The Equality Act and Religious Freedom

Announcer:

Welcome to The Table Podcast, where we discuss issues of God and culture, brought to you by Dallas Theological Seminary.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Welcome to The Table, we discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Darrell Bock, executive director for Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary. And our topic today is a piece of legislation that has generated no lack of conversation generally, and especially in the Christian community. It is the Equality Act. And I have two very special guests with us today. First is Shirley Hoogstra, who is president of the CCCU and Shirley. I'm going to ask you to explain what the CCCU is because that's a lot of letters.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

It sure is and it's the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. We're almost 45 years old. And we've been in that space in Washington, DC for a while in order to be really the leading voice of Christian higher education in the public square there. And I think the founders really were prescient to know that 45 years ago we would be in the situation we are today.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Interesting. And then our second guest is David Dockery who's a longtime friend. I've known Shirley a long time as well, who is among other things founding president of the International Alliance for Christian Education, past president of the Evangelical Theological Society, a former chair of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, and now is Theologian-in-Residence at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. And I had to take one big, long breath to get through all that. So, David, it's great to have you with us as well.

David Dockery:

Thank you, Darrell. It's a joy to be with you and with Shirley to talk about these important matters today. I'm grateful for your leadership of the Center for Cultural Engagement there at Dallas Seminary and for the opportunity to participate in this conversation.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Well, thank you both for being with us and certainly, this is an important topic. Before we turn to the Equality Act specifically, I'd like to ask each of you, and this is a question I open all my podcasts with and I'm from the South. So, it's going to be ladies first. Shirley, how did a nice girl like you get into a gig like this?

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Well, it was a calling by God, Darrell. What happened is I was an attorney in New Haven, Connecticut and a partner in a law firm and a very active alum of one of the CCCU schools. In fact, I had served on and was serving on the board of trustees of that school. And I was sitting in my living room and the position of vice president for student life came. I knew about that and I heard God say to me, "Well, Shirley what about you?" And I had been involved with student life years ago. I was very surprised by that very direct prompting in my life. And I was a little resistant because I really loved my law practice. But what I believe is that God knew that there would be a situation where I would become president of the CCCU, where I needed both my legal background and my student life and campus background. And I was the vice president, campus leader for 15 years on that campus.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

And actually, most of the issues that we're dealing with at the CCCU level, I have a familiarity with, but it was God who saw the long picture. And I was hoping that maybe I would get a no. I'm like, "Why would they want a lawyer from New Haven to be the vice president of student life at this campus?" I thought, "I'm going to be obedient. I'm going to say yes to the interview, but then they're going to say no. And then, win-win. I'll be obedient, but I won't have to move." But lo and behold, they said yes. And I count that very careful shaping of my vocation as preparing me to be of service to Christian Colleges & Universities today.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

How long now have you been president of the CCCU?

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Almost seven years.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Okay. Very good. And David, same question to you. How did a nice guy like you get into a gig like this? How did you end up doing what you're doing?

David Dockery:

Well, I've been involved in administration at a couple of institutions for a long time before coming to this role. As you know, I had the privilege of serving as the chief academic officer at Southern Seminary back in the early 1990s and moved to the presidency at Union University and West Tennessee, served in that role for almost two decades before being named president at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Served in that role for nearly six years. Along the way, I was deeply involved with the CCCU for almost a quarter of a century, participated in every activity that they offer, I think, and served on the board for eight years and was board chair for two and worked with Shirley very closely on the new membership criteria back in 2014 and 2015. And so, she's a wonderful friend and I'm grateful for her leadership there, but several of us in 2019 began having conversations about how we could connect Christian education more broadly than just Christian colleges.

David Dockery:

The CCCU is primarily focused on liberal arts colleges and liberal arts-based universities. And so, we started having conversations with K-12 entities, with Bible colleges, with some gap year programs and seminary leaders, including seminary where you serve and found that we were all facing very similar challenges. And so, a kind of a loose-knit coalition network came together under this umbrella called an Alliance, the International Alliance for Christian Education that connects all sectors of Christian education with the goal of unifying, strengthening, synergizing our work so that we can link arms together and try to address some of the challenges today. Our role is not so much a public square role as is that at the CCCU. We see our role more as enabling campuses doing the work of faculty development, leadership development, those kinds of opportunities. So, we've only been in business now for about 15 months compared to the 45 years of the CCCU, but we hope we can make a contribution to the overall work of Christian education in this country and around the world.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So, the International Alliance really deals with education at all levels. That's actually news to me. I had thought it was exclusively either colleges or universities.

