I suppose Christmas Day isn’t a really great time to write this, but it’s on my list and I’ve got the time.

First of all, I’m not a “Christian-basher” in any sense. Although I haven’t gone to church since Mom died (I took her to her Lutheran church as long as she was physically able to go and arranged for the Pastor to visit her regularly after she wasn’t) and I don’t relate very well to traditional Christian doctrine, I understand that this is how currently the non-Jewish disciples of Jesus express their faith.

I should say that the people who are Christian bashers are out in force in social media, particularly X (formerly known as twitter). Consider Darwin, The UnVirgin Mary, Tori atheist, and Gregory Knight to name a few. These are people who not only don’t believe (and they have plenty of company) but who go way out of their way to insult and ridicule all religious people and particularly Christians.

I suppose they feel threatened. At least that’s how I read it.

However, that doesn’t mean believers shouldn’t hold other believers accountable. This is normally something that should be done in private (it’s complicated so see Matthew 18:15-20), but in this case the person and issues are public and in the news.

Before I continue, see my article Missouri Pastor Calls Autism “Demonic” – Where He Went Wrong.

You’ve probably heard of Dave Ramsey and Ramsey Solutions. He’s got a reputation for teaching financial planning and building material wealth based on “Biblical principles.”

A decade or two ago, my wife suggested (which surprised me) we attend one of his recorded seminars at a local church. He had some good advice and some not so good advice, and he tended to stretch how the Bible applied to his teachings quite a bit at times. My wife has always been very practical with finances so not much of what he said came as a revelation.

He’s probably done a lot of people a lot of good, but like anyone in authority and especially who professes Jesus as his authority, the temptation to abuse said-position is huge.

I’m getting my information from the article Dave Ramsey ‘cult-like’ lawsuit dismissed, but class-action suit moves forward as published by the Religion News Service (RNS).

The article starts out:

Dave Ramsey got good news just before Christmas when a federal judge in Tennessee dismissed a lawsuit this week that had alleged that the Christian personal finance guru had discriminated against an employee’s religion during the COVID-19 pandemic. The employee had also charged that the company had a “cult-like” work environment.

Former employee Brad Amos was hired by the Lampo Group, Ramsey’s parent company, as a video editor and moved from California to Franklin, Tennessee to take the job. This was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amos discovered that Ramsey wasn’t on board with the pandemic shutdowns, requiring employees to come into the office at a time when many other employers were allowing their people to work from home.

Amos’ suit described Ramsey’s operation as “cult-like” and said that all employees were expected to exhibit “godly living.”

As mentioned above, Amos lost his suit, but it’s not the only one:

The company has made headlines in recent years over Ramsey’s views on COVID-19 and the company’s culture, which is influenced by Ramsey’s outspoken Christian faith. Controversies over those rules and how they are applied cost Lampo its one-time status as one of the nation’s best workplaces and led to at least three lawsuits by former employees.

More specifically:

One lawsuit, filed by a former employee who alleged she was fired for being gay, was settled in 2022, but a discrimination suit filed by Caitlin O’Connor, who was fired after telling her boss she was pregnant before she had married, is still active. Ramsey Solutions has defended its decision to fire O’Connor by saying it fires employees who have sex outside of marriage. (emph mine)

In the RNS article Is Dave Ramsey’s empire the ‘best place to work in America’? Say no and you’re out:

At a staff meeting in July, Ramsey railed at his staff after an employee sued Ramsey Solutions for firing her for having premarital sex, which is against company policy, and said he would pay the price to protect what he had built out of love for his employees.

“I am sick of dealing with all this stuff,” Ramsey bellowed, according to a recording obtained by Religion News Service. “I’m so tired of being falsely accused of being a jerk when all I’m doing is trying to help people stay in line.”

“…help people stay in line.” Wow.

Also…

Ramsey Solutions, former employees and their spouses say, is run more like a church than a business. A review of court documents, company emails and recordings of staff meetings backs up these sources’ claims that company leaders attempt to exert control over employees’ personal lives.

I’ve never worked for an organization that was heavily founded on religious principles so I don’t know what is and isn’t typical.

I know that an employer can expect employees to comply with all procedures, policies, and laws that pertain to working at their company, and there are plenty of them. I also know that, on occasion, an employee can be fired for what they do in their private life.

One example involves former CBS attorney Hayley Geftman-Gold who made fun of the victims of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shootings. She went on Facebook and called the audience of the Country Music event:

“If they wouldn’t do anything when children were murdered I have no hope the Repugs will ever do the right thing. I’m actually not even sympathetic bc country music fans are often republican gun toters.”

