For the first time in our country’s history, we will have to impose religious tests on those we employ and those we help, in order to maintain our status as exempt religious employers.

For months, this nation has been debating the coming HHS mandate, but last week, this mandate became a reality and the end of our religious freedom in this country has begun. The mandate, would effectively force religious institutions, as well as businesses and organizations, to pay for services such as contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs that are in direct conflict with their deeply held beliefs. The mandate will ask them to make the impossible choice between following the letter of the law and operating within the framework of their religious tenets.

While religious institutions have one year to comply, phase one of this mandate begins now as family businesses and organizations had to comply by August 1. Already, some are going to court to fight this mandate – and in one case so far, winning – to ensure they are not forced to abandon their right of conscience and pay for services that violate their faith.

While much of the media coverage has painted this issue as one that impacts only Catholics, it affects all people of faith. As a representatives of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod community and the evangelical Christian community, and as fellow Americans of faith, we stand in solidarity with our Catholic brothers and sisters against this mandate. This particular issue is greater than our religious divisions; instead, it goes to the very heart of religious freedom in this nation.

We believe the government has overstepped its bounds. This controversy is not merely about birth control and the Catholic Church’s views on it. The mandate stands as a de facto requirement to sacrifice conscience and faith on the altar of political expediency. This egregious violation of our most fundamental right attempts to contextualize a new narrative where our rights no longer stand endowed by our creator, but rather from ideologues on Capitol Hill.

Although our respective faiths do not have identical views on contraception, we have a moral issue with this requirement that religious institutions must cover products and services to which they have religious objections, including abortion-inducing drugs and related medications.

As we enter the next phase of this dangerous mandate, it becomes even more disturbing. The exemption provided for religious institutions narrowly specifies what constitutes a “religious employer.” In order to pass the strict guidelines of the exemption, our services as religious institutions must be provided primarily to people of our faith, and we must primarily employ people of our faith to perform these services. Most religious organizations, including hospitals, social services organizations, publishing houses, schools and more, will fail to meet the required provisions and will thus be subject to this mandate.

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