Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips has released a book—“The Cost of My Faith: How a Decision in My Cake Shop Took Me to the Supreme Court”—sharing his journey as a Colorado cake artist whose Christian beliefs have been targeted for years.

“My friend Jack Phillips is an easygoing man, but that doesn’t mean he hides his light under a bushel basket in the midst of darkness,” Franklin Graham said of Phillips’ new book. “… You will be amazed by his story and encouraged to see why God often allows trouble to come knocking. … This book will open your eyes to the cost of your faith and the hope that Christ gives.”

Phillips’ courtroom saga started in 2012 when the Colorado Civil Rights Commission pursued legal action against him after he respectfully declined a request to create a custom-designed cake celebrating a same-sex wedding due to his religious convictions. In 2013, an administrative judge found Phillips guilty of violating the state’s anti-discrimination law. That ruling was affirmed by the Colorado Civil Rights Division in 2014 and by a state appeals court in 2015. However, on June 4, 2018, in a 7-2 ruling in favor of Phillips, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the rulings against Phillips and held that the state had acted with “clear and impermissible hostility” toward his religious beliefs, violating the First Amendment.

But despite his win at the Supreme Court, the religious freedom battle continues.

On June 15, Colorado state District Judge A. Bruce Jones ruled that Phillips violated the state’s anti-discrimination law when he refused on religious grounds to create a cake celebrating a gender transition for Autumn Scardina, a biological male who presents as female.

Phillips argued he could not design the blue and pink cake because the message it conveyed conflicts with his religious beliefs. “Jack Phillips is a very courageous and patriotic American who is a splendid example of what it will take to preserve the freedoms that we so often take for granted in this country,” Ben Carson, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said when commenting on Phillips’ new book. “… We cannot be the land of the free if we are not the home of the brave.”

Photo: Courtesy of Alliance Defending Freedom