A unanimous US Supreme Court has dismissed the employment discrimination case against Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Church. This is the best decision for the religious life of the nation - though I remain immensely uncomfortable with the MO Synod's language about "ministers." Read all about it.
HT: Herr Vehse
+HRC
This is particularly unsettling: "The Synod classifies its school teachers into two categories: 'called' and 'lay'. 'Called' teachers are regarded as having been called to
ReplyDeletetheir vocation by God." While that may not exactly be the Synod's language, it certainly passes as a valid interpretation of it, and as such, sends us tobogganing down the slippery WELS slope.
Yup, Fritz, you are right about that. "Ministers" indeed. . .
ReplyDelete+HRC
The next sentence is really cool: "To be eligible to be considered “called,” a teacher must complete certain academic requirements, including a course of theological study." In order to be called by God, you must go to college. This is atheist fodder. I don't really expect the SCOTUS to care about Luther's doctrine of vocation, but it would clear up quite a bit with this whole mess that we have created and that they have tried to sort through.
ReplyDeleteThe SCOTUS decision states [p. 5]: "The [ministerial] exception instead ensures that the authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful is the church’s alone."
ReplyDeleteThis means that the church, or in this case a church within the Missouri Synod, alone has the authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful, regardless of the SCOTUS's inadequate or inaccurate description of the Missouri Synod's understanding of the doctrine of church and ministry.