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Heather Thompson

In the "land and building wars" long fought within mainline denominations, the denomination usually wins. But this week, a South Carolina judge ruled that bishop Mark Lawrence and 36 South Carolina parishes had the right to leave The Episcopal Church in 2012 and take with them 0 million in property.

“In all of TEC’s governing documents, no rule exists prohibiting the withdrawal of one of its member dioceses,” Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein wrote in her opinion. As such, she wrote, TEC defendants have no legal or other right to the plaintiffs’ “real, personal, and intellectual property.”

The ruling mirrored an Illinois decision, in which the Diocese of Quincy was allowed to keep its property and funds for the same reason: The national denomination didn’t have a policy that kept dioceses from withdrawing their membership. Last month, the Illinois Supreme Court refused to hear the denomination's appeal.

The Diocese of South Carolina (DSC) had long distanced itself from The Episcopal Church’s liberal stance on many theological issues, including same-sex relationships. After Mark Lawrence, the diocese’s bishop, vocally opposed the Episcopal Church’s 2009 resolution to allow gay ordination, two priests and 12 lay Episcopalians brought charges against him for “abandoning the Episcopal Church and renouncing its rules.” In 2012, the diocese broke away from the national church after it attempted to remove Lawrence.

Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul, CharlestonHowever, the ensuing legal fight was not over liberal or conservative theology, but over freedom, said Lawrence. “This has never been about exclusion,” he said. “Our churches, our diocese, are open to all. It’s about the freedom to practice and proclaim faith in Jesus Christ as it has been handed down to us.”

The lawsuit filed by the diocese requested that the court declare that TEC had no right to the diocese’s property or 36 parishes, many of which have been in the church tradition since the Revolutionary War era. In fact, the South Carolina diocese existed before the Episcopal Church and joined in its 1789 formation. The diocese left the national church briefly to affiliate with the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, then rejoined in 1866.

“We are grateful that Judge Goodstein’s decision protects South Carolina churches from being added to the long list of properties that TEC seized then either abandoned or sold off,” said Jim Lewis, Canon to the Ordinary, in a DSC press release. “The decision protects our freedom to embrace the faith Anglicans have practiced for hundreds of years—and not the new theology being imposed on TEC’s dwindling membership.”

The Episcopal Church is expected to appeal the court decision, and the denomination’s South Carolina members are prepared for a “long legal process,” communications director Holly Behre told The State. The Wall Street Journal, Religion News Service, and The Post and Courier have also reported the ruling.

CT has examined whether legal victories by conservative breakaway churches are setting a precedent, and has noted the many hurdles facing the fractured Episcopal church.

Courtesy of Diocese of South Carolina

Update (Feb. 8): Lecrae's collaboration with For King & Country, "Messengers," won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song. He attended Sunday night's show with a very special date, his mother.

In his acceptance speech (video below), the triple-nominee said, "You can't celebrate gifts without celebrating the giver of all gifts, so I want to celebrate Jesus."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ektwGF68eFY

——

Throughout his career, Lecrae has resisted the label of Christian rapper, instead considering himself “a rapper who happens to be Christian.” Following his success in 2014, when he dominated the Gospel rankings, the music industry may finally be changing the way they view Lecrae and other Christian hip-hop stars.

After his album Anomaly rose to No. 1 in the country, Atlanta-based Lecrae scored his first Grammy nomination in the rap category. He's up against Eminem, Drake, Childish Gambino, and Kendrick Lamar for best rap performance.

Previously nominated for best rock Gospel album in 2011 and the winner of best Gospel album in 2013, the 35-year-old tweeted that he was honored to be recognized in the rap category for “All I Need Is You,” a song about his wife. (Lecrae, who will attend Sunday's award show, is also nominated for best contemporary Christian music performance/song for his song “Messengers,” featuring the Christian band For King & Country, and for best Gospel performance/song for his collaboration on Erica Campbell’s song “Help.”)

Another Christian artist scoring mainstream recognition at the Grammys is R&B singer Mali Music, who joins Beyoncé, Chris Brown, Pharrell Williams, and Jhene Aiko as the nominees for best urban contemporary album.

This year also brings changes to the Billboard chart rankings, inspired in part by Lecrae’s popularity. Billboard announced:

2014 is the final year that most Christian rap/hip-hop songs and albums, like Lecrae's releases, will be broadly eligible for Billboard's Gospel charts. After soliciting feedback from the industry throughout the year, Billboard has discontinued categorizing most Christian rap and hip-hop titles for our Gospel Albums, Gospel Digital Songs, Hot Gospel Songs and Gospel Streaming charts.

Last year, Billboard crowned Lecrae with four Gospel accolades: “No. 1 Gospel Artist for the year, the top Hot Gospel Songs Artist, the No. 1 Gospel Albums Artist, and the No. 1 Gospel Digital Songs Artist.” Anomaly—released in September—was the album to reach the top spot on both the Gospel and Billboard 200 charts.

Since 1995, artists like Lecrae have qualified for both Christian and Gospel charts, noted Billboard in announcing the change. Now, Christian rap and hip-hop titles will be categorized on the Christian charts, with exceptions made for songs with Gospel style, collaborations, or other factors.

