America is a melting pot of nationalities, backgrounds, and
ideas, but all of the settlers in the New World had one thing in common: a
search for religious freedom. The fight for liberty of conscience has been momentous
in the history of America and the world; but our nation has strayed from its
original foundation on religious freedom.
Still, as a world power, the United States has the potential to play a
significant role in the international advancement of religious freedom. My generation needs a plan to restore and
protect religious liberty, at home and abroad. Section one of the International
Religious Freedom Act of 1998 reads, “The right to freedom of religion
undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States. Many of our Nation’s founders fled religious
persecution abroad, cherishing in their hearts and minds the ideal of religious
freedom. … the United States has prized this legacy of religious freedom and
honored this heritage by standing for religious freedom and offering refuge to
those suffering religious persecution.”
In 1522, a poor monk nailed a document to the door of the
Roman Catholic Church in Wittenburg, Germany.
Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses exposed fallacies in the philosophy
of the church and advocated reform; people began to protest the strict rituals
of Catholicism. This Protestant
reformation spread from Germany into other countries throughout Europe,
reaching England in 1529. The Anglican
Church vacillated for nearly a century between Protestant sympathies and the
strict doctrine of the Catholic Church; this period of unrest culminated in the
birth of the Puritan movement. The
Puritans were reformers who desired liberty from the overbearing Anglican
Church. These seekers of religious
liberty finally received it when they migrated to the New World and founded the
colony of Massachusetts.
There was only one problem.
Free as the first settlers were from the religious oppression they had
suffered in Europe, they inadvertently recreated it by defaulting to
establishmentarianism themselves! As
time went on, new colonies were founded by leaders who disagreed with the state
denominations. Roger Williams and a
small group of Baptists fled persecution in Massachusetts and founded the
colony of Rhode Island; similarly, groups of Puritans, Lutherans, Quakers, and
various reformed groups such as the Dutch, French, and German Reformed Churches
came to America and founded their own colonies.
The framers of our Constitution recognized the danger posed
by government-instituted religions, and sought to restore religious freedom as
one of the protections laid down in the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment reads, “Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof.” It protects every
person’s right to believe what they choose, and to act out those beliefs in any
way they see fit.
Today, the phrase “wall of separation between church and
state,” fairly describes the conundrum created by the evolution of religious
freedom thought in our country. Perhaps
our founders never considered that the religion of atheism would demand equal
or superior standing to any form of theistic worldview. Individuals demanding freedom from the
presence of manifestation of religion in public or in any way associated by
word or property relationship with any agency of government have complicated
this issue immensely. Since the 1940s,
the Supreme Court has ruled a series of cases reflecting this change: it required
governmental ‘neutrality’ on issues of religion in 1947, prohibited religious
teaching in public schools in 1948, and in 1963 declared school-sponsored
prayer and Bible reading to be unconstitutional. Daniel Driesbach of the Heritage Foundation
writes, “Today, this figure of speech is accepted by many Americans as a
pithy description of the constitutionally prescribed church-state arrangement,
and it has become the sacred icon of a strict separationist dogma that
champions a secular polity in which religious influences are systematically and
coercively stripped from public life.”
Essentially, the wall of separation has been broken down, turned around,
and reestablished so that most Americans are more concerned about protecting
the state from the church than about protecting the church from the state.
Section one of the International Human Rights Act reads, “Freedom
of religious belief and practice is a universal human right and fundamental
freedom articulated in numerous international instruments,” and lists six
other international declarations and treaties that deal with religious freedom
as a basic human right. Article 18 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that “Everyone has the right to freedom of
thought, conscience, and religion. This
right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either
alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his
religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.” It is widely agreed that freedom of religion
is a right that everyone should have access to; but what should be the role of
the United States concerning religious freedom abroad?
