In Canada, it's career vs. conviction for some Christians

Two Canadian professional groups have begun a process of effectively blacklisting Christian doctors and lawyers. A Canadian legal group committed to diversity in the workplace would deny work to law firms that aren’t sufficiently progressive on sexual ethics. The group is led by the heads of the legal departments of more than 70 huge Canadian companies, and it expects law firms to acknowledge support for same-sex marriage. If they don’t, they might not be allowed to do legal work for the likes of Shell, Nissan, Ford, MasterCard, Kellogg’s, and Coca-Cola, to name a few.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario also is revising its physicians code to require doctors to provide referrals for procedures, treatments, or pharmaceuticals they object to on religious or moral grounds, including abortion and abortion-causing drugs. The doctor who chairs the group that produced the draft has publicly made this claim: Physicians who refuse to refer for procedures or pharmaceuticals they object to should leave family medicine altogether.

John Stonestreet of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview notes that in today’s culture “religious liberty becomes a very tedious, tenuous thing, indeed. There’s not anything ideological in the cultural imagination to sustain it.” People entering the workforce today might need to consider how their convictions could limit their career choices.

“To hold convictions on this particular issue may be a choice between your career and your convictions, and how the next generation is going to deal with that is going to be a great question,” Stonestreet said.

Also this week, Stonestreet and I discussed how the unsure footing of the evangelical movement is leading to perceived shifts in its approach to sexual ethics. Similarly, the Mormon church took a new, confusing stance on LGBT rights this week, supporting non-discrimination ordinances that cover sexual orientation so long as conscience protection is included. Stonestreet called the move a “naïve attempt at a truce,” and talked about why clarity on the issue is more important than appeasement.

Listen to my “Culture Friday” conversation with John Stonestreet on The World and Everything in It.