Why Christians must support religious freedom for everyone
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
(RNS) — The fundamental human right of religious freedom is under attack around the globe today like never before. While this disturbing trend should concern everyone, it should be particularly alarming for Christians, because a Christian worldview requires us to care about religious freedom — including the religious freedom of others.
Christians believe that God is sovereign over the affairs of man, but he also gives us the freedom to choose to follow him. Just as God provides all human beings that freedom, we must ensure that others have the same ability to decide their religious beliefs and live according to those beliefs (or lack of belief), whether the attacks come from governments forcing people to believe a certain way or nongovernment groups using violence or pressure to push people to adopt or abandon certain beliefs.
This understanding of the freedom that God has given mankind to make the most significant decision of life is why, as Christians, we must care about the plight of those suffering for their religious beliefs — even when those beliefs are very different from our own.
As the head of a Christian organization, I have the responsibility of advocating on behalf of Christians when their ability to freely practice their faith is inhibited by bad government policies or social pressure. It is essential work, and I will continue to highlight these issues.
Yet this same faith also compels me to defend the freedom of others. Advocating for the religious freedom of non-Christians, far from being incompatible with the Christian worldview, is actually required by it. The promotion of the fundamental human right of religious freedom is the product of a fully formed Christian worldview.
This is why, as Christians, we must care about the plight of those suffering for their religious beliefs — even when those beliefs are very different from our own.
My time as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has exposed me to a wide range of religious freedom concerns around the world.
Jewish tombstones are seen desecrated with swastikas in the Herrlisheim Jewish cemetery, north of Strasbourg, in eastern France, on Dec. 13, 2018. Dozens of tombs were defaced. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
In China, the government has detained over 1 million Muslim Uighurs and subjects them to Communist Party indoctrination, forced labor and torture. Increasingly violent anti-Semitic attacks against Jews are on the rise in France. In Russia, Jehovah’s Witnesses regularly face criminal charges for practicing their faith. Iran’s Baha’i community is attacked for its religious identity. Yazidis in northern Iraq have been hunted mercilessly by ISIS, all for simply what they believe.
These examples are all gross violations of the fundamental human right to religious freedom. In the face of such religious freedom violations and atrocities, it is my duty as a Christian to pray for these people and advocate for their religious freedom on their behalf.
Americans — and I would argue the entire world — benefit immensely from the religious freedom enshrined in our Constitution. At the core of the American experiment is the idea that a human being’s obligation to God is sacred and deserves protection from any encroachment of government power. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case in many other countries, and the abysmal state of religious freedom has caused much suffering worldwide.
Not every country needs to adopt a government system like the United States. However, every country is morally obligated to protect the right of conscience of its citizens — and that means ensuring that people are not persecuted because of their religious beliefs, and are free to live them out in community with others.
That freedom necessarily includes the ability to change one’s faith as well as to share beliefs with others without fear of reprisal. Governments must adopt and enforce legal protections for people of all faiths, and societies must be sure to cultivate a culture of understanding and protection of religious freedom.
In the effort to promote international religious freedom, Christians must remain informed, advocate for policies protecting religious communities and submit these issues to God in prayer.
Religious freedom is not merely an American right. It is a human right that we are compelled to protect and promote for all people of all faiths everywhere.
(Tony Perkins is the newly elected chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and is also president of the Family Research Council. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily represent those of Religion News Service.)
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as Christians, we must care about the plight of those suffering for their religious beliefs — even when those beliefs are very different from our own.
Does that include supporting religious freedom for Muslims as well?
For example, those sects which believe in honor killings, female genital mutilation, death for apostates, death for homosexuals, ... , death for infidels.
Other religious people disagree with you. Different cultures, different religious beliefs.
It is not possible to please all religions. So clearly society will necessarily intrude on religious freedom.
Right?
You avoided the question.
Try this: is it possible to allow all religions to freely act on their religious views even if those views (e.g. honor killings) go against the laws of civil society?
Is it an example of protected religious freedom to discriminate against Jews, blacks, Catholics, and Muslims in a public business?
How are race and religion different from sex and gender? In the 1960s racists claimed that they shouldn't be forced to serve black and interracial people equally with whites because of the conservative Christian views, so why should their religious views be ignored but your religious bigotry should be legitimized in law?
People who support the KKK say that Catholics and Jews are not equal with white protestant Christians, so why should their conservative Christian beliefs be ignored?
There are Christians who say that Islam is not a religion but instead is a terrorist organization, so why should they be forced to serve Muslims and respect their religious beliefs?
Sikhs and Hindus often hate each other so should they also be forced to respect the religious views of others in the US, if you get the right to trample the constitutional rights of LGBT people?
Not all Christians agree with you, so can they ban you from their stores because of your bigotry? Do Drs and Nurses get to refuse you care if they don't agree with your religious beliefs or they oppose your bigotry because of their religious beliefs? Can LGBT cops/fireman/EMS treat you differently because of your religious bigotry of them?
How much longer do I have to wait for XXXJefferson to address the questions in this post?
You know he won't.
and Freedom from religion?
They support religious freedom for people like themselves. They do not support or defend religious freedom for people who disagree with them.
Agree. It is like "My way or the highway" kind of 'religious freedom'. As long as others agree with their own idea of what a Christian should be, or their religious or Spiritual values agree with their own, then they will accept them. Otherwise, no. They talk acceptance out of one side of their mouth, while the other side rejects them for their religious beliefs, or lack thereof, being different.
They talk the talk, but, their own actions and words prove they don't walk the walk.
That is a laughable claim of religious freedom, but they ignore the direct teachings of their own savior, so their hypocritical actions do not surprise me in the least.
The only ones they are impressing is themselves, as their own words and actions prove otherwise.
I agree.
(RNS) — The fundamental human right of religious freedom is under attack around the globe today like never before.
You continue to state this, one has to ask where this is taking place exactly?
What you may refer to as an attack on religious freedoms, appears to be nothing more than ones religious intolerance for another's differing choice of religion. The majority of folks that I am acquainted with could care a wit about another's beliefs or lack there of them.
Does that include the suffering of Native Americans at the hands of Christians, or don''t they count? You blindness of what Christians in the US did to American Indians is appalling, but not surprising.
Do you support religious freedom for witches?
(giggles)
Crickets.
That was amusing
The non-answer speaks for itself.
Deafening silence.
No surprise there.