In spite of
aforementioned religious freedom problems of our own, many argue that the
United States should work to protect and advance religious freedom on a global
scale. According to the Washington Post,
Secretary of State John Kerry is pursuing “the creation of a new Office of
Faith-Based Community Initiatives, illustrating the U.S. government’s
recognition that engagement with religious representatives, institutions, and
organizations is crucial for fostering security, democracy, and development
overseas.” Professor Tom Farr of Georgetown
University, a staunch advocate of integrating religious freedom into US foreign
policy, writes, “there is a practical concept of religious freedom … that
can be adapted by Muslim societies,” a concept “similar to what the
Amercan founders meant by religious freedom.” He says that fostering religious freedom in
Muslim-majority countries is in the United States’ interest, because doing so
can “help struggling democracies such as Egypt and Pakistan attain a measure
of stability that will undermine the kinds of extremist Islamist ideas that
fuel terrorism.”
My generation can advance freedom of religion by participating
in the political process and populating our government with people who will
defend religious and civil liberty in our own country. This will maintain a
safe foundation for religious and humanitarian non-governmental organizations
to build coalitions that can export goodwill to persecuted groups around the
world. Thus can the spark of religious
freedom become inflamed, starting in the smallest groups of people, individuals
and families, so that the next generations can enjoy an environment where a
non-violent religion, no matter how gentle or frail, can be grasped or rejected
without attracting unwanted attention or persecution, or compromising a
person’s right to pursue peace and prosperity.
However, just as it
cannot enforce or favor any particular religion within its borders, the
U.S. Federal Government cannot actively stimulate religious freedom around the
world when there are countries where the best a Buddhist, a Christian, or even
an Atheist could hope for is ostracism, and the norm is torture and death.
If the U.S. steps into such countries and tries to change that, they are
in direct opposition to a belief system that dictates the conversion or death
of non-believers. Additionally, it would be nearly impossible
for the USFG to promote religious freedom globally without violating the
Establishment Clause of our own First Amendment. If, for instance, US forces were to enter a
Muslim-majority country and demand that the government stop persecuting local
Christians, we would immediately be accused of trying to establish Christianity
in that nation. On the other hand, is it
somehow in the United States’ interest to protect freedom of religious
expression for those whose religion demands that they kill all who refuse to
conform to their faith? Clearly, a body
politic cannot promote religious freedom per se, but this need not
preclude any group, including a government, from working unapologetically to
establish and defend an ascertainable standard of human rights, and in so
doing, to create environments where religious freedom will be a byproduct of those
humanitarian efforts. There would probably be overwhelmingly popular global
support for the value that torture, murder, and genocide are unacceptable, so
that attempts to eradicate such reprehensible behavior would not be interpreted
as religiously motivated.
Eleanor Roosevelt encouraged,
“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to
home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world.
Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in;
the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works.
Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice,
equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have
meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen
action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the
larger world.” While my generation is
not now equipped to foster and protect the religious freedom of every
individual in each country around the world, we do have a role to play right
here at home. We cannot end the
persecution of Christians in Pakistan or eliminate the timeless battle between
Israeli Jews and their Islamic neighbors, but we can fight for the right to
free expression and assembly in our own schools and workplaces. We cannot independently guarantee that our
own government will not infringe upon religious freedom, but we can choose to
vote for congressmen who will defend it.
These may seem like slight, insignificant efforts, but Samuel Adams
declared, “It does not take a majority to prevail, but an irate, tireless
minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” Inspired by the historical significance of
religious freedom in our country, with a proper understanding of the separation
of church and state, and the knowledge that we as private individuals have a
responsibility that the Federal Government does not have, my generation can
initiate a campaign for religious liberty that could aid the advancement of freedom around the globe.
Works Cited
Driesbach,
Daniel L. "The Mythical "Wall of Separation": How a Misused
Metaphor Changed Church–State Law, Policy, and Discourse." The Heritage Foundation. N.p.,
23 June 2006. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.
Goodrich,
Luke. "The Becket Fund FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY." Becket Fund. N.p., 18 July
2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
Hurd,
Elizabeth Shakman. "Foreign Policy Magazine." Foreign Policy. N.p., 12 June
2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
Skousen,
W. Cleon. "Provision 215: From the First Amendment." The Making of America: The
Substance and Meaning of the Constitution. Washington, D.C.: National
Center for Constitutional Studies, 1985. p. 675-88. Print.
United States. Cong. International
Religious Freedom Act. 105th Cong., 2nd sess. Cong Res. 2431. N.p.: n.p.,
1998. Web.
No comments:
Post a Comment