Reach Records, the label founded by Lecrae, supports the change. Others suggest that offering Christian hip-hop artists their own chart would be a better solution to their recent takeover of the Gospel charts.

"'Christian' and 'gospel' are not musical genres, rather labels that let a consumer know that the content in the lyrics are Christian-based," wrote industry expert Chad Horton, co-founder of the Christian site Rapzilla. "Christian hip-hop is its own subgenre, which now often outsells most top-selling gospel and Christian titles because it’s finally getting the visibility that it’s fought for all of these years."

Lecrae performed twice from his hit album on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, making him the first Christian rapper to appear on late-night network TV.

Christian fans celebrate Lecrae’s willingness to address social issues in his music, including fatherlessness, marriage, immigration, and faith. “Good, Bad, Ugly,” a song from his new album, brings up his regret over an early girlfriend having an abortion, which he discussed last month with John Piper.

In CT’s cover story on the genre, Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore wrote, “I think Christian hip-hop is more than just the latest attempt to slap a Jesus fish on the bumper of a pop-culture fad. Hip-hop is reminding the church about the reality of sin and grace—and returning the hip-hop community to its prophetic roots.”

CT has also spotlighted Lecrae in its feature on influential hip-hop theologians and preachers. Mali Music was listed among CT’s “33 Under 33, Continued” last year.

See the video for "All I Need Is You," Lecrae's nomination in the rap category, below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iRTBh1gCjk

WME Entertainment

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) can set and enforce hiring practices based on its Christian faith, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday. Grounded heavily in the precedent set by the US Supreme Court’s significant Hosanna-Tabor decision in 2012, the verdict maintains that IVCF could legally fire an employee headed for divorce.

In 2013, Alyce Conlon, a former spiritual director at IVCF, filed a lawsuit challenging her firing. She was put on paid leave in 2011 after informing her supervisor she was considering divorce, and terminated that December for what she alleges was "failing to reconcile her marriage." (Her husband filed for divorce the following month.) Conlon claimed that two of her male colleagues in similar situations had not received the same treatment.

“Because IVCF is a religious organization and Conlon was a ministerial employee, IVCF’s decision to terminate her employment cannot be challenged under federal or state employment discrimination laws,” ruled the court. “It matters not whether the plaintiff is claiming a specific violation under Title VII or any other employment discrimination statute.” The court noted:

The parties point to no historical example in which the founding generation permitted any arm of the federal government—including the judiciary—to order a religious organization to accept or retain in a ministerial position a person whom the organization deemed unfit for ministry. To the contrary, the historical practice has always been that the government cannot dictate to a religious organization who its spiritual leaders would be.

In Hosanna-Tabor, the Supreme Court ruled that a Lutheran school teacher was a "minister" who could not sue the church that fired her in 2005, on the basis of the “ministerial exception,” which allows religious institutions to hire and fire employees according to their religious criteria. While the Sixth Circuit acknowledged that IVCF was not a church, it granted faith-based organizations the same rights.

“It is undisputed that InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is a Christian organization, whose purpose is to advance the understanding and practice of Christianity in colleges and universities. It is therefore a ‘religious group’ under Hosanna-Tabor,” the court stated.

Further, the Sixth Circuit ruled that while Conlon did not officially hold the title of minister, the organization did not need to specifically designate its employees as such in order to qualify for the exception.

Instead, “courts need only determine whether the wording of the title conveys a religious—as opposed to secular—meaning,” the court stated.

The court also ruled that contrary to Conlon’s argument that IVCF had waived its ministerial exception, the “exception is a structural limitation imposed on the government by the Religion Clauses, a limitation that can never be waived.”

Religion Clause highlights one judge's concern that the ruling is too broad:

Our decision today does not require us to decide whether a religious employer could enter into a judicially-enforceable employment contract with a ministerial employee not to fire that employee on certain grounds (such as pregnancy). Judicial enforcement of such a contract might unduly interfere with the independence of religious institutions, but barring religious institutions from offering such a legally binding guarantee might make it harder for some religious institutions to hire the people they want.

“These conclusions demonstrate profound respect for our constitutional structure and for the First Amendment,” wrote David French, an attorney for the American Center for Law and Justice, which represented IVCF in this case. “It is simply not the business of the government to determine who may or may not serve as a minister of the Gospel—or a minister of any other faith."

InterVarsity told CT:

InterVarsity is thankful that the Sixth Circuit Court’s decision in the case of Conlon v. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship affirms the distinctive legal identity of religious organizations consistently expressed in our country's history. InterVarsity also affirms its deep belief that both women and men should be treated fairly and justly. We have a long track record of valuing the role of women in Christian ministry. In this situation, InterVarsity believes it made every effort to resolve differences in perspective with appropriate grace and respect. In respect for all parties, as an organization we do not publically discuss the specifics of any personnel situations

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Al Mohler called the ruling a “major win this week on religious liberty.”

“One of the things that we as Christians need to think about when we see a headline like this is what the opposite might have meant,” he said. “If indeed, the court had found against InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and for the woman who sued the organization, it would have meant that a Christian organization can’t operate on its own Christian principles in terms of hiring those who will actually teach and lead those very organizations.“

Joe Carter examines the ruling for the Acton Institute.