David Dockery:

No, we have K-12 institutions, Bible colleges, Christian colleges, and universities, gap year programs and a double handful of seminaries.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Oh, wow. Well, so let me turn to you Shirley and ask this. Most people when they think of the CCCU think about, "Well, it's just a group of like-minded Christian schools that get together and make an effort to network on the level of Christian education at the higher ed level." But actually, you do more than that. When you said your goal is to represent the schools in the public square, talk about what that is? Because I think that for a lot of people, they won't understand that part of the CCCU.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Thank you, Darrell. The landscape has changed around how people feel about religious organizations. I think we would all agree about that. And so, one of the things that is very distinctive about Christian higher education is that we have counter-cultural views, historic, Orthodox views about human sexuality and about some other issues, along with this idea of discipling students, shaping students so that their hearts and minds and bodies all are more Christ-like after four years than before. And so, one of the things that we realized especially, maybe starting 10 years ago is that when we would go to the Congress, the Senate, the House, people didn't really understand what and who Christian colleges and universities were, but they were making a lot of regulations. Higher education is very highly regulated. And so we thought, "We really need this, tell the story of all of the marvelous things that Christian colleges are doing, both in their cities. They're indispensable in small towns and in large towns, we're training up the next level of leadership for the world."

 Shirley Hoogstra:

It is a service-based kind of education where we know that it is not me first, but God first. So, we tell the story in the last, oh, I would say six or seven years. We have really been able to place the story, Second Chance Pell, prison education, immigration reform. Now we're working on vaccination kinds of opportunities into the public square so that you need to be something that people want to protect. So, one of the things that we do is we preserve, protect and advance Christian education. But if the culture at large doesn't understand the contribution of Christian colleges and universities, they're not going to want to protect it as much. And in addition to that, we do professional development at all levels of key leaders on our campuses. So communications, key leadership development, and then of course the advocacy work, which is so foremost now and especially under the President Biden administration.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Yeah. And the thing that I find interesting... People may or may not know that I serve on the Wheaton board is the amount of inner city work, and that kind of thing, as students are gaining experience on how to deal with different life problems that society faces, that kind of thing, that many schools are very, very committed to as a part of their service.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

We have a stat that shows that Christian college students do more service-learning work than any other college student in the nation. And of course, that comes out of our theology of love for God.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Yeah, exactly. So, I think this is very, very important. And then David, of course, part of Christian ed is walking into these spaces and thinking about how to walk into these spaces. So, when you're thinking about this from a Christian education point of view, I take it, you see these involvements that Shirley just outlined as pretty important to what a Christian might be regardless of their vocation in terms of the training that they come out of a Christian college or university with?

David Dockery:

Well, I think it's extremely important and I think it must be a priority for our calling, not only to think in terms of cultural engagement, but as you have so well-described, we need cultural intelligence and ways that allow us to participate in the culture with kindness, civility, bringing neighbor love into the conversation in ways that allow us to live out the great commandment as we seek to be salt and light and have a positive impact on communities in which we are involved.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Okay-

 Shirley Hoogstra:

And you know this-

Dr. Darrell Bock:

... Go ahead.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Darrell, you know this already, but Dr. Dockery is one of the foremost experts on worldview, Christian worldview and how that applies in the curriculum and on campuses and he, as you know, has written numerous volumes about that and is such a leader. And that's why the CCCU honored him at our 2018 international event with an award because of his profound contribution to just that topic.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Well, and this is part of the reason why I took so much time introducing both of you is because you don't walk into this space as novices. You have been committed to representing Christian institutions at an institutional level well, and have been deeply involved in organizations that have done that. And so, it's important for people to realize the experience that you bring to this conversation. Well, I'm going to do a hard turn now. I don't know whether I characterized as a hard turn to the right or to the left, but I'm going to do a hard turn now into the Equality Act itself, which is a current piece of legislation, which at least in the note that I have passed the House in February on February 25th which means that it's now sitting in the Senate. And what most people don't realize is that the Equality Act is actually, and I'm not a lawyer, so hopefully I get this right, is actually a bill that amends existing legislation, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which of course is one of the most significant pieces of legislation probably ever passed in the history of our Congress.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

And it is designed... Well, I'll just read the summary that I have here that comes from congress.gov. "This bill prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity in areas including public accommodation, facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system. Specifically, the bill defines and includes sex, sexual orientation and gender identity among the prohibited categories of discrimination or segregation. The bill expands the definition of public accommodations to include places and or establishments that provide one, exhibitions, recreation, exercise, amusement, gatherings, or displays. Two, good services or programs, and three, transportation services. The bill allows the Department of Justice to intervene in equal protection actions in federal court on account of sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill prohibits an individual from being denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room and a dressing room. And that is in accordance with the individual's gender identity."

