Get more information about HP for Christianity Business. And 530 free access to all five pictures of the Christian Fitness Review Journal by visiting our website at ChristianityFusiness.com. Today we're going to be discussing legal do's and don'ts of faith in the workplace. And we're joined by Doug Napier. Doug serves as the Senior Vice President for Alliance Relations for Alliance Defending Freedom International. And many of our listeners, I'm sure, will be familiar with Alliance Defending Freedom as ADF International, where he leads an international legal advocacy team engaged in defending religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family values. Doug joined the organization in 2007 to work with a network of thousands of Allied attorneys and eventually became the head of all litigation efforts in the U.S. Subsequently, he served in the role of Chief Alliance Officer where he focused on serving, strengthening, and expanding a strategic alliance throughout the world. He has conducted regional and national litigation training to help equip allied attorneys and other allies across the globe. He earned his JD in 1990 from the University of Iowa College of Law, where he graduated with distinction. He received a BA in finance at the University of Iowa in 1985 and graduated with an MA in Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1988. So very interesting that not only does he have a business degree and a law degree, but a seminary degree as well. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona with his wife Christy and two children. And I had the pleasure of meeting Doug recently at the Faith and Work Summit in Dallas, and he gave an incredible presentation on the topic that we're going to be discussing today. And it's an honor to have him on the show. Welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast, Doug.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you so much, Darren. It's a pleasure to be on your show.
SPEAKER_01You guys are doing incredible work all over the globe. And so as we get started into this topic of legal do's and don'ts of faith in the workplace, could you just give us kind of an update of where we are right now? What are some of the major trends related to court attitudes toward Christian faith expression in the business world specifically?
SPEAKER_00Well, sure. There's been an alarming increase in uh efforts to really uh keep faith out of the workplace. And this uh false dichotomy that if you are in business, for some reason you have to abandon uh your faith, uh, you have to abandon your constitutionally protected rights of free exercise of religion and this notion that business is somehow totally secular and that uh Christians uh really don't have a place in it. And we've seen that largely with the conflict between uh the uh uh identity politics and the sexual orientation agenda that has been pushed in recent years. Uh and of course, Christianity is one of the big obstacles as the truth of the gospel is one of those giant mirrors that reflects the uh really the moral uh erosion of the culture. Uh it it doesn't come as a surprise that the Christian message and the Christian character would be pushed out of the business sector as well. So we've seen a lot of that. We've litigated a lot of cases, we're currently litigating a lot of cases in this area, and we continue to stand in the corner of people who simply want to freely live out their faith, especially in the marketplace.
SPEAKER_01And for anyone who may not be familiar with uh Alliance Defending Freedom, uh, could you just give an idea of the impact that your organization is is making and uh specifically some of the cases that you're involved in right now in defense of Christians exercising their faith in the business world?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Well, by God's uh grace, we've uh we've been around by uh for nearly 24 years now, uh started in 1993, launched in 1994. Uh the founders uh included Bill Bright and D. James Kennedy and Dr. James Dobson and others. You really saw that a lot of these cases were being lost in the courts, not because we didn't have better arguments, but because we simply weren't showing up. And as we've uh watched over the last uh two decades, the the cases kind of ratchet up. We've had the privilege of being involved in over 50 cases at the United States Supreme Court and at various levels of the Court of Appeals and district courts and at the state level. And uh in recent years, where the issue of faith in the in the marketplace has come up, you know, i in some regards it was simply uh speech, whether or not people could go out and advocate for uh life or for uh uh the gospel, just the evangelism in uh certain marketplaces. And we've won the majority of those cases, our winning record, by God's grace, is uh over 75%. Uh we had the pleasure of being involved in the uh Hobby Lobby Conestoga Wood case that went to the United States Supreme Court, uh, where these companies were challenging uh the federal government's authority to force them to compromise their uh the deeply held religious views on life. And when the federal government was saying you must include in your insurance plans the coverage for abortion, abortion-causing drugs and devices, or face such stiff penalties that you essentially will go out of business if you don't comply. Uh those was one it was one of those uh moments in history where we thought something's got to give, and we'll render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but we are going to render to God what belongs to God. And so Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood plus uh about uh 20 other clients of ours stepped into the courtroom to say, you know, this doesn't belong to the federal government. You cannot cause cause uh or force us to compromise our faith simply to be in business. And uh we uh went all the way to the Supreme Court on that case, and the Supreme Court uh determined that uh we were right, our clients were right, and uh that was a huge victory and a huge encouragement to businesses to say that we can operate our businesses consistent with our faith and our biblical principles, and that's a great thing for America. It's certainly a great thing for Christians. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Thank God, thank God for that victory. What would be uh maybe another another example? Uh certainly there's the famous story of what's happening right now with the the owner of the the floral company. What's what's the latest on that?
