World Vision, employer of 40,000 people world wide, and 1200 in their headquarters near Seattle, won a suit brought against them by three former employees that were fired for failing to affirm their belief in, among other things, the divinity of Christ, the mystifying concept of the Holy Trinity, and eternal damnation.
Employees of the worldwide charity are required to sign the following "statement of faith":
We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man, regeneration of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Plaintiffs argued that the disaster relief and economic development charity is primarily a secular operation and thereby bound by the Civil Rights Act barring discrimination on the basis of religion, and that the positions of the employees in question (technology, office help, and shipping) had no bearing on World Vision's religious mission.
The U.S. District court in Washington ruled in favor of World Vision. That ruling was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the matter.
Richard Stearns, World Vision's U.S. President said
"After for years of litigation, we at World Vision U.S. may now put this matter behind us, and continue our policy of hiring only Christians".
In World Vision's view, those who don't believe in Hell, which, by the way, includes more than half of Presbyterian pastors, are by definition not Christian and therefor ineligible for employment with their company. The U.S. Supreme court is cool with that. Are you?