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Statements of faith: the new restrictive covenants
Hochschild comes across as something of a spiritual searcher in the January 7 article by Daniel Golden. Born to a Jewish father and a mother who was raised Lutheran, Hochschild found faith through his study of philosophy at Yale, where he was evangelized by an Episcopalian friend and later baptized. He'd signed Wheaton's statement when he was hired and kept his department chairman apprised as soon as he began to consider Catholicism; even after his spring 2004 conversion, he told his superiors that he remained comfortable with the college's statement of faith. Wheaton's president dismissed this as "quibbling" and terminated Hochschild; he also announced that the college needed to revised the pledge to make "more explicit its non-Catholic identity." Hochschild, once a shoo-in for tenure, had to take a pay cut and move his family halfway across the country to get a new job at a less prestigious school. Not coincidentally, his new college, Mount St. Mary's, is Catholic and has begun to ask candidates about their faith during the hiring process, too. It all reeks of a disturbing Balkanization. And it's far from uncommon. The Christian Medical and Dental Association, many of whose members were appointed by Bush to sit on scientific advisory committees, has a statement of faith so restrictive it conflicts with principles of sound science. The National Religious Broadcasters, an influential association of television and radio broadcasters whose annual convention President Bush regularly addresses, requires members to sign a statement of faith that clarifies exactly how sectarian their use of the term "religious" is. The home schooling movement, whose grass roots associations once comprised a mix of Leche League hippy moms, Jews, Catholics, and conservative evangelicals, is now dominated by large Christian organizations with quite restrictive statements of faith. What's most disturbing is that some organizations that receive federal contracts are applying narrowly written statements of faith to current and prospective employees. The Salvation Army dismissed 18 employees during 2003 and 2004 over their refusal to sign statements swearing to uphold certain Christian principles. One of those who lost her job was Anne Lown, a child of Holocaust survivors and a 25-year veteran of the Salvation Army. "The whole time I was there no one had asked me about my own religion," Lown says. "There was never any kind of litmus test." But as of fall 2003, employees were required to list every "church" they'd attended over the past decade as well as the name of their current minister; they also had to agree not to contradict any aspect of the Salvation Army's religious mission, which includes condemning sexual relationships outside of marriage, contraceptive use outside of marriage, homosexuality, abortion, drinking, gambling, smoking, and drug use as "unacceptable according to the teaching of Scripture." Social workers with the chance to place a child with a non-Christian family, or in the position of counseling troubled teens at risk for HIV and pregnancy, found their jobs at odds with the new requirements. In October, a federal district judge in New York decided that the agency had acted legally.
Jim Towey, Bush's director of faith-based initiatives, was ebullient on NPR after the decision. "This is going to send a resounding signal out there in America," he said. "Because here you have an organization, the Salvation Army, that got 95 percent of its money from the government to do its social service work, and the court held that they were allowed to hire on a religious basis....I think it's going to tell faith-based groups, Oh, we can do this work without having to secularize and sell our soul in order to provide a public service. It's a complete vindication of President Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative."
Statements of faith: the new restrictive covenants | 13 comments (13 topical, 0 hidden)
Statements of faith: the new restrictive covenants | 13 comments (13 topical, 0 hidden)
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