SPEAKER_00Yes, uh that case was just presented to the Washington Supreme Court last week for oral argument. And and this is a case that has very uh interesting facts that often get missed by our liberal media. But Baronel Stutzman, uh, who's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, has uh been in the florist business for over 30 years. Uh she loves flowers, she loves people, and she had a customer named Rob Ingersoll, who she served for over 10 years, they became very good friends, and uh and she knew that he was involved in a homosexual relationship, uh, but she loved him with the love of Christ, and she uh served him as a customer and sold him a lot of flowers. Uh but when Washington State changed its laws to redefine marriage, uh, you know, it wasn't a big surprise that when he was going to uh have a same-sex ceremony that he would choose Baronel to do uh his flowers for him because they were such good friends. And she had to really consider, you know, is this something that I can take part in because of my faith in Christ and my desire to honor him with everything in my life and in my business. So she explained to Rob that uh she simply could not participate in a ceremony that is so sacred to her that the the marriage ceremony reflects God's love for his church, his bride, and that to participate in something that was not consistent with biblical principles would simply be dishonoring to Christ. And so she told him, she says, I can't do this. And there were so many other florists in the area that could accommodate him. Uh but the Attorney General of Washington State got wind of this and filed suit before there was even a complaint filed. Nobody had complained to the Attorney General, he just stepped in because of his own political agenda and brought a suit. And then Rob and his partner were uh pursued by the ACLU to file a separate lawsuit. But the the thing that people need to understand is that, you know, they say, well, you shouldn't discriminate against people because of sexual orientation. Well, she had a long track record of not refusing service to Rob because of his sexual orientation, quite the opposite. She served him uh quite willingly. But when it came down to her faith and her identity, that's when that the courts need to protect her right to operate according to her faith. I mean, there's so many uh illustrations that uh, you know, when you start thinking about you take the LGBT equation uh or element out of the equation, you think about you know Jewish delicatessens that shouldn't be forced to serve pork and uh and you know uh writers that shouldn't be forced to write on subjects that uh that they're opposed to. And there's a lot of creative arts out there uh that I think people can understand. I just in fact in the headlines recently there was a fashion designer that said she would not uh design any fashions for the new first lady uh Melania Trump. We thought, great, they have the right to not you to uh the right to not use their expressive skills to promote a message or cause that they uh fundamentally disagree with. That's just kind of the American way. But there seems to be a double standard when it's Christians who simply want to follow their biblical standards, and that's why we're praying for Baron Allen, her case, and many others that are in her same position.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, you got the example of PayPal and saying that we're not gonna go set up shop in North Carolina because of the ruling that they had made about the transgender bathrooms. And and they have, and I totally respect that. I think we should respect PayPal's right to make that decision on behalf of their of their company, as long as that's what their shareholders want. But you know, at the same time, my little small business, of course, it would make hardly any difference to PayPal with me saying, okay, I'm not gonna do business with PayPal, I'm gonna go find another uh service provider. Well, that's exactly what I did, according to my own conscience. And and I think the marketplace should be uh uh a place, if if there's any place we should be able to have that freedom of conscience, it should be in the marketplace. Um what's maybe another example of that it hasn't hasn't hit the news yet or uh that uh is really near and dear to your heart. I'm sure all the cases are, but um, what would be another one affecting a a business person right now?
