HOUSTON—The U.S. Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit heard arguments April 7 from lawyers representing two Texas Baptist universities demanding an exemption from the Health and Human Services contraceptive mandate and the “draconian fines” levied for non-compliance. In a press conference outside the U.S. court house in Houston, representatives for the schools said their identity as Christian institutions and financial solvency is threatened by the government’s demands.

A federal judge in December 2013 ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, East Texas Baptist University and Houston Baptist University, exempting the schools from compliance with the U.S. Health and Human Services mandate requiring employers to provide for their employees insurance coverage for contraceptives, including abortifacients. The federal government appealed, forcing the universities to continue to defend in court their identity as Christian institutions.

“It’s not just a simple matter. It’s not only a theological matter, as important as that is today, or only a matter of a sincerely held religious belief,” HBU president Robert Sloan told reporters outside the courthouse following the hearing.

“In some ways our right to exist as an institution to hold these beliefs and perhaps even our very survival as a whole is at stake.”

Sloan said East Texas Baptist University and Houston Baptist University v. Burwell “is clearly a matter of religious freedom.” HBU’s Christian underpinning and pro-life values “are not incidental” but “core convictions at the very heart of the Christian faith,” and compulsory violation of those convictions by the federal government is unconscionable.

“When somebody comes and tells me that my school has to do something it doesn’t want and it’s infringing on [the] rights given to it by the very supreme law of the land my heart breaks,” HBU freshman Jasmine Kelley told the TEXAN following the press conference. The government major was among a handful of HBU students who attended the press conference in defense of their school.

Attorney Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, defended the two universities in the case. The non-profit law firm defends the religious expression of people from a variety of faiths and, most notably, successfully defended the craft store giant Hobby Lobby before the U.S. Supreme Court against the same mandate.

 “We’re in court today because [the universities] have been put to a terrible choice between following their most deeply held religious convictions and paying outlandish fines,” Rassbach said.

The non-compliance penalty of $100 per employee per day totals $12 million and $8 million a year, respectively, for HBU and ETBU. Scores of other private religious institutions around the country are in the same fight, and at least one of those cases will likely end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Our clients have a religious objection to abortions,” said Rassbach. “They don’t want to pay for abortions. They don’t want to help people get abortions. They are not looking to impose their will on anyone else. They just don’t want to be involved,” said Rassbach.

He argued the compliance exemption afforded churches should also apply to all religious institutions like his clients. The imposition of government requirements antithetical to a religious institution’s mission also  illustrates the need for religious liberty legislation on the state and federal level.

But in recent weeks religious liberty laws have come under fire. Legislatures in Indiana, Arkansas and about 10 other states including Texas are drafting laws giving legal protection to individuals and businesses against government intrusion in matters of religious convictions.  The religious liberty laws do not codify an individual’s or business’s “right to discriminate” as charged by detractors.

Jonathan Saenz, an attorney and president of Texas Values, told the media, “The reason we are here today is because we have a federal law called the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act … that gives private, religious institutions a fighting chance in court when the government comes calling.”

Rassbach said Becket Fund attorneys have relied on the federal RFRA law in all of arguing its cases across the nation.

“It never occurred to me that the government would try to force HBU to change its mission,” said Morgan St. John, an HBU senior education major.

Joshua Jones, a senior government major, said he has seen the devastation caused by abortion and will fight any government mandate that makes him or his school complicit in its administration.

Mon ‘Sher Preston agreed. The HBU alumnus and director of student involvement and leadership told the TEXAN she was encouraged by the students’ willingness to take a stand on behalf of their convictions and their university.

In its effort to force religious entities to comply with the mandate, the government has put itself in the position of determining what institutions are and are not guided by deeply held religious convictions, Rassbach explained.

“It sets a very dangerous precedent,” Rassbach said, “for the government to come in and say, ‘Well, we just don’t think you’re really religious.’”

He said the government can ferret out fraud,“but what they can’t do is question the validity of those beliefs.”

Asked if the universities could fulfill the mandate by hiring a second party to administer the contraceptive mandate, Rassbach said, “There is nothing wrong with having some insurance regulation, but when you say we have to go out and get an insurance company that is going to provide this stuff we’re morally complicit. You don’t just say we have to outsource our consciences to somebody else.”

He said the circuit judges were very engaged during oral arguments Tuesday and asked “very penetrating questions of all parties.”

“I’m hopeful that we will have another ruling in our favor,” he said. “We were right back in December of 2013. And we’re right today. And we’re going to be right again tomorrow.”

