Churches and employment law

Today the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments for Hosanna-Tabor v
EEOC, a major case about church exemptions to employment laws.
Wendy Kaminer offers a helpful introduction:

[Employment
Division v] Smith addressed individual practices associated with a
minority faith (practices criminalized and demonized by the war on drugs.) Hosanna-Tabor involves the governance of
mainstream religious institutions. Whether and how much that factual
distinction matters will help determine the scope of the "ministerial
exception" and the rights of hundreds of thousands of employees in
religious organizations, especially Cheryl Perich, a former teacher at
Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School.

Perich taught kindergarten and
elementary school students, concentrating on secular subjects and using secular
public school texts. But she had qualified as a "called teacher,"
earning a certificate of mission into the church's "teaching ministry."
She taught a religion class 4 days a week, led her students in prayer, and
conducted chapel services twice a year -- as did other teachers who were not
"called" members of the teaching ministry.