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So that is the bill as written and passed in its current form. I think it's built off a larger bill that actually has the detailed amendments to the Civil Rights Act in it that was discussed in the previous Congress. Well, in the 2019 to 2020 Congress, the 116th Congress, this is the 117th Congress bill H.R.5. So, let's just dive in. Shirley, I'll let you go first. Tell us about this act and why the CCCU is concerned about it?

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Yes. So, I think most Christians who value religious liberty would agree that the Equality Act as written is one of the most devastating bills to come into Congress in terms of trying to strip out the religious exemptions that have been part really of our society since the beginning of the nation. And why it is dangerous is it takes the 1964 Civil Rights Act and then it overlays it with an expansion of sexual orientation and gender identity civil rights. But it's one thing to want civil rights for a group of individuals. And what we need to remember is that the Supreme Court has already been granting these civil rights in court cases. So, the Equality Act actually is in tandem with some of the recent court cases in particular, the Bostock case, Bostock versus Clayton County, which was decided in May of 2020, actually gave hiring rights in civil rights to LGBTQ people, which is also part of the Equality Act.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

And what we are in dismay about with the Bostock decision is the fact that it said there are religious exemptions, but it just said these are going to clash. So, here's why the Equality Act is dangerous for your listeners just really on a basis of everyday sort of working relationships that you have if you're a person of faith. First of all, it affects Title VI. And that is about funding. In Title VI, there is very few exemptions. And so, if you have an honor code, the Equality Act would pass and you have an honor code or a student life code that holds to traditional morality standards on marriage and sexuality, and you did not change your standards after the Equality Act was passed as written, you would actually lose potentially your federal funding. That is all your Pell Grants, your guaranteed student loans, it's really billions of dollars.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

The other thing the Equality Act would do is under Title VIII, the Equality Act does not protect religious housing standards. So of course our schools have standards for men and for women, they have separate institutions. They allow for more privacy, we have no alcohol or drugs, that sort of thing, but the Title VIII protections would be undercut. And then of course, employment lawsuits because of religious hiring, which I said in Title VII. The Equality Act allows lawsuits based on religious hiring and religious standards. So, we all know that Christian colleges and universities and other organizations hire individuals that fit with their religious standards and those things will all be affected. But in a major way, it also eliminates what's called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which in the Bostock case we had as Justice Gorsuch, that it is an uber statute, meaning that it is the sort of legal theory under which organizations such as the Hobby Lobby stores brought a claim that said, "My religious conscience should be able to have a place in American society."

 Shirley Hoogstra:

So, the Equality Act is looking to advance LGBT civil rights, but to minimize or eliminate the current kinds of religious protections that exist in law.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Okay. David, anything you want to add to that? And then I'm going to kind of walk through the history of religious exemption briefly. So, anything you want to add to what Shirley said?

David Dockery:

Shirley's description was excellent. I would add that also it would affect Title IX, the definition of sex by turning, you understand a biological sex into sexual identity or sexual orientation or gender identity, therefore broadening the understanding of the definition of sex and in doing so H.R. 5 or the Equality Act creates a protected class for people who are experiencing a same-sex attraction or gender discordance. And the reason that Shirley can say that the Equality Act has been called the most invasive threat to religious liberty of any kind of legislation that has come along, it's because it's the first piece of legislation in American history that does not seek to protect religious freedom in any aspect of the legislation.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Okay. So, let me, let me... Go Ahead, go ahead-

David Dockery:

It's really hard to comprehend. First piece of legislation in our entire history that does not seek to protect religious freedom in any aspect.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Now, Shirley mentioned that the religious freedom part of our society has existed from the founding of our nation. So, it's in the Bill of Rights. So, that's the first point. It's been protected and defended throughout our history and for the most part at the legal level and at the legislative level. Shirley alluded to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which I believe passed the Senate with something like a 97 to 3 vote. It was a extreme majority vote, if I remember correctly, do I have... And-

David Dockery:

That's right. Unanimously in Congress.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

... Sorry.

David Dockery:

It passed unanimously in the House.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Yeah. And this is 1993. So, what is that? 7 and 21 I got to do quick math, 28 years ago.

