Legal rights expert urges ministries to be clear about their Christian mission

By JOHN FORTMEYER
CNNW publisher
     TUALATIN — To fend off discrimination lawsuits as employers, non-profit ministries must be up front about their Christian mission, an official for a national legal rights organization said here last month.
    “You want to have as distinctly religious a character as possible — a distinctly religious mission,” Joe Infranco of Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) said at a luncheon Sept. 21 for Christian Chamber of Commerce of the Northwest.
     Infranco, who is senior counsel and senior vice president with ADF, cited the Christian relief agency World Vision as a great model of a nonprofit “living out its Christian faith” and doing so in a legally defensible way in terms of hiring.
    “World Vision set up its bylaws perfectly,” he said. He explained that while churches almost always win in discrimination cases, nonprofit agencies and parachurch ministries are more vulnerable.
     Infranco was in the Portland area that week to conduct an ADF legal issues seminar. ADF is a leading organization defending the evangelical community’s traditional values on many fronts.
     Infranco said it is no secret that the Church and its long-held beliefs are under attack in America. “The Church stands for eternal truths — its positions don’t move,” he said. Thus, ADF’s 40 staff attorneys and 2,000 affiliated attorneys are constantly involved in many legal battles both nationally and now worldwide.
      Private, Christian-owned businesses are at greatest risk in discrimination cases, but Infranco said owners of such businesses need to stand firm for Godly policies in the face of a culture that leans increasingly toward moral relativism.
     “The most important thing is to be faithful to the mission God has given you for your business,” he said.
       Infranco acknowledged his agency does controversial work and that he is not always popular at debates. But he admitted personal satisfaction when Christian values are upheld and opponents are left unhappy.
        “I love it when they grouse. I repent afterward when that happens,” he quipped.