PERSECUTION AT CTS?

I would not describe the loss of my job as persecution. But this morning I was reminded of that while listening to the sermon at La Grave CRC. The topic was persecution, and the minister made the point that losing one's job for wrong-doing or down-sizing was not persecution, but that losing a job because you refused to lie, as the boss required, was persecution. That brought back memories.

On January 14, 2003, most of 2 weeks after I had been told I would be terminated, I received an email from President Neal Plantinga, telling me I should "take control of this ["renewal"] program, including the very idea of doing it" and to "tell people" this very thing. That going into "renewal" was my idea was patently false. I wrote back to Neal: "To acquiesce to your recommendation and tell my colleagues that this one-year term of a supervised program is being done at my initiative would be untruthful and a violation of my conscience before God."

Colleagues were flabbergasted when they heard that Neal was trying to make this terminal appointment my idea. They knew better. One of them wrote: "Don't you realize that you are asking Ruth to lie--to herself and to the community--in order to have a remote chance of saving her job down the road?"

I refused to lie. I lost my job. Persecution?