David Dockery:

Introduced by Congressman Chuck Schumer and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Yeah. So, you think about that. Well, one of the things that the Equality Act would do is to not provide any protection to claims made under the Equality Act. I think Shirley referred to it as an uber legislative piece. And so that gets taken away as well. So, really in the Bostock decision, as she mentioned, notes that there is a clash here and that the decision if I remember correctly, the Bostock decision doesn't resolve that clash. It simply says it's there. And in effect whispering very, very quietly, "And we know it's coming." That there is around the corner, this challenge that might be coming in which religious liberty and discrimination law are on a one-track path as trains heading in opposite directions towards one another. Is that a fair characterization? And Shirley, I'm going to ask you that question because you're also a lawyer, which means I could have botched what I just summarized on the one hand so you get the chance to correct it or, and, or you can comment on what I'm raising.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Yeah, you did a good job with that, Darrell. Here's what this whole story shows us. It's a 30-year story of when Chuck Schumer as Dr. Dockery said, and Ted Kennedy pushed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which restored actually an understanding about the place of religious liberty after Justice Scalia had ruled against its application more broadly. And so they were trying to fix something that the Supreme Court had done, and they did it overwhelmingly because they recognize the importance of protecting religious entities. Now fast forward 30 years, and there are bills in Congress in addition to the Equality Act that actually want to say, "We are not going to proactively protect by these statues the religious." And it really is a sense of proactive protection.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Now, we do not get rid of our constitutional protections, right? But what we know is that when you have a statute plus a constitutional protection, you have the best possible interpretation by the Supreme Court. That has been proven over and over again. When the Supreme Court has a statute plus, and the Equality Act, people know this, right? So, they are looking to give what they would say an equal playing field, what we would say is given where culture is at, now a minimized playing field for the religious freedom goals that people might have in this country.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So the challenge is that there's been a significant... Well, I think the reason we're here that we have to recognize it's a part of this 30-year story is there's been a significant cultural shift-

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Yes.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

... in the perception of these categories and in the understanding of these categories, a debate that exists, et cetera, and one of the dangers, and I'm going to throw a theory at you and let you all play with it. One of the dangers in disputes about rights, when certain people have not had certain rights is that when they gain those rights and they gain access to them, the danger is the pendulum swings in the opposite way and the risk is the people from whom the perception is the rights were gained or won from now end up being on the other end of the hard edge and risk being put in a position of a minority status and the suffering what the minority used to suffer from. It seems to me that we are moving rapidly in that direction. And Christians are the object of that target. And not just Christians, but also other people who have religious reasons for being hesitant about the overall recognition of these spaces in spaces that include their religious convictions.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

I've tried to do that gently and as descriptively as I can. Again, is that the 30-year cultural story that we're up against?

David Dockery:

I think you've described it well, Darrell and I think we're exactly at that point. And along the way, several things have happened in the public conversations that have helped to push us in this direction, in addition to legislation and Supreme Court decisions. But one of my favorite sociologists over the past 30 years was Peter Berger, the brilliant thinker at Boston University, who for years told us about changes that were taking place regarding secularization, moralization. I think we paid attention to him when he talked about those two things, but a third part of his conversation equally important was the rise of privatization. And so what we have now is those who affirm the Equality Act say that they do so without taking away the place of faith or the place of religion, but it's because their definition of faith or religion is limited to a private act and does not include the public aspect of religion as we would understand it, of living out one's faith, whether Muslim, Jew, Roman Catholic or Evangelical.

David Dockery:

And so, the privatization issue undergirds and underscores this entire conversation, or a way that people can both affirm the Equality Act and say that they're not harming religion or religious freedom.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

And of course, the hard part of this is that whether you have a religion or not, you're a citizen of the country. And if you form an organization that is around your religious beliefs as a group, you've deprivatized that discussion by being involved with a group. And that group has as much right of protection as that group as any other group does. Is that, again, I'm trying not to oversimplify this, but it seems to me that that's a pretty simple idea that actually walks into the very space that we're talking about.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