I’ve jokingly told friends that Texas will be the Alamo—a place for a last stand—for social conservatives in America. I was joking, but I wasn’t kidding. Conservatives in Texas can see Santa Anna’s scouts on the horizon. Already we’ve lost skirmishes in Houston, San Antonio and Plano as the combination of cynical politicians and low voter turnout gave those significant cities ordinances to ensure privileged status to some based on their sexual behavior or self-determined gender(s). Five pastors in Houston had sermons and correspondence with church members subpoenaed by the city administration because the pastors protested the ordinance. And of course we’ve had the usual selection of cheerleaders being forbidden from putting Bible verses on banners, nativity scenes being banned from county courthouses and other “mundane” challenges to the religious practice of citizens.

These things have occurred even though Texas already has a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which requires a “compelling governmental interest” before “substantially burdening a person’s free exercise of religion.” The “equal rights” ordinances being passed in Texas cities will substantially burden the religious liberty of those who do not celebrate the triumph of sexual license in our culture. I frankly believe they were intended to do so. And our RFRA will not protect us any more than it restrained the Houston city attorney from threatening pastors with legal action because of what they preached.

Christians may win future legal fights regarding their exercise of religion, but we will be challenged because the laws are in place to challenge our rights, and no one has declared equal rights laws unconstitutional. Those ordinances are contrary to the spirit of the constitution, but we need the letter of our rights spelled out.

We’re not surprised then that the issue of religious liberty arose in this session of the Texas legislature. Senator Donna Campbell has introduced SJR 10 with the intent of adding what is essentially the language of RFRA to the Texas constitution. “Secular Texas,” an organization whose name says it all, sees a threat to the anti-religious aspects of the equal rights ordinances. They call Senator Campbell’s bill “redundant” but also a threat to the city ordinances … so maybe it’s not redundant. Its inclusion in the state constitution may give religious liberty a status not currently respected by some local politicians.

Representative Scott Sanford of McKinney has introduced HB 3567 aimed at ensuring the rights of churches and clergy to decline participation in ceremonies that violate “sincerely held religious belief.” This threat to the religious practice of churches and pastors is imaginable rather than imaginary. Representative Sanford is perhaps helping Houston, Plano and San Antonio understand the limits of equal rights ordinances that will sprout unintended consequences like spring dandelions. It is also a statement that evangelical Christians do not really trust the good intentions of anti-religious people who talk a lot about toleration and freedom. It is easy to imagine that we are not to be the objects of toleration when push comes to shove, as it already has in Houston.

I’ve said this before, but it’s pertinent here: There is a difference between freedom of worship and religious liberty. Any secularist will allow us the right to go into our buildings, shut the door and preach what he considers foolishness. Sure, they may want to ban us from some neighborhoods, forbid us from renting school property on the same basis as other community groups, tax our land and receipts, and maybe remove our children from such toxic nonsense, but for now we can affirm what we want in private. However on Monday through Saturday, we’d better toe a rationalist line if we want to teach science in public schools, supervise people in public service, do business with the city of San Antonio or bake wedding cakes.

It’s not an overreaction to introduce legislation in advance of harsh curtailments of religious liberty. It isn’t redundant to make constitutional a right that the effort’s critics say is not really being challenged anyway. It is being challenged, and we see a shift in culture moving our direction. Was it premature for William Travis to fortify broken walls at the Alamo and range his big guns before Santa Anna was even in sight? Of course not. He knew the fight was coming, and he’d heard the nature of the war as it had already played out in other places. The last year in Texas has given biblical Christians a reason to brace themselves for an attack. We can argue about how imminent that attack may be, but it is delusional to deny that religious liberty is at least being threatened. These two bills in the Texas legislature deserve our support. We’ll need them sooner or later.

The thirst for spiritual awakening continues to express itself through the SBTC’s regional Pastor Prayer Gatherings across our state. We are not quite at the halfway point of praying in all of Texas’ 18 regions, yet we have experienced powerful times of prayer. I encourage you to make every effort to be a part of the prayer for spiritual awakening coming to your area.

I sometimes have difficulty understanding the balance, timing and relationship between obedience and blessing. It’s sort of like the chicken/egg dilemma; which came first? Do times of blessing bring obedience or does obedience bring times of blessing? To bring that dilemma to the issue of revival, renewal and awakening, does obedience introduce times of awakening or does awakening result in seasons of obedience? To believe that we are to pray and sit around until the fire falls before we step into obedience fails to pass the “smell test.” However, going out on our own without the power and presence of the Holy Spirit to make us successful woefully falls short as well.