SPEAKER_00Well, we have another uh uh business owner in Kentucky. It's called Hands-on Originals. And um Blaine, the owner there, uh again, one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, and he was approached to print uh t-shirts. He has a um uh screen printing operation. It makes custom uh embroidered and screen printed items. And he was asked to print t-shirts for a pro LGBT gay pride event. And again, he said, you know, I uh because of my faith, I'm I can't do this for you. I can't promote something that's contrary to my beliefs. And so he said, but you know, I've got a friend who has a similar operation, and I will call and I'll make sure that they uh honor the price. Um and uh and he was willing to make the arrangements for them, even to go to the extra mile. And it was one of those, again, those uh those double standard situations where they rather than respect that and say, you know, thank you. Well, you know, uh why would I want to do business with somebody who I don't agree with? Let them free market forces uh be employed here. And then the human rights uh commission director, uh, when asked if it was the other way around, if it had been a uh uh shop owned by a gay rights activist, and they were asked to print t-shirts that opposed gay rights, would that person have to print a shirt? He says, of course not. Uh so it's like, okay, so you understand the conflict here, but why do you not see it through the lens of objectivity rather than from uh this of, you know, again, double standard one-way ratchet that uh will penalize and punish Christians? Now, Blaine's case went up to the district court, and the court there uh clearly understood not only his free speech rights, but his free exercise rights. And that case is going up uh on appeal, and and we uh hope that that one will also turn out uh well for him. And eventually these cases are gonna reach the United States Supreme Court. And they're gonna have to really understand what our founders mean when they say we have the right to free exercise of our religion. Um and again, that was a recognition of a right. It wasn't the creation of a right, because our founders also recognize that we have these inalienable rights that are endowed by our creator, and therefore these are rights that uh preceded the Constitution, preceded government, and therefore they're they're God-given rights, which the government has no authority to take away. And I think the Supreme Court's gonna have to answer some of these questions uh in the coming uh years, and uh it'll probably be an ADF case that uh gets up there for the court to make the law on this issue.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, you know, the with all of these these cases and Christian business people hearing about the lawsuits, I mean, there's a lot of fear. I mean, b running a small business is hard enough without getting sued because of standing for your your your moral conscience. And and so what you've done and and and what ADF is doing uh is educating these business owners, educating pastors about what they what they can say, what they can do, business people, what they can do to express their faith in the workplace. What are some of the aspects of faith expression in the workplace that you found business leaders often didn't realize before you educated them what they were permitted to do legally speaking?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, the the the thing that I find uh both humorous and tragic is that the the left has uh pounded this drum and and recited this mantra of separation of church and state over and over again, that people have this notion that there is this clear separation of anything sacred uh in the secular environment, such as business. And of course, the misunderstanding of that notion uh has not only infected government and kind of the public square and the secular side of things, but it's also had this rather tragic impression on the Christian community and Christian business owners. And the idea of that there's there can't be any reference to Christianity or faith uh in a business, whether it's a large business, a publicly traded stock-owned company, or if it's a small business owned and operated by a Christian. And I think that one of the things that we have to overcome is, first of all, um uh that we remove the fear, because that's the tacti of the of the other side, is to instill this sense of fear, and the fear is usually based in misinformation or in intimidation, but not in truth. And so as we've looked at the law, and we say there's a lot of latitude here for Christian business owners and Christian business leaders to do an awful lot uh that is well within uh uh the kind of parameters of the law, and then there's some things they may want to do that can kind of push the law a little bit. But most of the stuff that we're telling people is these are things that are perfectly legal. We want to show them how to do it, how to do it wisely, uh, to do it respectfully and in a winsome way. Um as we say, we stupid for Jesus is still stupid, so we want to make sure that uh people um don't you know do things that are going to dishonor Christ. Um but uh but so we've developed a book that's on our website, it's a free down line download that's called Keeping Your Business Faithful. It talks about some of these things. People are free to download that, but I'd be happy to discuss a few of those examples with you for your listeners.