There's such a long history of the religious sector in the public square that is really undeniable. And so I would like to make sure we don't concede that point. David made a very good point in this and you have to listen when people speak, whether they say the right to worship. So anytime you hear the phrase, the right to worship, they're signaling exactly what David mentioned, which is we're not taking away your right to worship. We're not going to impose on your churches, but we aren't going to let you live out your faith convictions if it clashes with a predominant cultural idea that is current today. Now, I think that there's a lot of room for us preserving that religious expression and culture, because actually as Christians, we don't ever take off our coat of Christianity. We bring our whole self and here are some positive things that are happening and there's a number of businesses who know that religion is important.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Some of them that you think, "My goodness, they're so progressive." But they have started employee affiliation groups in their companies because they know that when people of like faith gather together, there's actually a plus to that. And the other thing that this conversation asks us to examine is whether or not we believe that there's LGBTQ discrimination. And actually, we can differ on that and their stories, their individual stories about whether there are or aren't. But in the Bostock case, the court found discrimination in hiring. They had three examples and they actually said, "LGBTQ people are discriminated in housing." And that's why they set up a new definition of sex. So, we have a conservative court that makes that finding. And then as Christians, we should ask ourselves, "How have we responded to a group of people that feel that they are discriminated against?" Just that question.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Do Christians want to be involved with making a remedy if you have been discriminated against? Now, to your example, Darrell, what we don't want to do is have that pendulum swing and say, "Well, maybe there is according to the Supreme Court, a need to address discrimination," but you don't throw the other aspects that have made the culture so excellent away, because there is a potential clash. You need to work for each other even with deep differences.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So, I've got about a dozen different ways I could go in where we are in the conversation, but let me try this one. Isn't one of the challenges that is a part of this conversation, the fact that someone out of a secular background, out of their own worldview has very little space for religion and sees very little value in religion? Okay? Whereas the person who occupies a religious space and now I'm being generic, I'm not just talking about Christianity sees that as being central to the way they view life and the world. And so not only is there a collision between religious liberty, if I can say it that way and discrimination, but the track is crowded. Okay. Because I've got a secular train and a religious train that are headed in the same opposite directions on the same track.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Yeah.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Is that, and so all the characterization language about homophobia and other things that come up when this gets raised, I think come out of that space as well as the discrimination and religious liberty space. Is that, again a fair way to summarize kind of what we're up against and why the discussion becomes so difficult between the various factions that are involved in this? David I'll let you take that one.

David Dockery:

Yeah, I think you've described it well. It's exactly what you do and your cultural intelligence book, and it is the way that for us to understand why there are these differences in the culture and give us the kind of a pause button so that we can at least understand how we got here and why these conversations are taking place. Without understanding what you just described, there is no way, there's no place for us to move in for some kind of engagement.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So, the question is can people who live and orient their life secularly and people who live and orient their life religiously exist mutually in a society? In the end, we've got to figure that out, right?

David Dockery:

There has to be a place for principal pluralism of some kind in our culture. It has been embedded within this conversation for over 200 years. I think we have assumed it without necessarily articulating it or understanding that it was there.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

And then another challenge in this, and then I'll come to you, Shirley. Another challenge in this has been that culturally, we have probably been in one place in our past, but we may not be in that same place now, that's that 30-year story that we just went through.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's right.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

And so that additional adjustment is another factor. I don't know, I've been working with the metaphor of the railroad tracks. I don't know if we're on railroad tracks with this or what surrounding the railroad tracks and where we're headed. But the point is that that shift has changed the nature of the conversation sufficiently that the conversation itself has changed significantly. Am I right Shirley, about that?

 Shirley Hoogstra:

It certainly has. And this idea of a principal pluralism or something that I've been working on with others around covenantal pluralism, this idea that you do have to be intentional about saying something that might have been implicit is now has to be made explicit.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

 Shirley Hoogstra:

And the explicit nature of it is that, you know what? We have deep differences and I cannot view you as my enemy. And I don't want you to view me as your enemy. We have to find ways to actually acknowledge the deep difference, but not try to extinguish each other. Actually, we need to, because of virtues that we hold dear in America, hold dear in our faith, people hold dear as good individuals, good citizens, respect, humility, protection. We need to operate those virtues for the wellbeing of others, without the need of compromising our own beliefs. The United States is not a church where you have a governance function where you have all of the freedoms to say, "This is what we believe." In America, this idea of covenantal or principle pluralism is really the answer going forward. And so, something that has been percolating for a while, I think as Christians, we need to be champions for this idea of holding onto our beliefs, recognizing deep differences, and then saying, "We're going to find ways that you're not disadvantaged and we are not disadvantaged."

