Editorial: Should you have religious freedom?

Should you have religious freedom?
If so, why you?
And if you have it, how far should that freedom extend?

There are some among us who believe religious freedom in the United States is only for Christians. You may be one who believes that. If so, you may believe religious freedom is a settled matter for you and the questions above are unnecessary.

I disagree. The questions above are not an academic exercise. They are at the heart of so much discussion and debate happening right now in the United States relative to immigration, religious communities, free speech, free exercise, and much more.

The three questions above are also at the heart of our government’s, and maybe also our own, involvement in religious freedom around the world. How we answer these questions here should be consistent with how we answer these questions elsewhere.

Should you have religious freedom?

I’m going to answer this question from Baptist principle.

Article XVII of the Baptist Faith and Message reads, in part: “The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. In providing for such freedom no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by the state more than others. … The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work. …

“The state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind. The state has no right to impose taxes for the support of any form of religion.

“A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal, and this implies the right of free and unhindered access to God on the part of all [people] and the right to form and propagate opinions in the sphere of religion without interference by the civil power.”

This Baptist principle is predicated on the belief God desires to be freely worshiped by people free to worship. From that presupposition, yes, you should have religious freedom.

Why you?

The question at this point is not why should you have religious freedom, but why should you have religious freedom?

Some are answering this question, with some astonishment the question would even be asked, that they should have religious freedom because they are Christian. Some have even said religious freedom is only for Christians. But again, why? Why should Christians be the only ones with religious freedom?

After all, Christians believe the Bible to be true, and the Bible is full—from beginning to end—with the freedom to worship God or a god or gods as a person chooses. That there are consequences for worshiping or not worshiping God, and as God stipulates, is not a limitation on a person’s free ability to choose what deity to worship and how.

If a person is not free to worship Allah, Vishnu, Krishna, Ganesh, an animal, a rock, a tree, the stars, themselves, some other human or deity, or nothing at all, then that person is also not free to worship God. Therefore, to reserve religious freedom only for Christians is to contradict a core principle of Christianity.

You and I should have religious freedom, as should every person, because it is the freedom God grants us to choose whether we will worship God, and obediently so, or we will worship someone or something else.

How far should religious freedom extend?

You and I should have religious freedom, and we should have it because it is consistent with the freedom God gives us to choose whether we will worship God or someone or something else.

But how far should our religious freedom extend?

Our religious freedom should extend to all people, Christian or not. This also means our religious freedom in the United States should extend to all people around the world.

The more challenging part of this question is what expressions of faith should be included in or covered by religious freedom. And should that range of protection be the same everywhere? And who gets to decide that? Answering these questions is the stuff of books, not editorials. But we can at least start thinking toward answers here.

Case study 1

Should Muslims in the United States be allowed to worship Allah here? I think most would say, “Yes,” at least in the abstract or when such worship is kept private. But when that worship is expressed more concretely and publicly—daily prayer, clothing, food, Ramadan and Eid observance, mosque attendance, Shariah—“yes” often becomes “no.”

Many believe core tenets of Islam are incompatible with core tenets of the United States, such as governance and the majority culture. On those grounds, they would deny the same extent of religious freedom to Muslims they would extend to Christians.

Likewise, core tenets of Christianity and those of the United States—tenets which are not always the same—are considered incompatible with Islam and Islamic society. Yet as a nation, we have sought to bring more religious freedom to Islamic societies elsewhere than some of us are willing to grant here. This seems a contradiction. If it is not, help me see that.

There really are incompatibilities between religions. Some of the incompatibilities really do generate conflict, even significant conflict. As a result, religious freedom can’t mean anything goes. What, then, should the limits be? And should those limits be applied equitably to all religious expression? Again, this needs at least one book-length treatment to sort out.

Case study 2

Let’s grant the notion religious freedom is indeed only for Christians. Which Christians? And who qualifies as “Christian?” We need look no further than the colonial era and subsequent founding of the United States to see religious freedom has not always been extended to all Christians. Baptists and others did not always enjoy religious freedom throughout those years.

While religious persecution during the colonial era does not necessitate a return to the same should religious freedom be limited here to Christians, that history and the religious history of Reformation Europe do warn us about setting the limit of religious freedom too narrowly.

Religious freedom too narrowly limited becomes religious obligation. Which brings us face-to-face again with the reason we should be religiously free—because God desires to be freely worshiped by people free to worship.

As we debate these questions here, our brothers and sisters in Christ without the luxury of this debate ask us to remember them, to pray for them, to advocate for them, to support them, and to be bold in our own witness of the gospel wherever we are. No law can or should stop us from that.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher, and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.