SPEAKER_01That would be wonderful.
SPEAKER_00Well, one of the things that uh very simple, and and one of the questions we get quite often is um you know, can we can we have Bible studies at a workplace? And and the simple answer is yes, you can. In fact, there are some Fortune 500 companies that have employee resource groups that allow Christians to get together, uh use you know company conference rooms and facilities to hold Bible studies. And they'll have all sorts of different groups. You know, they may have the you know the outdoor hikers groups. I mean, they can be uh identified by any sorts of kind of affinity groups. So uh why not let Christians get together that want to have a Bible study? And they say, well, yeah, but I'm I'm the president of the company. Can I participate in that? And the answer is, well, of course. Uh why would you be excluded simply because you own the company? Where we have to uh help people navigate is that uh one, you don't have to be uh you don't have to be ashamed of your faith, first of all, but you also don't have to be silent about it. Now, where the EEOC guidelines, that's the equal employment opportunity guidelines, or state non-discrimination statutes come into place, so you can't hire or fire on the basis of religion. So uh there are some exceptions that we can talk about a little bit. But in a general business uh where your business is not a religious base business, if you're selling hamburgers or whatever, you're not gonna hire or fire on the basis of whether or not somebody is a Christian or non-Christian or some other religion. But that doesn't prevent you from then uh explaining your faith or your values to your employees. You can have them spelled out in your handbook. You can even say why you have certain principles or practices in play in your business, uh, and it can be uh rooted in your faith. You just can't uh penalize somebody for not sharing your faith. Now you can have them share your values if it's you know honesty, integrity, and we're gonna serve our customers with respect. And those are you know all sorts of good values that you can employ in your businesses. Uh yeah, there and there's I mean, I can go on and on and on, so I'll I'll let you ask some questions.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, there's another another show that I do. One of the listeners reached out and and she actually came to the Faith and Works Summit and heard you speak. And well, she came from the Apple headquarters in Cupertino. And one of the interesting things was that Apple, the company, literally paid for her to come out to this Faith and Work conference, this Christian event. And because it was under their diversity budget. And and so I I guess the the the challenge with the Christian faith is if if uh if it's a small business owner and as part of the diversity budget, they would say, well, if you're gonna sponsor her to go out to you know, the Faith and Work Summit, you need to sponsor me to go out to like a Wicca convention or something like something like that. So I I guess you know, w what would be some of the maybe other other examples of things that companies are surprised that that they can do?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think um you know, I've had Christian business leaders say, you know, what if I want to share my faith with employees? Can I do that? And you know, essentially evangelize. Now, you can. And the answer is yes, you can. And I know one very prominent Christian employer who has thousands of employees who, after they've hired the employees, they have an orientation. And he brings them in for the orientation. It tells them a lot about the company and and their operations and the expectations they have from every team member. Um, but he says, I want to tell you about how I built up this company and what's important to me. He talks about his family, he talks about the business, but he talks about his faith. And he says, you know, we didn't hire you on the basis of your religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs, and we're not going to fire you on that basis. So he reassures them that, again, this is this is what fits within uh the parameters of hiring and firing laws. He says, but um I I want to give you insight about who I am and what I believe. And he sh he lays out the gospel and talks about his own personal story and how he was he he became a Christian. And the fruit from that has been tremendous. He's had um Christians who have recommitted their lives, he's had people who've come to faith as a result of that. And it's it's again, it's acceptable. Because the reality is that every company has a gospel of sorts. Every business leader, every president, and if you know joke about the gospel according to Google. If you look at their statements of principles or their statement of uh of operations, they have a mission statement of sorts. And so why would Christians be excluded for having one that is rooted in biblical values as opposed to other worldly values? And sometimes those values, quite frankly, um you can see companies that operate with values say, you know, those are actually biblical values. And they may say, no, no, that we we we didn't source the Bible with this, but God's truth, all truth is God's truth. And so you see pick up on these things, and we know what works in business. And it's for that reason why we really encourage uh business owners to recognize the value of promoting these kinds of things in the workplace, not only for the sake of uh evangelism, but also there's good business reasons for this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, if my memory serves me correctly, the mission statement of Chick-fil-A is to be faithful stewards of everything that God has entrusted to us. And I don't know if that's if that's because they're a private, a privately held company that they can do that, or because I know that Truett Caffey had made it very clear that he did not want them to go public because of what may happen to uh some of the um the the the Christian the Christian values that are embedded into the culture. Does something does something happen to companies when they go from private to public that just kind of uh puts them in a straitjacket in terms of how they express their faith in the workplace?