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Yeah. I think about all kinds of analogies as you raise this. And that is that the church itself is supposed to be a place where people gather together because they share certain religious and moral convictions that don't exist generally. So, it's a special space. I like to call it a sacred space because that's, in one sense what it is. In one sense, God is in every space and so every space is sacred, but there's a sense in which the church is not the world, thinking biblically, is not the world and it's a special place for people who are committed to walking with God can do that and do that well. The analogy that comes to mind is the way many minorities have to function in a majority culture in which they function in the culture at large, but you see them gather together in spaces that they get to define and to some degree control in the midst of their existence, that allows them to be all who they are as opposed to the way they have to function perhaps when they're in general society.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

And so, thinking through that at least as a working model, I think is an important part of this conversation. David, what do you think about this idea of... What was it Shirley? You didn't use the word principled pluralism.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Covenantal pluralism.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Covenantal pluralism. What do you think of this idea, David?

David Dockery:

Well, I think we're talking about something very similar.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Yeah, we are.

David Dockery:

Just perhaps using different adjectives to describe the recognition of the place of pluralism within our society. And I think that your analogy about a minority culture functioning within a minority culture is a good word for us as Evangelical Christians, recognizing that we probably have to think in terms of being a cognitive and cultural minority as we function in the culture moving forward.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Okay. Well, we're coming up to the end of our time. I had a second part of this I was going to do that I'm going to abandon because there's no way to get into it adequately in the time that we have left. So, I think what I want to do is if you each could say one thing of significance to people who are hearing this conversation about the Equality Act, the nature of the challenge, the Equality Act, et cetera, what would that be? And what advice would you give to people as they think about this space? And David, I'll let you go first and I'll let Shirley follow.

David Dockery:

I think I would want fellow believers, and by that, I would say people of faith, Muslims, Jews, and Christians, to understand the impact of the Equality Act on all aspects of life and particularly how it might influence education and benevolence organizations. It is directed in such a way that it is impossible to think about our mission, our legal standing, finances, funding, cultural impact in the same way should the Equality Act move forward. And therefore, I think it is a reason for us all to join together and provide a common voice to educate our friends, colleagues, fellow brothers and sisters to understand the significance of this legislation that is currently sitting in the judiciary committee in the Senate.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Shirley-

David Dockery:

While continuing to live out our faith in a very faithful way, demonstrating neighbor love and showing kindness in every opportunity we have as we participate in this conversation.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

Right. Well, I concur with what David said, and I would add this. You need to be involved with your legislator and express your disagreement with the passage of the Equality Act if it doesn't take into consideration all of the ways that religion plays such an important role in society, and then ask your church, sit down with your church group and say, "What are the stories that we can share about the work of Christian organizations that really make a difference? The number of hospital beds that are in Christian organizations, the way in which Christians are always at the relief sites." I think they said in Texas, although this wasn't... I said about Texas and one of the major hurricanes, it was actually faith-based relief that provided the most effective services to people who are stranded in that situation. We need to talk about the service-learning aspects of Christian colleges and universities.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

The fact that we serve first-generation students in a much higher percentage. That we're affordable education. But then we also have to look at the Gospel Rescue Missions. We have to look at the publishing houses, but we have to tell the story, not just about LGBTQ difference, but tell the story about the positive influence of faith outside of the church. And then they will get a reason to say, "You know what? We really don't want to eliminate, here, take this, school lunches. School lunches in the Jewish schools, the Christian schools, the Catholic schools, of all of those schools, student lunches would not be allowed anymore." Do you know how many schools are feeding the hungry? And they should not vote for that. You do not want to take school lunches out of the mouths of hungry children. That's the kind of story we need to share.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

Well, this has been a fascinating discussion. Part of the discussion we didn't have that we may want to come back to down the road is okay, if not the Equality Act then what? But for now, I think giving people kind of a overview of kind of why this is an important conversation, what's at stake, the nature of the opposing forces that are aligned and why it's important to get those tensions on the table, and to some degree pursue a way of trying to sort it out is an important thing to be saying to people at what is certainly a most challenging time and has been a most challenging time for our country in this space now for several years in a context that we have as we've documented has shifted significantly over the last 30 years. So, I want to thank you, Shirley and David for helping us kind of negotiate this space. And hopefully, this has been helpful to people I want to thank you for taking the time with us, that you have.

 Shirley Hoogstra:

So grateful to be with you, grateful to be with you, David.

David Dockery:

It's a privilege indeed. Blessings to both of you.

Dr. Darrell Bock:

So, I want to thank you for being a part of The Table today on this topic. If you are interested in subscribing to the show, wherever you listen to podcasts, please feel free to do that. If you want to leave a review about how you found this conversation helpful, that's helpful to us. We look forward to having you again on The Table, where we discuss issues of God and culture.

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