It seems we cannot have one without the other; both are somewhat simultaneous. We pray and obey while we trust the Spirit to be at work. As Southern Baptists we have a built-in mechanism to help us on the obedience side. We call it the Cooperative Program. Let me explain.

The promise of our Lord in the Great Commission to be with us always is connected to the premise that we should always be involved in making disciples of all nations. Should we expect the presence, power and provision of the Holy Spirit if our lives and ministries are not attached to making disciples of the nations? I think not. God is not about making any of us successful or famous but about making his son famous. As we embark on the same track, he will be with us.

Make no mistake about it. The Cooperative Program is about making disciples. For those of us who attended a Southern Baptist seminary, it helped us financially. For those on the mission field, it pays their way (Ask any missionary, and they’ll be quick to tell you). We are in a season during which the Cooperative Program is under scrutiny by those wishing to make it better. I’m all for it. There are also those who wish to radically change it. If there is a better way for us to fund the ministries of disciple making than what we have undertaken together through our state and national conventions, I’m all for that as well. But until that way is discovered, I’m all in for CP. I encourage you to get all in as well.

Every spiritual awakening has been preceded by prayer and obedience. There have been no spiritual awakenings that did not produce lasting results from obedience by those touched by the quickening of the Spirit. As we continue to pray and obey, and as awakening comes, I am convinced that one of the lasting results will be a great increase in the amount of our offerings given to ministries that are making disciples of the nations. Our mechanism, our delivery system is in place. We call it the Cooperative Program. 

Local pastors in Southern Baptist churches, state conventions spread across the country and the president of the Southern Baptist Convention are declaring an increased confidence in the Cooperative Program. If the first quarter report of contributions to the SBC CP Allocation Budget is indicative of a trend, the ministries and missions Southern Baptists value stand to gain greater funding.

Year-to-date contributions received by the SBC Executive Committee for the Cooperative Program totaled $64,702,035 between October 2014 and January of this year. That represents an amount that is 4.97 percent above contributions over the same time period a year earlier.

The convention-adopted budget is distributed 50.41 percent to international missions through IMB, 22.79 percent to North American missions through NAMB, 22.16 percent to theological education, 2.99 percent to the SBC operating budget, and 1.65 percent to the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

A 2014 survey conducted by the SBC Executive Committee shows an increase in confidence among pastors that the Cooperative Program supports ministries and missions valued by their churches—moving up to 81 percent from 73 percent in a 2012 survey that asked the same questions of pastors.

On the state level, 23 state Baptist conventions have increased the portion of Cooperative Program receipts forwarded to Southern Baptist Convention missions and ministries this year, moving toward the goal of a 50/50 allocation between state convention causes and SBC causes. That demonstrates continuation of an upward trend spanning several years.

The Baptist Convention of Iowa and the Nevada Baptist Convention joined the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention as the only state conventions that forward half or more of CP receipts from local churches to the SBC without a “shared ministries” calculation. The SBTC, formed in 1998 with a 50/50 division from the start, moved to allocating 55 percent of undesignated receipts to the SBC in 2008.

SBC President Ronnie Floyd of Springdale, Ark., told a luncheon crowd at the SBTC Empower Conference that the story has never been better in terms of what is happening through giving to the Cooperative Program.

“We need to celebrate that we are reaching the unreached peoples internationally. We are strategically planting gospel churches nationally and internationally. We are preparing the next generation of pastors, missionaries and scholars effectively. We are extending compassion through hunger and disaster relief ministry dynamically. We are engaging the culture, always lifting high the cause of religious liberty globally.”

Floyd challenged those present to return to their churches, telling the story of what God is doing. “Give them the vision of reaching Texas, reaching America, reaching the world for Christ, and I’m telling you they’ll buy into that.”

Connection Community Church in Rowlett bought into the value of the Cooperative Program from the day the church was planted in November of 2010. Growing from 31 people meeting in a house to an average attendance of 475 to 500, Pastor Shane Pruitt sees the congregation as a child of the Cooperative Program.

“Somewhere some church in south Texas gave to the Cooperative Program and invested in these lives that are being changed here in Rowlett,” Pruitt said.

“It’s in the DNA of our church that we realize we are a beneficiary of CP giving and see the benefit of giving toward that so that the story can continue in other places in Texas and around the world.”