'People are hurt': Can nonprofits hold employees to certain moral, religious standards?
GRAND RAPIDS — Bethany Christian Services welcomes global refugees to West Michigan, but its staff will no longer reflect the diverse faiths of those it serves.
WOOD TV-8 has confirmed the faith-based social service agency, which receives government funding to provide foster care and refugee services, began enforcing a strict Christians-only hiring mandate several months after the arrival of a new chief executive officer.
Keith Cureton assumed the helm of the 80-year-old charitable institution in July. According to its website, in 2022, BCS employed nearly 2,000 people worldwide and served 80,400 clients. The organization has locations in Holland and Grand Haven, and is headquartered in Grand Rapids.
Prior leadership reportedly allowed exceptions to the Christian hiring policy, but Cureton informed staff in late 2023 there will be no such deviations going forward.
“People were shocked,” said a BCS employee who asked not to be identified. “They couldn’t believe how hard and fast the policy came down. There was no conversation. There was no ‘let’s come together and talk about how this policy might be implemented.’ It was, ‘This is what’s happening, and you’re going to adhere to it.’”
Several staff members reached out to WOOD TV-8 to express outrage over the new administration’s stringent policies.
In recent months, BCS leadership also banned workplace displays of support for LGBTQ+ individuals and other politically divisive movements.
“People are frustrated,” one employee said. “People are hurt.”
According to the worker — who is not being identified because BCS instructed employees not to talk to the media — tension surfaced in August when the agency’s refugee branch moved from 36th Street to Bethany’s main campus on Eastern Avenue SE.
An internal 'culture clash'
“We ran into a culture clash,” the employee said. “The refugee side very much embraces diversity, very much embraces people (who) come from all walks of life, and there’s a widespread passion for LGBTQ+ inclusion. … It was kind of right in (the higher-ups') face all of a sudden, and I think a lot of people didn’t take very kindly to that.”
In a memo in early December, a BCS administrator told staff there’d been “numerous instances” of Grand Rapids-based workers not following the new “advocacy vs. activism” policy.
"We are required to adhere to the agency policies regardless if we agree with them, and moving forward, failure or refusal to do so will result in disciplinary actions," the memo read.
The staff member who spoke anonymously to WOOD said BCS fired several managers who weren't enforcing the Pride flag ban.
According to the employee, the terminated managers had also scheduled an optional, inclusive, inter-faith celebration for the same morning and time as BCS’s official holiday gathering.
Agency executives reportedly canceled the alternative event and cited the managers for “insubordination.”
AG's Office will review
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told WOOD her office is “aware of the matter and reviewing it.”
WOOD asked the U.S. and Michigan Departments of Health and Human Services if the organization's actions violate its government contracts, but neither entity responded to that inquiry. MDHHS, however, did write that it’s “aware of the situation involving Bethany Christian Services and is looking into it.”
Under federal law, faith-based organizations are exempt from anti-discrimination statutes that prohibit employment decisions based on an applicant’s religion. But debate continues over how broadly that exemption should be interpreted.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the so-called ministerial exception covers not just employees who have “minister” in their title, but any staff members who act in ministerial roles.
“We’re seeing more faith-based organizations or employers arguing that anybody they employ is considered a ministerial employee,” Jay Kaplan of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan said in an interview via Zoom.
But that’s not the case, argued Kaplan.
“The purpose of a Bethany Christian Services foster care worker, particularly when they have a contract with the state, is not to provide religious foster placement services but foster placement services on behalf of the state,” he said. “They’re not engaging in ministerial functions, nor under their contract with the state of Michigan should they be.
“So, I’m concerned about this requirement that you have to adhere to particular religious principles in order to be qualified and to be eligible to be an employee there.”
Bethany isn't the only nonprofit with a West Michigan presence that requires employees to adhere to certain religious and moral standards. Family Central, a downtown Holland bookstore owned and operated by Focus on the Family, has character and spiritual requirements listed for a lead associate.
The job posting links to Focus on the Family's "Standard of Moral Conduct" and "Statement of Faith" and says the right candidate must "adhere" to them. The moral conduct document reads:
"Each employee must live a life demonstrating a committed relationship with God and a shared beliefin biblical standards and the principles that guide the ministry’s work."
Employees are forbidden from "immoral behavior" on or off the job, including "sexual relationships outside of marriage, non-biblical divorce, homosexual acts, pornography, transgender identity or expression, theft, lying, drunkenness, illegal or improper use of drugs (including the improper use of prescription medications and illegal substances), recreational drug use (including marijuana and similar psychoactive substances, even when it’s legal), spouse or child abuse, and unjustified acts of violence, and the use of 'abortifacients.'" (In other words, a substance that induces abortion.)
Steve McFarland of Christian Legal Society says Bethany is well within its rights under federal law.
“It's a well-established fact that a religious organization can advance its religious mission by hiring people who share the same faith,” McFarland told WOOD over Zoom. “What is their primary mission? How do they hold themselves out? This isn’t even a close call when it comes to Bethany.”
McFarland also said there's no “right to a job” with a religious organization.
“I don’t have a right to be hired by a Muslim Mosque,” he said.
McFarland added there’s no free speech right in a private workplace.
The biggest concern of employees, the worker said, is how the policies will impact children.
When Afghanistan fell in 2021, Bethany Christian Services helped pick up the pieces. The agency is one of ten officially recognized “U.S. Resettlement Partners” nationwide.
“Bethany took a ton of kids from Afghanistan through the refugee program,” the employee said. “If we didn’t have (staff) at Bethany who were Muslim, I can’t imagine how that would have gone with those kids. We would have been in over our heads even more than we already were.
“How is it fair to these kids to say, ‘You’re going to a place where everyone, they believe something different than you, and you don’t see yourself in anybody there?’”
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Bethany Christian Services told staff it won't fire non-Christians who already work there, and if it requires additional support from other faiths in crises like that in Afghanistan, it will hire people on an as-needed, temporary, contractual basis.
WOOD sent a detailed list of questions to Bethany Christian Services and requested an on-camera interview with Cureton.
The organization responded with a brief statement that seemed to address the recent terminations:
“Our employees remain accountable for performing in a satisfactory manner the assigned duties of their position so that Bethany can successfully carry out the mission to see a world where all children, youth, and families are safe, loved, and connected."
— The Holland Sentinel contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: 'People are hurt': Can nonprofits hold employees to certain moral, religious standards?
