weekly discussions of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church.
SPEAKER_02We had uh discussed the Equality Act, um, major piece of legislation, and thought we might spend a few minutes here at the beginning, this opening segment, um, discussing that before we get into our main discussion uh on the cross. So why don't you just go ahead and and uh explain a little bit why this is so uh important and something that we wanted to spend a little bit of time on here. Right.
SPEAKER_01Right, yeah. So the Equality Act, I believe is a very serious piece of legislation that is now awaiting a hearing and discussion in the Senate. And um I think you know many you know Christians are rightfully um uh nervous, prayerful, uh concerned about it. Uh as a uh teacher of uh the constitution, I I have taught uh high school students uh US Constitution in the past. And I'm always very interested in these major pieces of legislation, uh as well as the um when a piece of legislation such as this uh arises, and especially when they pass and then make their way to the Supreme Court, you know, that that process is always very, very interesting to me. Uh but this is more than just interest. This is uh something that really gets to the heart of the social life of believers in in America. Uh in fact, I I really don't think it is far-fetched to say that this piece of legislation, if it were passed in the form in which the Senate has received it, uh, would have the greatest impact on the social life of Christians than probably any other uh single act since uh the Bill of Rights in 1791. Uh and and I say that recognizing that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 uh was major. I mean, it was probab it probably right now is the most significant piece of legislation uh since the Bill of Rights uh to impact uh religious um practice. Uh but this one has the the uh uh potential to have that big and comprehensive of an impact. And I have I have uh heard several people uh commentators say, you know, it's not really a matter of if this passes, but it's really a matter of when and what all makes it through uh to the end. Um it will be changed, there will be some adjustments to it, uh, but what is it ultimately that uh gets passed and you know what's the impact of that? So I know there are a lot of discussions going on uh about this in a lot of especially Christian schools, Christian ministries, um, nonprofit ministries, uh anyone especially who receives uh any sort of uh federal government funds such as Pell Grant, the potential of being deeply impacted by this is very, very real.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, why why don't we just um rewind for somebody who maybe uh isn't familiar with this at all? I certainly have not spent as much time um you know reading and thinking about it as you have. Uh what what if we just uh quickly explain uh in summary form the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and then how um you know this uh equality act would seek to really redefine that. As I understand it, that's that's kind of the fundamental change.
SPEAKER_01Right. Right. So the civil acts uh uh the civil rights act of 64 uh was the major piece of legislation at a federal level that uh protects classes, so uh religion, uh race, uh sex. These are protected classes of people. And there are several titles that go with that. The two that are are most impacted now, potentially with the Equality Act, are titles uh seven and title, title seven and title nine. Uh so all the different titles within the acts uh refer to different segments of society. So title uh seven has to do with employers, uh public employers. Uh title nine has to do with uh education. So and other titles have to do with other segments of uh social and economic life. Um and and the Civil Rights Act has been a wonderful uh thing for us. I regularly write letters. I did last week again, I do several times a year, write letters to employers for uh members of our church uh where the employer is putting pressure on them to work on a Sunday. Well, that's a violation of the Civil Rights Act if it's a religious conviction. Uh not only does the federal government have that legislation, but uh every state also has a civil rights uh legislation that protects that. So on several levels, people are are protected. It's been a very good thing. And by the way, to date, uh I've never had an employer uh either fire or not hire uh or uh continue to give a difficult uh time to any of our members. Um and and I'm very, very thankful uh to God for that. Um I think that battle is gonna get more difficult, but as Christians, uh I want to say, and actually I want to say to pastors as well, if you have people in your congregation who are being pressured right now to work on uh on Sunday, and you have a clear statement in your church manual on that, uh you should be ready to come to uh go to bat for your for your members uh because they may need that. They may not be aware of that. In fact, a lot of employers are not even aware of the the civil rights that we have, uh the religious rights there. But the Equality Act, what it does is it really uh uh redefines or stretches, I should say, the definition of of sex to uh so it goes back to the Civil Rights Act and it it legislates actually a decision that was made, I think it was last year. It may have been 2019. Uh no, I think it was last year, a decision in the court, in the Supreme Court, uh that uh where they interpreted uh the uh sex as a protected class to include sexual orientation and gender identity. So this is a uh now this was before the last uh Trump appointment to the the Supreme Court. Uh so Ruth Bader Gainsberg