6
|
Cedarville Magazine
My father was a preacher’s kid, one of six
children, and all of his siblings went into the
ministry. Faith was integral to everything
they did. My father felt a bit like a black
sheep for not being in the ministry, but his
faith became part of his business.
Scripture guides us in all areas of our
lives — in the home and in the business
— and teaches us to be honest, to have
integrity, to work hard. All this is instruction
fromGod’sWord. To do anything otherwise
would go against what we believe.
Looking through the Christmas Day
newspaper one year, my father realized no one
was recognizing the true meaning of the season.
It was “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays,”
and he felt frustrated. He heard God speak to him,
“Well, neither are you.” Our company had run our
normal ad, and we said “Merry Christmas,” but
we weren’t recognizing the true meaning of the
holiday. He felt convicted that, as a company, we
needed tomake a statement. That is when we began
running newspaper ads proclaiming the Gospel at
Christmas and Easter, starting a ministry side of
the business.
We started offering chaplains to the employees
at our corporate office if they were dealing with
personal problems — family, marriage, finances,
or anything else. We offered financial stewardship
classes. We recognize that if we can help themwith
their finances, they will not have that burden when
they come to work, and they’re better employees.
Trouble on the Horizon
We have always provided health care for our
employees, and we work very hard to provide
good health care. When our legal counsel saw that
a new mandate called the Affordable Care Act
was coming, he knew there was going to be a big
problem. After the Supreme Court ruled that the
new law was legal, he informed us how it would
affect our company. We would be forced to cover
contraceptives in our employee health care policy
that we considered to be abortion-causing.
That’s when we held a family meeting at my
brother’s house. There were about 19 of us —
including parents, cousins, and older children —
and everyone got to share their thoughts. We made
the decision unanimously to fight the mandate in
the courts.
To us it seemed like a clear
violation of what our founders put
in the Constitution. We eventually
won our case in the 10th Circuit
Court of Appeals, and then the
government selected it to go to the
Supreme Court.
We were very relieved when
the Supreme Court ruled in our
favor. We live in a country that has
religious freedoms, and we have
no intent or desire to impose our
religion on our employees. We
were simply asking that the government not force us to become an
abortion provider by freely providing products that would take life.
To me, it was a no-brainer.
The Bible and American Culture
Our family has a love for the Bible. It speaks into every area
of our life. For us to be ignorant of this book is to be ignorant of
our heritage and our culture. Many of the principles within our
government, foundational principles, are biblical concepts. To not
understand its foundational roots is to not fully understand our
government as well.
I was once interviewed on CNN, and the news story before me
was on the Good Samaritan. If you don’t know the Good Samaritan
story from the Bible, you would have had no context for that news
story. That’s a simple example within culture of how ignorance of
this book leads to ignorance of our culture. Basic principles like “all
men are created equal” — that’s a biblical concept. There are other
worldviews that won’t embrace that.
Religious freedom is another biblical principle. There are
other worldviews that won’t accept religious freedom. Even the
understanding of the separate roles of the church and the state is
a biblical concept. Many of the concepts that our nation is built
upon are biblical, and we think people ought to know about it.
You don’t have to embrace it, you don’t have to accept it, but you
ought to know about it. If separation of church and state becomes
ignorance of church and state, we’ve misunderstood what church
and state really is. And, at least in our nation, ignorance of the Bible
is ignorance of both church and state.
Steve Green
is the President of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., located
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Hobby Lobby is considered a leader
in the arts and crafts industry. The company was the subject of a
landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in June 2014, which ruled
the Greens did not lose their religious freedom because they owned
a family business.
Love for Scripture sparked
historic supreme court case
Excerpted from remarks made by Steve Green at the Religious Freedom Summit on October 9, 2014
