Have you ever been fired after only two days on the job? Sylvia Coleman was. And now she’s headed to court in United States of America v. City of Lansing, Michigan.
In the summer of 2017, Sylvia Coleman applied to the Police Department in Lansing, Michigan, as a detention officer. The application stated: “THIS POSITION REQUIRES SHIFT WORK AND APPLICANTS MUST BE ABLE TO WORK ANY DAY OF THE WEEK OR ANY HOUR OF THE DAY WITHOUT RESTRICTION. THE COMMON WORK SCHEDULE IS A 12-HOUR SHIFT WITH OVERTIME ASSIGNMENTS ON A REGULAR BASIS.”
However, Coleman, a Seventh-day Adventist, believed in keeping the biblical Sabbath, from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. One of the doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is following God’s Ten Commandments, which includes the observance of the Sabbath, God’s holy seventh day. As it states in part in the fourth commandment, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates” (Exodus 20:9, 10).
So, when filling out her application, Coleman made it clear that she did not work on Saturday. Several months later, in December of that year, the Police Department contacted her for an interview call, in which Coleman stressed again that, as a Seventh-day Adventist, she would not work on the Sabbath.
Two months after that, Coleman attended an in-person interview with a police captain, a lieutenant, and the previous interviewer, Kesha McKitty from Human Resources. The second question of this interview described the hours in which a detention officer worked, noting that the “position is a 24/7 operation.” It was then requested of Coleman: “Tell us how you will be able to reasonably meet these requirements and describe any concerns you would have with this rotating schedule.” This warning followed: “Candidate must be willing and available for all shifts, if there is a question of their availability, interview may be terminated.”
Coleman told the interview panel that she was “flexible” with hours. The case’s brief clarified, “In stating that she was flexible, Coleman meant that she was flexible within the parameters of her religious observance of the Sabbath as she had previously indicated.” The brief seemed to indicate that all three interviewers should have understood the distinction, given that Coleman had been transparent about her beliefs with the same interviewer from the beginning of the application process.
Canned Because of Convictions
After that in-person interview, Coleman was hired. Her first day of work was June 18, 2018. That same day, she got her work schedule, with an upcoming shift on June 23, a Saturday. She immediately talked with people above her, including Human Resources and her supervisor. She even offered to come in Saturday night after the Sabbath had ended and work a 16-hour shift. Her supervisor refused, saying “that the schedule was set and that she was required to work her scheduled Saturday shift.”
After one more meeting, wherein she reiterated her beliefs, Coleman was promptly fired on June 20.
On July 5, “Coleman filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,” a federal agency that proceeded to bump up her case to the U.S. Department of Justice. Consequently, the Justice Department filed a suit against Lansing, stating that the city had violated Title VII of the Civil Right Act of 1964, which protects employees and job applicants from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origins. The filing argued, in particular, “Lansing failed to show that reasonably accommodating Coleman’s sincere religious observance, practice, and belief would cause undue hardship on the conduct of its detention center operations.” To put it in simple terms, employers must make room for an employee’s religious practice if they are able to do so without too much hassle—and the Lansing Police Department didn’t seem to follow that protocol.
The city of Lansing, however, begs to differ. “After reviewing this case we find it to be inconsistent with the facts and the law,” said the city’s Director of Communications Scott Bean. The city intends to fight back.
The Importance of the Sabbath
What is so important about the Sabbath that this woman was willing to lose her job over it?
As previously stated, the observance of God’s holy seventh day, the Sabbath, is one of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments is the law of God. Jesus declared, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word” (John 14:23). And said the apostle John, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments” (1 John 5:3). Those who love God desire to keep God’s law. The keeping of the Sabbath, then, is part of the expression of one’s faith in and devotion to God. That, in and of itself, is a pretty good reason to obey not only the fourth command but all the Ten Commandments.
Moreover, if Coleman’s boss had asked her to violate any other of God’s commandments—such as the seventh, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14), or the eighth, “You shall not steal” (v. 15)—should she have obeyed? Of course not. Then why does the majority of the Christian world think it permissible to violate the fourth?
Why has God’s special day been all but forgotten, misunderstood, and misapplied? Learn all about the Sabbath’s fascinating history in The Seventh Day series. As Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).
This article contributed by Clifford Goldstein