SPEAKER_00Well, it it it shouldn't have to, but yeah, the the thing that makes a bit of a difference here is that when you have a publicly traded company, that means that the ownership is is diluted because you have a whole bunch of different types of owners at that point. The shareholders are the owners of the company. So you have to be um uh perhaps more accountable to a broader, more diverse group. When you are the sole shareholder or the family owns the business and in a situation like uh uh Chick-fil-A, where they don't have they don't have a dissent among the ownership. And that was one of the points that was made by the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby case. They said the family-owned corporation, it is a corporation, and but simply because they're a corporation and it has a business entity that is a separate um you know uh personhood and under the law as opposed to the family, it can still reflect the values of its owners. Um but you know, again, uh I we sat down with a Fortune 100 company one time, not too long ago, because uh they were making some public comments that were quite frankly anti-faith and anti-Christian. And I said, you know, I I noticed that your company is very strong on its diversity policies. And you make that very clear that you accept everybody and every you know, everybody's view and and uh and that you want to be known as a company that supports diversity, which makes me really curious why you would single out people of faith as uh you know somebody to basically um discount or undermine, because that's a big portion of your demographic, not only your customer base, but also your team members. And I cited some statistics which I knew that they were aware of, that show that over 50% of their customer base and employee base were people of faith. So why would you want to alienate such a large sector of your base? And you know, they they backtracked and they said, Yeah, you're right, you know, that we do need to include this in our diversity, and we need to be much more mindful of this. So it was a good conversation, and this was with a you know a publicly traded company. Uh, so it can work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you know, Apple, Apple was one of those companies I found out from uh from this listener who came to the summit, and and she's actually in a leadership role in an officially recognized uh club in the company called the Apple Christian Fellowship. Yeah. And so maybe somebody's in a a big Fortune 500 company and they f they feel like all of these kind of anti-Christian policies are are in place. Well, if they have a diversity program, then maybe you're the person who's supposed to go and start that Christian fellowship in your company to make and get it officially recognized by the uh by the company. Who knows? You may they may even sponsor you to come out to the next Faith and Work Summit.
