Isaiah 5:20 (NKJV): “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
2 Timothy 4:3-4 (ESV): “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”
Rom. 12:2 (CSB): “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”
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“WE’RE ‘INCLUSIVE,’ SO YOU’RE FIRED!”
A RECENT ARTICLE in the New York Post reported that a Christian woman in New Jersey was fired from her job in August 2019 for refusing to wear a company-sponsored homosexual “Pride” T-shirt.
The woman, who filed a wrongful termination lawsuit in November 2020, said she told her employers she wanted to follow the Bible’s teaching, which condemns homosexuality, but her employer said her position violated the company’s “core values.”
LoveAndGrace blogged last week about the world’s discrimination against Christians in the name of “inclusion.”
The woman, Betsy Freese, was employed by Starbucks Coffee Co. as a barista from December 2015 until her termination in August 2019.
Freese charged that being forced to wear the T-shirt as a condition of employment was “tantamount to forced speech” because the Bible defines marriage as the permanent and monogamous union of one male and one female, a message counter to that proclaimed on the T-shirt.
She said store managers were aware of her religious beliefs because she regularly asked for time off on Sundays and certain evenings to attend church.
‘THEY KNEW MY BELIEFS’
WHILE FRESSE SAID the store’s managers knew of her religious beliefs, she was fired for refusing to wear the “Pride” shirt.
The newspaper said the company told NBC News that the lawsuit was “without merit” and stated in the woman’s termination notice that the company’s corporate policy endorses the core values of “inclusion and diversity, and [that we] welcome and learn from people with different backgrounds and perspectives.”
(NBC further reported that in September, two workers at Kroger supermarket in Arkansas filed a similar lawsuit, claiming they were fired for refusing to wear a store apron with a rainbow heart emblem on it.
(The plaintiffs, Brenda Lawson and Trudy Rickerd, maintained the logo was an endorsement of the LGBTQ community, which violated their belief “that homosexuality is a sin,” according to their complaint. After being disciplined for violating the store’s dress code, both Lawson and Rickerd were ultimately terminated.)
Starbucks further stated that it “does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion or sexual orientation.” The federal Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says it is unlawful for a place of employment to discriminate on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”
The newspaper article picked up by ChurchLeaders.com said that on Aug. 22, 2019, Fresse was told by a company district manager that she was being fired for “violating Starbucks’ ‘core values.’”
Fresse said in her lawsuit that “every Christian is called to love and treat everyone with respect and compassion” regardless of their religious or other beliefs.
DEATH OF ‘ABSOLUTE TRUTHS’
WHAT IS HAPPENING is the “death of ‘absolute truth’” in a culture that elevates human reason and experience above God’s laws and His design for our lives.
This is the hallmark of the “postmodernist” thought process, where all values and goals are relative, without any being absolute or perfect. So, the thinking goes, what is true for you might not be true for me, and what is true for me might not be true for you.
It’s the theory behind several popular refrains: “Follow your bliss,” “Whatever floats your boat,” “Whatever works for you,” “Do what’s inside of you,” “You’re okay; I’m okay,” and “You do you, Bro; I’ll do me.”
In his article “Postmodernism,” in the creationist website, AnswersInGenesis.org., Dr. Carl J. Broggi concluded that in the postmodernist view of the world, “no one is really wrong except for those who hold to absolute truth.” Broggi is senior pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, SC.
“Because truth cannot absolutely be known in their religion, the highest virtue for the postmodern man is tolerance, but not as the word has traditionally been defined. In the past, when Americans used the term tolerance, it was understood to mean that everyone has a right to have their viewpoint respected,” Broggi writes.
He concludes: “‘Tolerance’ for the postmodernist is to be extended only to those who embrace a relativistic worldview. In practice, since postmodernism cannot possibly coexist with a worldview that embraces absolute truth, they are intolerant of those who do not agree, particularly Christians.”
Broggi says that what the world believes, according to its postmodernist viewpoint, is that “because Bible-believers insist their point of view concerning moral absolutes and salvation in Jesus Christ is correct and other views are aberrant, they [the Christians] should be defined as intolerant.”
POSTSCRIPT
THIS, IN FACT, is what we see. It is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.
Look again at the text source for this article, particularly the verse from Isaiah 5:20, warning us against labeling as “good” or “benign” those things that God calls “evil.”