In that case, her comments could be accessed by the public, showed actual disdain for victims of gun violence, and reflected badly on a major broadcasting and entertainment company. Yes, they fired her.

Does that compare to becoming pregnant outside of marriage while working for Ramsey?

I can (sort of) see Ramsey’s point of view, but the people suing him are probably right. He’s running his business like a church and he gets to be the head pastor. As I mentioned before in the “autism” story, even Pastors don’t get to say everything they want and not get pushback. God isn’t  a shield against your bad behavior.

If an employee’s private behavior reflects badly on their employer as Ramsey suggests, how much more so does Ramsey’s behavior in the name of Christ reflect badly on Christ?

While Ramsey has the right to his beliefs, and while, as an employer, he has the right to expect productivity out of his employees, I think he exceeded all that when he tried to micromanage someone’s sex life. He also could have showed mercy to employees who felt uncomfortable or even in danger of COVID infection by allowing them to work at home, even if Ramsey himself felt that COVID was some sort of hoax.

As a side note, I have some reservations about how the government handled the pandemic relative to civil rights issues, but I also did suffer from one instance of COVID and it is no joke. I didn’t go to the hospital but I credit my wife and one of my sons for helping to keep me going and probably saving my life.

I can see that a religion-based organization might want to set a higher standard for their employees than more secular businesses, but we live in a country of laws and rights. Dave Ramsey can’t simply walk all over the U.S. Constitution just because he holds the Bible as a higher authority.

Also, his attitude stinks:

In a sarcastic email responding to a request for comment on this story, Ramsey Solutions wrote, “We want to confirm for you that you are right, we are horrible evil people.”

Ramsey may feel he is in the right, and, being human, decided to snap back at his critics with liberal amounts of sarcasm, but that also reflected badly on his image as a “Christian leader.” If he expects his employees to display “godly living,” does he model it by sounding and acting like a bully?

Speaking of Facebook and getting fired for posting stuff on it, that’s exactly what happened to Jon Fulk because of his wife Heather.

On May 4, the company’s offices reopened and, despite at least 100 positive cases in the subsequent seven months, have remained open since. Work continued on a $50 million addition to the company headquarters, which would house an additional 600 employees.

Ramsey’s return to in-person work frustrated Heather Fulk. She has asthma, which puts her at higher risk if infected with COVID-19. After learning employees were being called back to headquarters, she made what she thought was an innocuous comment in a private Facebook post.

“Jon’s company wants to bring all 900 employees back asap when a majority can do their work from home,” she wrote on April 20. “I do *not* understand how people don’t see we are setting ourselves up for a huge second wave. Ugh, people make me so angry.”

Before long, Jon got a call from his supervisor who said a co-worker had reported Heather’s comment. They had a screenshot of the post, sent by the co-worker’s spouse.

A few weeks later, Jon was fired. In his exit interview, Armando Lopez, head of human resources at Ramsey, confirmed that the cause was his wife’s social media comment, according to a recording of the meeting.

I encourage you to read both articles I’ve cited, particularly focusing on Ramsey’s quotes and the behavior of the company relative to some of its workers.

It’s “famous Christians” like Ramsey who give me trust issues about Christian organizations including some churches, and Ramsey is hardly the only one.

Lawsuits may or may not give satisfaction to the people who feel that Ramsey and his organization has harmed them in someway, but there are other consequences Lampo and their subsidiaries might want to consider.

The first is that any person of good will becoming aware of the behaviors by Ramsey and his organization may decide it isn’t in their best interests to become involved with them. After all, in spite of Ramsey’s self-perceptions, they don’t seem to reflect positively on the cause for Christ.

On the ultimate level, the one we all face, Dave Ramsey may be surprised at final judgment when Jesus doesn’t pat him on the shoulder and say “Well done good and faithful servant” (see Matthew 25:31-46 for the full context).

Is Dave Ramsey really that blind about what he’s doing and how he’s acting? It’s certainly possible:

“Nobody is a villain in their own story. We’re all the heroes of our own stories.” –George R.R. Martin

Yes, I can believe Ramsey feels he is the hero in his own story. More’s the pity. I suppose that’s why we read this:

Do not become teachers in large numbers, my brothers, since you know that we who are teachers will incur a stricter judgment.” –James 3:1 (NASB)

The greater the authority, the greater the judgment. Makes me happy to be sitting on the lower levels of “blog-land” not getting much attention.

It’s Christians like Dave Ramsey who add fuel to the fires being stoked by the outspoken atheists I cited above when they say that Christians are bad people.