were still there. Uh but this was largely a you know conservative majority Supreme Court that decided really uh one of the dissents was the Supreme Court has legislated uh by interpreting uh sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Well, this piece of legislation just uh codifies that and says that now sexual orientation and gender identity are protected classes so that a an employer cannot discriminate on those bases, even including religious employers. A school or any nonprofit organization that receives federal dollars cannot discriminate on those bases. So it's the same thing as race, it's the same thing as male-female, same thing as religion. Here's the catch. So in the 90s, under Bill Clinton, he passed the uh a federal RIFRA law, which is religious freedom uh law that that placed uh several criteria. I don't have all of this memorized in my head, so I'm I'm just going off my my recall here, uh, some of the specifics I may not uh recall. But uh there are a couple of criteria in that RIFRA law uh from the 90s that that really raise raises the bar on the court system for proving a uh a case is ext is burdensome on one's religion. In other words, it it protects, puts extra protection on religious freedom. All right, so that's what RIFRA laws have done. State laws or states have passed Riffer laws uh again under Bill Clinton. The federal government passed a RIFRA law, and they have were passed because of a recognition that religious uh freedom was being threatened in several cases. What the Quality Act does is it circumvents RIFRA so that uh on the basis of a religious, sincerely held religious belief, uh that would not be considered in a suit against, say, a Bible college or nonprofit like we uh run here, say our recovery home that we run, uh that would not be considered. Our articles of faith would not be considered in that case. Uh so it's a it's a real threat. I I don't think it's gonna pass, but if it does, people say, well, it's a good thing we there, you know, there's uh you know, we have conservative control of the Supreme Court. Uh well uh history hasn't proven that that necessarily will be a good solution, and because a couple of things would happen from that. Uh the first thing that would happen is that a court case it's gonna take some time for them to receive a court case, and in the meantime, a lot of damage could be done. So that's number one. Number two is that a court the Supreme Court rarely overturns the entirety of legislation. And so there it is very likely if it passes, a large part of the bill would still be in effect. We just don't know exactly what.
SPEAKER_02So a lot of practical consequences for churches, Christian nonprofits. Um, but I think you know, thinking about this more broadly, more stepping back from it and thinking about what this indicates just about uh our society at large, um, we've talked a little bit in the in the past about how sex, as it's been traditionally understood, historically understood, and certainly as Christians, the way that we understand male-female, you know, is really um just just being completely redefined. And I think it reflects just a great void in our culture about not merely what it what it means to be a male or female, but what it means to be human. Um and uh and as pastors, as teachers, I think we need to be making sure that we we disciple, we teach, we preach on what it means to be a human being, um, and especially what it means to be made in the image of God, uh, who is Christ. So we we have this lack of understanding about uh who we are, why we're here. And so we don't have this shared understanding anymore in our society of these really basic fundamental truths. So it really leaves open uh a vacuum to be filled by all kinds of secular ideologies and understandings of what it means to be male-female. And uh I know that that um when I think even of um uh of our teachings so often on anthropology uh and what it what it means to be made in the image of God, we might emphasize, you know, man's relational or man is is a social creature or we like God can you know can be made righteous or holy. Um, but understanding what it means to be human in light of this man Jesus Christ, you know, the true Adam, the true man, and how being in him, there is no male or female, not that that erases um, you know, these biological differences, but that it really helps to ground our uh our identity as men and men and women in something deeper, our shared humanity in Christ. And uh I think these are times which just um these times that these bring great alarm and great shock are just reminders of just the the immense void in our culture, uh understanding what it really even means to be a human person more more broadly, we no longer share that.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And I I think it would be good for us to remember as Christians that while we express great concern and we vocalize opposition to something like the Equality Act, that we have to make sure that we go the extra mile also in expressing uh love and care for every human being as well. Because many times, you know, conservatives have gotten the uh really the reputation of being someone, uh a group of people who are adamant and uh even a little bit harsh in our advocacy for legislation or Supreme Court action, uh, but have forgotten the person. Uh and and we we need to recognize that all of this comes out of an experience of of real people in our culture who uh many of them living in sin, uh, but they're they are uh coming to this with particular experience, uh some of which is negative because of their experience with Christians. And so we need to make sure that that experience, uh those interactions, the way we relate uh with those who are uh homosexual or uh transgender or uh or anything else, some alternative identity, uh, that they know that we love them. And uh we do not have to compromise our stance on what being fully human is. Right, right. Uh but neither do we have to compromise our love and recognition of them as still being creatures for whom Christ died.