How Now Shall We Bake?

What is religious freedom and why does it matter? As court after court thrusts unbiblical notions of human sexuality on American citizens who believe differently, today’s sexual revolutionaries have shifted focus. With the wind at their backs, the goal has shifted from persuasion to the elimination of contradictory beliefs. I can’t say it better than R.R. Reno:

To be blunt: Religious people who hold traditional values are in the way of what many powerful people want. We are in the way of widespread acceptance of abortion, unrestricted embryonic stem cell research and experimentation with fetal tissue. We are in the way of doctor-assisted suicide, euthanasia and the mercy-killing of genetically defective infants. We are in the way of new reproductive technologies, which will become more important as our society makes sex more sterile. We are in the way of gay rights and the redefinition of marriage. We are in the way of the nones and the engaged progressives and their larger goal of deconstructing traditional moral limits so that they can be reconstructed in accord with their vision of the future.

Traditional religious people are in the way, and many of our fellow Americans are doing their best to push us out of the way.

But what happens when it is fellow Christians that are pushing other Christians out of the way?

After last week’s column, Kirsten Powers and Jonathan Merritt have doubled down with a new article chastising conservative Christians, and more particularly, Christians who own businesses, for being biblically selective—even hurtful and un-Christlike—about what weddings their businesses will or will not provide service to.

For both authors, an evangelical cake baker is guilty of hypocrisy for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding ceremony if the same baker would also provide a cake for a ceremony of a man and woman who have been improperly divorced or unequally yoked. Yet, in the cases that Powers and Merritt mention, I don’t know of any court case seeking punitive damages or state coercion for Christians refusing to do weddings for unequally yoked Christians. They can call us “hypocrites,” but I’m not aware of where being hypocritical is liable or deserving of state coercion.

Both wedding photographers and cake bakers are easy targets, I’ll admit. Their plight seems harmless after all, right? We’re talking about snapping pictures and mixing flour. Our concerns over religious liberty seem minimal to the concerns of Christians who are being slaughtered, quite literally, overseas. But there are significant and symbolic issues at stake involving bakers, florists, and photographers—issues that America and its laws must work out as the Sexual Revolution marches on amidst a country populated by evangelical Christians.

There are nuances and larger principles at stake here that I think Merritt and Powers are overlooking.

First of all, any legislation that would deny a gay individual access to public goods is deplorable. The legislation debated throughout the states doesn’t do this and actually protects against it. We affirm that our gay and lesbian neighbors are made in the image of God and entitled to every service available to the general public. The Jim Crow connection, then, is little more than soaring, inaccurate rhetoric.

Secondly, there are differences between accessing general public accommodations and asking, or rather, coercing, an individual to lend their talents and services to an activity, action, or gathering that he or she thinks is sinful. Whether an individual is “affirming” or “participating” in the service is irrelevant. At a root level, a wedding ceremony is an endorsement of a couple’s love for one another. What is relevant is that the law not force an individual to contribute to a ceremony that he or she believes is founded upon “intrinsically disordered passions.”

Third, what Powers and Merritt fail to clarify is that this debate isn’t over whether Christians should or should not do something, but whether they must do something. One of my friends once had the opportunity to photograph a fundraiser for a national political figure he did not support. He chose to go ahead and photograph the event, knowing that his services were helping promote a worldview he found abhorrent. He could have declined on the grounds that this person’s worldview was such that he couldn’t in good conscience help promote it. He should be free and able to obey his conscience. That’s what’s being asked for here. You shouldn’t advocate for unlimited choice in one plank of your platform, and unlimited coercion in another. That’s what happens when extremes govern civil society; and that’s a stage that is bound to collapse sooner or later. What’s needed is a mediating pluralism that recognizes and respect differences, not coercive one-size-fits-all laws that only serve to marginalize citizens.

Were a gay baker to object to providing a cake for a young Christian couple’s wedding shower, I’d defer to their right to refuse, and respectfully seek our business elsewhere. That’s the product of a free society. The state shouldn’t force the baker to provide a cake for a perspective that he or she vehemently disagrees with. In the same way, an African American who owns a t-shirt company shouldn’t be forced to make a t-shirt for a KKK rally. These are issues of decency, respect, and civic pluralism.

Finally, religious liberty is not an absolute right used as a bludgeon to circumvent our nation’s laws. It was never designed with that intent, nor has it historically been used in this manner. Those proposing possibilities where gay persons are denied service at a lunch counter are simply using these hypothetical and unconscionable scenarios to extract fear from the public and legislators.

The issue never was, and never will be, about Christians picking and choosing what they will or will not do. It’s about what Christians are forced, mandated, or compelled to do by state law. Powers and Merritt, in this instance, are on the side of government coercion, and a loss of Christian conscience.

Our fear is a government that would step in, undermine Christian conscience regarding marriage, and adjudicate highly complex theological questions about whether baking a case is indeed “participation” or an “affirmation.” What’s at stake is theological nuance that the government isn’t equipped meddle in when settling issues of conscience. So, government should trust private citizens and their consciences, for no harm is being done.

I have no desire to divine motives, but the context of Powers and Merritt’s argument is deeply troubling. Why would they play to secular liberalism’s caricature of Christians? Why weaponize arguments for a side that already believes sexual liberty should win over religious liberty? Why proceed to make statements and arguments that will surely aid the opposing side as they litigate against Christian bakers, florists, and photographers? Why aid, incrementally, in the advance of the sexual revolution? Why side against their brothers and sisters by extending Caesar’s reach and strengthening his grip on the conscience?

I doubt Merritt and Powers will retract their position. But for those who object to our position, I’d ask you a couple of questions to examine what your principles are and where they lead.

• If Christians can be compelled to lend their craft to an activity or action their conscience objects to, what can’t Christians be compelled to do?
• Can you show us where, in Scripture, Jesus said to endorse or license sin for the sake of compassion and love?
• Is there a vocational exception in Scripture where Christians can wield their talents, skills, and crafts for practices that are sinful according to Scripture?
• Should a Christian-owned advertising agency be forced to help create ads for legal prostitution rings in Las Vegas?
• If a church allows its facilities to be used by the general public for wedding ceremonies, does the church have a right to deny its facilities to a gay couple seeking to get married?