Employment Conditioned on Going to Church

Hi,

I have a quick question. I am a teacher at a school that is attached to a Presbyterian church and teach the normal school week, Monday thru Friday. The school that I work for does not teach Sunday school, and the only religious things we have the kids do is pray before meals and attend chapel once a month. When I was hired, all that was required was that I be open to the Christian faith (I am Catholic), so it was fine. Now, the pastor of the Presbyterian church wants to require all of the teachers to attend church at the Presbyterian church on Sundays and to convert to his religion. Can he do this? He is not the director of the school, but he tries to control everything. What are my options if he does decide to implement this new policy?

I have taught in private, public and "christian" schools. Every religious/church based/related school at which I worked required us to not only be of the specific religion (baptist, not catholic, or presbyterian, but only baptist), they also required us to attend church there EVERY time the door was opened. Sundays, Wednesdays, even Saturdays for visitation. I don't know of a "christian" school that doesn't require this---but then again I haven't been affiliated with "christian" schools for quite some time, in part, for that very reason.

Since they are private, and not publicly funded, they can make rules as they see fit, as long as you aren't discriminated against because of protected grounds (gender, disability, race, etc). Now, if they try to make the "church" rule retroactive (as in it wasn't in effect when you were hired, but is now) I would rigorously object since it was not a condition stipulated BEFORE you were hired.

Good luck.