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Let me see if I can articulate this a little bit better. So I think one of the things that I'm I've been wrestling with is how the culture knows what we're against, um, but they don't always know what we're for. And I just think we as pastors and teachers need to do a better, of better job of casting a positive vision of humanity and of of our of our shared humanity in Christ, the new Adam. And that vision of what it means to be, first of all, man and then male, female, um, uh, I think uh will speak to the void in our culture. And if we don't supply people with that sense of identity, um then inevitably there will be secular ideologies that come in and fill that void. And I don't feel like I always have um I don't feel like I always have given enough attention to that. It would be an area of teaching and preaching. And I I so many of the lessons that I have heard, you know, on what does it mean to be man, um, you know, we think we've got God, man, sin, Christ, salvation, you know, we go through these areas of systematic theology. And so many of the lessons that I've heard, or the teaching, the preaching I've heard on man, you know, will go something like, you know, God created us in the beginning, he created us male and female, there's two genders, he created us, you know, in the image of God. And that means, you know, we're like God in certain ways, but not in reference to Christ. You know, Christ is the image of God. And uh, I think if we try to start with Genesis one to three as our reference point for understanding humanity, apart from the fullest revelation of what it means to be human in Christ, um, we're really gonna, we're we're really not gonna have a truly Christian, a truly Christian um anthropology. And we talk about a Judeo-Christian understanding of man, but I think often we we weigh actually in some ways more heavily on the Judeo portion of that, the areas that we would share, but not really what the revelation of Jesus Christ, the true Adam, tells us about what it means to be male and female.
SPEAKER_01So the Equality Act theologically clearly has a lot to do with our doctrine of humanity. Uh, this week of recording, this is holy week. There's a lot to be said about the doctrine of humanity. For Christians, I think it is paramount that we accept other human beings as human beings, creatures in the image of God. That does not mean that we have to approve behavior, uh, the way a person uh is live trying to live out their humanness or even how they define their own humanity does not mean that at all. But uh Christians ought to be known for our willingness to uh well for our eagerness to love our neighbor as ourself, not just our brothers and sisters in Christ, but all of our neighbors. And also for showing forth what what real humanity is uh by by living a Christ life so this piece of legislation is is very concerning. Uh we we need to be in in prayer as as uh religious organizations. Uh we need to be planning uh financially and otherwise. Uh the question, by the way, was asked uh of me here a couple days ago uh does this particular piece of legislation threaten uh the tax exempt status of churches? And uh the answer as I understand it right now is no. Not not this piece of legislation, uh, but inevitably uh that's something that will be raised down the road as well. Uh this this has everything to do with organizations that receive any sort of uh government assistance, which many do. Uh in fact, uh you know, schools and other nonprofits, uh many ministries, uh, homeless ministries and benevolence ministries, uh, adoption agencies. I mean, it's just it's very pervasive, it's very comprehensive. You know, all of those, and not just Christian, we're talking about religious across the board, uh, not just evangelical Christians, uh are potentially affected by this. And and so we would see in very short time a major uh major impact on the social life. Um so much so much so that um in our area here, uh we our county does not have, for instance, a homeless shelter. Uh, we are making preparations for that to happen, but it's going to be faith-based. If something like this happens and it's faith-based, and you know, the board that would control that stands their ground and doesn't compromise their their religious uh beliefs, uh that would close up. That that would uh because that would be dependent upon uh some some government dollars. Uh and so there are gonna be people on the street, literally out in the streets, if if this happens. Um so again, I don't think it's gonna pass. I don't think it will happen, but you know, the the Senate is 50-50. Um, I I don't think I think there are but but it's a razor-thin margin. I think there's a Democrat or two that uh would uh not support it because they are in uh more conservative uh areas. Um but again, I don't think the question is is but when on these these sort of uh sweeping uh legislative acts.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for listening to the Holy Joys Podcast. Email your questions to podcast at holyjoys.org, and they may be featured on a future episode. Our labors for a holy happy church are supported by generous listeners like you. Please pray about partnering with us at holyjoys.org forward slash donate.