In 2013, CT reported that, despite the Hosanna-Tabor precedent, teachers were still suing Christian schools over sex standards, including Dias v. Archdiocese of Cincinnati, where a lesbian was fired after undergoing artificial insemination. CT found that experts predicted similar lawsuits would continue to grow, but also that Christian schools were likely to continue their winning streak.

In 2011, World Vision also won a significant legal victory for parachurch ministries after its hiring practices were also challenged. The Supreme Court declined to hear World Vision’s hiring lawsuit, which allowed an August 2010 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to stand in favor of World Vision and against three employees who were fired after the organization concluded that they did not believe that Jesus Christ is fully God.

World Vision was a "religious organization" and therefore exempt from the rules on hiring practices that Congress set down in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, mainly because it is a nonprofit entity which self-identifies as religious, Ninth Circuit Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain argued.

In the most in-depth study to date of gender parity in evangelical organizations, InterVarsity was found to be an exceptional advocate of women leaders compared to other organizations.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship

The renowned Princeton Seminary historian, Samuel Hugh Moffett, whose two-volume History of Christianity in Asia was completed when he was 89 years old, has died. He was 98.

“Sam Moffett had a distinguished career of teaching and scholarship in the service of the church on two continents,” Craig Barnes, president of Princeton Seminary, said. “He was a great encourager who touched the lives of thousands of students and was truly a global ambassador for the gospel.

"We lift up prayers of thanksgiving to God for his life and witness and prayers of condolence for his wife Eileen, their family, and their many friends and loved ones who are grieving his loss.” Moffett, who is survived by his wife Eileen, died Monday, Feb. 9, at the Windrows retirement community in New Jersey. A memorial service has not yet been scheduled.

Moffett published his first volume of his acclaimed History of Christianity in Asia in 1996, about 10 years after he retired. He published the second volume in 2005, at age 89. The two-volume magnum opus, which chronicles Asian Christianity from its origins to 1900, is 1,300 pages long. He also authored Whe'er the Sun (1953), The Christians of Korea (1962), The Biblical Background of Evangelicalism (1968).

In 1973, Moffett wrote “What Makes the Korean Church Grow” for Christianity Today. He said, “Bible training for the whole church, the cleansing exhilaration of the Spirit, and an emphasis on a personal sharing of the faith with others combined to set off a spiritual chain explosion in Korea…. In fifteen years from 1895, when suddenly the church in the North began to grow, to 1914, just after the [1907] great revival, the Protestant community in Korea increased from only 800 to more, than 167,000.”

In a 2006 interview with CT, Moffett said “the future of missions” is in Asia. But he also sounded a cautionary note since Asia’s population of 4.4 billion is no more than 8 percent Christian. “We’re not doing very well. Asia is more religious than any of the other continents.” Yet he said Asians perceive Christianity as an “alien” religion, even though “Jesus was born in Asia.”

In 2007, Moffett took part in a New Jersey celebration of the 100th anniversary of the famous 1907 Pyongyang revival. YouTube has a documentary, released in 2013, in which Moffett describes the revival’s achievements. But he said the Korean church came to realize that “30,000 baptisms don’t always mean 30,000 new Christians—it was in the revival that [new converts] discovered what their Christianity really meant.”

Moffett was born in Pyongyang, Korea, in 1916. His parents, Samuel Austin and Lucia Fish Moffett, were missionary pioneers. At that time, Pyongyang was referred to as the “Jerusalem of the East” due to the success of evangelism, church growth, and creation of educational institutions. His father launched the first seminary in Korea in the family home. At that time, the mission station that the elder Moffett ran was one of the largest in the world.

After graduating high school, Moffett enrolled in Wheaton College, graduating summa cum laude in 1938. Then in 1942, he received his BD from Princeton Seminary. In 1945, he was awarded a PhD in religion from Yale University. By this time, he had married Elizabeth Tarrant—they met at Wheaton.

Moving to China in 1947, Moffett served on the faculty at Yenching University in Beijing and later Nanking Theological Seminary. In 1951, Chinese communists expelled Moffett from the country after a show trial. He returned to Princeton Seminary from 1953 to 1955. During this time, his wife died of cancer. In 1955, Moffett moved to South Korea to serve as a missionary and he married Eileen Flower.

Presbyterian Theological Seminary (now Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary) in Seoul, Korea, asked Moffett to join the faculty in 1959, and he taught there until 1981. He served as dean of the graduate school from 1966 to 1970 and as co-president of the school from 1970 to 1981. He was also the first director of the influential Asian Center for Theological Studies and Mission.

After returning to the United States in 1981, Moffett was installed as the Henry Winters Luce Professor of Ecumenics and Mission at Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. He served until 1987.

One online observer said about Moffett, “Sam was a challenging professor, example in ministry and a beacon to all who care about communicating the love of Jesus to all people. There is no sense in saying “Rest in Peace”—Sam will rejoice in the presence of the Lord. The response to this great man’s passing should be to recommit to carrying out God’s mission in the world.”