SPEAKER_00Darren, that's an excellent point because you know a lot of times we focus at the you know kind of the top of the ticket, the the CEO and the management, which in their public statements they may come out uh against things that uh Christians normally would support. But your point is very well uh taken and that there because we know in Google and and Microsoft and Apple and Amazon and some of these other Starbucks who've come out sometimes with uh with comments that we just as Christians wish they wouldn't. But we know there are a lot of Christians that are engaged in those companies and at high levels, and it is an opportunity for them to approach the management, again, in a very respectful way, but say, I see that you've got a provision for all of these diversity programs, and we'd like to we'd like to start something here too. And I think it's a great way to have a voice because when it's peer-to-peer, employee to employee, a lot of the concerns and restrictions uh go away because what the EEOC is concerned about is the kind of undue influence that an employer might have over an employee to try to co coerce them uh into uh either a certain faith, but by the same token, they shouldn't be coercing people into a secular worldview uh in the same way that they shouldn't be promoting a certain religion. Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and more and more it seems like a lot of these CEOs are taking, I mean, I I know I realize that humanism doesn't call itself a religion, but it it sure looks that way a lot of times, and the the way that the the arguments are so predictable and and the way that the Christian argument is gonna be predictable accordance with the word of God. I mean, I'm I'm wondering at what point some of these um these these value systems will and and I know that they hate the term religion and let's do away with religion, but it it seems like we have two religions pitted against each other uh in in the United States, you know, secular humanism and Christianity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we we do, and and we find that uh uh more and more in the workplace. And and we understand that from a spiritual standpoint, we understand the battle that that rages out there, and that uh because the gospel is such a stumbling block. And so, you know, our our commission as believers is to be salt and light, and we have an opportunity to go into the business environment. You know, one of the observations we make is that fewer and fewer people are going to church, but generally everybody goes to work, and so it's a great opportunity for us uh to connect with and uh to meet people where they are and to share the gospel. I mean, I you know so often this gets pitted as some kind of a battle where you know we're out to win. Uh but the reality is we're out to not beat the opposition, but to rescue the opposition. Yeah. And when we have the opportunity to bring this truth into the marketplace, uh it you know, everybody's benefited by that. You know, one of the things that we talk to uh large businesses about is simply the the business benefit of recognizing people of faith and and strengthening biblical values. And and they, you know, they everyone's motivated by the bottom line, especially these publicly traded ones that are measured almost exclusively on the bottom line of profit. I said, you know, look around and see uh where your problems are. How much absenteeism do you have on Monday mornings? And and who are your most productive workers? And there's a lot of studies out there, not not Christian studies, but secular studies that talk about the benefits of marriage and family, and your best workers are the are are married workers. They're they're less likely to uh uh show up uh hung over on Monday morning, uh, they're less likely to miss work because they got a family to support. And so there's a lot of things that are out there that are uh empirical uh support for our position that these are things that could should be promoted. So you can make a business case for a lot of this.
SPEAKER_01Well, Doug, as we wrap it up here, what would be one parting piece of advice you'd like to leave with our audience of Christian business professionals to encourage them in some of the things that you've been sharing with us today?
SPEAKER_00I I think the main thing is just to remember that uh we're we're not we're not called to be uh constrained by fear, that we have been given an opportunity, uh a responsibility to be salt and light. And as I said before, we want to do that in a in a winsome way, uh, not a reckless way. But I think the main thing is uh people need to investigate what they really can do and not assume that they can't do something just because that's what they keep hearing in sound bites on liberal media, and to figure out how they can best navigate this, either as an employer or business leader or a business owner, or as an employee in the workplace, and and really realize what a great uh and exciting opportunity that we have uh to speak the truth uh into a very dark culture that really is desperate for some answers. And don't shrink back, uh investigate, figure out what you can do. And you know, ADF stands ready and willing to help people uh navigate these waters if they have questions that aren't answered in our uh guide that's online. Uh we'd like to help people because this is uh this is something that's very near and dear to our hearts. So uh my my admonition is go out and do what God calls you to do it. Do it with respect, honor. That's honor honoring to God, but not uh being intimidated by the rhetoric that we hear over and over and over again out there.
SPEAKER_01Doug, this has been fascinating and encouraging all at the same time and certainly informative. Thank you for the work that you're doing with ADF and also for providing this free resource, keeping your business faithful, which I'll have a link to in the show notes. People can get that at Christianityandbusiness.com. Uh, thanks again for sharing your time today. Doug, know that you're you guys are fighting a lot of cases and doing a lot of uh great work to educate uh the body of Christ. May God continue to bless everything that you put your hand, everything you put your mind to.
SPEAKER_00Well, you too, Darren. Thank you for the great work that you're doing.
SPEAKER_01We hope you've enjoyed this episode. Uh if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you leave us a quick writing and review for the Christianity of business podcast on iTunes. Give more information about Christianity at Christianity.com.