Or consider 2 Timothy 4:3, where God says that men will “turn away” from the truth and follow falsehoods of their own design.
As they do so, the will run afoul of Romans 2:2, where God tells us not to be conformed to the world and its beliefs but that we should hold fast to that which is the “good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”
That is what Betsy Fresse tried to so, at least according to the public record as explained in her lawsuit. It is a story of “inclusion” — which should mean embracing everyone — but always excludes the Bible-believing Christian because the Christian believer, unlike non-believers, embraces the truth that God has revealed — not man’s truth, but the Creator’s truth.
As Jesus termed it in the Garden of Gethsemane just before His crucifixion (John 17:17 NIV):
“Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”
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PRAYER
Our Heavenly Father, God of all Creation, Maker of Heaven and Earth, You created man in Your image to reflect Your glory and to worship You. We 
confess, O Lord, that too many of us have been arrogant, prideful, and willful, ignoring You and Your design for our lives. Those of us who believe in the Lord Jesus repent of our sin, and we pray for those among us who are lost in spirit and destined for eternal separation from You. O Lord, burden our hearts to reach out to them and share with them the Truth of Your Word, the saving grace of Your love for us. In Jesus’ almighty and magnificent name we pray. AMEN
LoveAndGrace 
The Lord will bless that person for standing up for the truth. May all true believers in Jesus Christ do as that person did if found in that situation.
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I agree with you. The Lord will bless that person for speaking up for her faith, especially when it apparently cost her her job. A less committed person might well have shrugged her shoulders and did whatever was necessary to stay employed. She was in a difficult situation. Thank you for your comment!
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I agree that postmodern relativism and tolerance is wrong , but I defend the right of a business to determine employee uniforms . She has the right not to work there. Just as a business should not be forced to go against their beliefs , such as baking a cake for a gay wedding. We must defend the legal rights of private businesses. But they are still morally and biblically wrong .
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Hello, and thank you for your comment! I also grant leeway for businesses to make “business-related” decisions, even if the decision impacts their profit margin. However, in this case, the uniform apparently required to be worn bore a political slogan for a social cause unrelated to the business and one that conflicted with the employee’s religious beliefs. An accommodation could have been made for her not to have to wear that particular shirt as long as her alternate choice of a shirt did not bear a slogan contrary to the company’s policies. So many of these court cases stem from human pride, where employers and employees fail to reach a reasonable solution. We also don’t know the full story, only what the lawsuit reveals. I also cringe when government intervenes to dictate business decisions to companies, beyond measures intended to guarantee employees’ health and safety. In this case, the intervention came from a fired employee through the court system. God bless!
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You’re right . We do have laws against unlawful discrimination and firing and that seems to be the case here . I’m curious if they made the Muslim employees wear them. Tough times we’re living in , but we must stand up for our beliefs. God bless !
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We don’t know the full story on this one, only what was contained in the litigant’s complaint and press accounts of the company’s response. You raise a good question regarding Muslims, which was not answered in the complaint. Also not addressed was whether this was a corporate decision or a franchise decision. My superficial knowledge of the three Abrahamic religions — Christianity, Judaism, and Islam — leads me to believe that doctrinal beliefs in all three disapprove of Pride events. As for the woman’s employment situation, we do not know from the record whether there were other incidents of contention or whether her four-year employment history brought her to the cusp of pension investment and long-term costs to the company. The common element in this story — for me — is that to be “inclusive” of everyone, the world excludes the faith-based Christians, who stand firm on God’s universal and eternal teaching. John tells us in 3:19 that men loved the darkness more than the light because their deeds were evil, so it seems quite in line that in today’s world, those who don’t play by the world’s rules would be excluded. I was struck by the reporting of this event just after I had posted a blog on the same topic, using earlier events. As a personal note, I strongly suspect there is more to this story in which the two sides were unable to reach a reasonable accommodation, which is probably achieved in most employment situations. Things are not always what they seem on the surface. Yet, I am told, it is those failures to reach accommodation that lead to most of our court rulings, which then have the force of law.
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I have a feeling we will be hearing more stories
about Christians being discriminated against if Biden gets into office.
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Yes. That could be good for the church. It could serve as a “wake-up” call to the comfortable cultural Christians who revise the Bible to suit their needs.
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