Description: The Biden administration issued a mandate via the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that requires all private employers of 100 or more employees to force unvaccinated employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, be subject to weekly testing and masking requirements, or lose their job.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Asbury (Methodist) Theological Seminary were among the first major Christian institutions to legally challenge COVID-19 vaccine requirements issued by the Biden administration.
The case is now formally known as The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary vs. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The suit has been filed before the Sixth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals by the Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF).
“The Biden administration’s decision to mandate vaccines through an OSHA emergency rule is unlawful and compels employers like our clients to intrude on their employees’ personal health decisions and divert resources from their important mission of training future ministers,” said ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Bangert. “The government has no authority to unilaterally treat unvaccinated employees like workplace hazards or to compel employers to become vaccine commissars, and we are asking the 6th Circuit to put a stop to it immediately. We are honored to represent these two theological seminaries at this critical time and help ensure they can continue to serve their students and communities without government interference.”
In the lawsuit, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary v. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, ADF attorneys represent The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Asbury Theological Seminary. The suit alleges that the Biden administration lacks jurisdiction to dictate employment practices to religious institutions, lacks constitutional and statutory authority to issue the employer mandate, and that the mandate failed to meet the required procedural hurdles. In short, the federal government cannot coerce individuals nationwide to undergo medical treatment, and it lacks authority to conscript employers to compel that result. The lawsuit takes no position on any COVID-19 vaccine or whether any person should make the personal decision to receive it.
Statement from Dr. Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
“We entered this suit along with the sister institutions to take a stand for religious liberty. Because that vaccine mandate, handed down by the Biden administration, would effectively turn religious institutions into coercive arms of the administrative state. “It is unacceptable for the government to force religious institutions to become coercive extensions of state power.
We have no choice but to push back against this intrusion of the government into matters of conscience and religious conviction,” said Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “This institution exists for the purpose of educating ministers for churches. This seminary must not be forced to stand in for the government in investigating the private health decisions of our faculty and employees in a matter involving legitimate religious concerns. We are glad to join with Asbury Theological Seminary in taking a stand against government coercion.
Without any exemption for religious employers, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary would be put in the position of taking a stand on behalf of the administrative state, on behalf of the federal government, on an issue that is conflicted on religious opinion within our own denomination. That is wrong. It's an infringement of religious liberty, and in defense of religious liberty, we had to take our stand.
The fact that the largest U.S. seminaries of the Baptist and Methodist traditions are here standing together against this mandate should send a clear and urgent message to Christians and to the nation.”
We are thankful for the willingness of these courageous seminaries to challenge what is certain to be an unconstitutional overreach by the current federal administration in Washington. The action of these two schools is a standing rebuke to left-leaning timorous seminaries.
Remember this, friends. If religious liberty is on the line for any institution anywhere, it's actually on the line for all religious institutions and for all American citizens everywhere.
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