Tag: religious liberty

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Religious Liberty

Fresno Bee, Nov. 2, 2025

The Trump administration’s call for a religious revival is worrying

Religious freedom is the first liberty of the First Amendment. As we consider our rights in this time of crisis, we should ponder the meaning of these 16 words: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Americans are free to believe whatever we want, but the government should not use its power to support or favor any particular religion.

One wonders then about the White House’s “America Prays” initiative. This is a call to prayer connected with the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. When he unveiled the program last month, President Donald Trump explained that “to have a great nation, you have to have religion.” He said, “When faith gets weaker, our country seems to get weaker.” And, “We’re defending our rights and restoring our identity as a nation under God.”

This top-down call for religious revival is worrying. Our political leaders have a “free exercise” right to pray. They are at liberty to discuss religion and promote it, as free citizens. But this becomes problematic when the government leads a religious revival.

Just this week, Sean Feucht, a pastor associated with the Trump administration, revealed that, as the 250th anniversary approaches, “We are planning and plotting to do revival meetings sponsored by the U.S. government all across the nation.” This would include a “giant, massive” worship event at Mount Rushmore.

Feucht may be speaking loosely here with regard to a government-sponsored revival. The government could permit citizens to meet in public for religious purposes. But if the government sponsored a revival, this would violate the First Amendment’s “establishment clause.”

A government-sponsored religious revival will inevitably end up picking sides in disputes about religion. What will non-Christian people think about their tax dollars being spent to sponsor a Christian revival? And even within Christianity, there are deep disagreements. Will the revival include Mormons and Methodists, Catholics and Congregationalists?

And what about the growing number of non-religious people? Around 30% of Americans are not affiliated with any religion. A recent survey from the Pew Center found that 68% of Americans think that religion is “losing influence.”

This general decline of religion helps explain the rise of Christian nationalism. In my recent book on this topic, I explain Christian nationalism as “post-secular backlash.” Some Christians worry that the First Amendment system has allowed too much freedom of religion. They blame our growing lack of religious commitment on a world in which religious liberty has gone too far.

Proponents of Christian revival push back against the way the First Amendment has been applied and understood. Some want to bring back school prayer and teach Bible lessons in schools. But First Amendment cases have often been driven by Christians who want to practice their faith in their own way. Christians have been plaintiffs in recent cases opposing the promotion of the Ten Commandments in schools in Louisiana and the Bible in Oklahoma schools.

These Christians don’t want the government to impose a preferred text, prayer or interpretation of faith. It is worth asking whether we trust government officials — with all their flaws — to shape the faith of the nation.

The American Founders did not. That’s why they emphasize religious liberty. In 1779, Thomas Jefferson authored a “Statute on Religious Freedom” for the state of Virginia. This was passed into law in 1786 with the help of James Madison, who went on to author the First Amendment. The Virginia Statute says, among other things, that it is an “impious presumption” for “fallible and uninspired men” to assume “dominion over the faith of others.”

The word “dominion” is important. History records many struggles for power among religious sects. When governments get involved in these power struggles, it antagonizes some parties, while privileging others.

Perhaps a religious revival could help a nation lost in loneliness, addiction and violence. But which faith will lead the revival? And those who have left religion behind may imagine a different sort of revival: of science and rationality. If there is to be a revival, this should be the work of free citizens. It is not the business of the government.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article312711431.html#storylink=cpy

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The Ten Commandments and the First Amendment

Fresno Bee, July 7, 2024

The Ten Commandments have long been controversial. So, it’s not surprising that Christians in Louisiana have resurrected this controversy with a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in schools. Oklahoma and Texas are following suit. Donald Trump recently posted, in all caps, “I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.”

This appears to violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits state entities from propounding religious doctrine. This does not mean, however, that schools and teachers cannot address the controversy.

At best, the text known as the Ten Commandments invites deeper conversations about religion, ethics, and political life. At worst, it becomes a meaningless idol, posted on the wall without thought.

Scholars refer to this text as The Decalogue, which means “ten sayings.” In the Bible, these sayings are not numbered and occur in slightly different forms in Exodus and Deuteronomy. The text has been interpreted in diverse ways. This includes a difference in numbering the commandments. Catholics think the sixth commandment is against adultery, while Protestants count that as number seven. For Catholics, the commandment against murder is number five. Protestants count that as number six.

Beyond the textual details is the deep question of whether morality must be grounded in religion. The first several commandments are religious, which may suggest that faith is before ethics. Does this mean that atheists cannot be ethical?

Another significant question is whether morality is negative, focused only on a few “you shall not” prohibitions. Should we donate to the poor, forgive our enemies, or give special consideration to the disabled?

The Decalogue is silent on these questions. It does not mention abortion, the death penalty, or war. Nor does it celebrate democracy or liberty. The Decalogue has always been the subject of interpretive disputes. When asked about these ancient laws, Jesus offered a succinct interpretation, suggesting that there are only two laws: love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

Of course, this did not settle the matter. Benjamin Franklin suggested the existence of twelve commandments, with the first being “to increase and multiply” and the twelfth demanding us “to love one another.” John Adams and Thomas Jefferson discussed the matter in letters the two ex-presidents exchanged about a German book of Biblical criticism. Adams suggested that the book showed that the Ten Commandments were “not written by the finger of God on tables.” Jefferson expressed doubt about the authenticity of the Decalogue since, as he put it, the history of these texts is “defective and doubtful.”

There are lots of interesting questions here for student research and reflection. Consider the third or fourth commandment—depending on your tradition—which focuses on keeping the sabbath day holy. Does this mean that businesses must close or that it would be wrong to watch football on Sunday? Students might also ask whether Sunday is actually the sabbath. Most Christians think so. But Seventh-Day Adventists maintain that Sunday was imposed on Christians by the Romans. They follow Jewish tradition and view Saturday as the Sabbath.

Critical discussions of the Decalogue should eventually lead to a conversation about the value of the First Amendment as a response to religious diversity. When a state authority picks sides in religious and moral controversies, it ends up violating the Establishment Clause. There is no doubt that the Decalogue is controversial. But does posting the text amount to promoting a religious viewpoint?

If the text were posted alongside similar texts such as Hammurabi’s Code, Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths, or the Five Pillars of Islam, it would be more obviously a stimulus for critical thought and lessons about history. Context matters. As does the intention of those who post such texts.

Christian culture warriors do not seem to engage in critical thinking about the Bible. Here is the irony: If the text isn’t used to spur critical conversations, it appears to violate the First Amendment. But once we engage in a critical conversation about the Decalogue, it becomes obvious that the text is controversial and that the Establishment Clause ought to prohibit it from being posted as an idol in classrooms.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/article289743274.html#storylink=cpy

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The Wrath of God and the U.S. Constitution

Fresno Bee, March 10, 2024

Alabama has crafted legislation that will allow in vitro fertilization (IVF) to commence again, in response to a February ruling of the Alabama Supreme Court that shut it down. That’s promising for folks who want to use IVF technology to become parents.

But the court’s reasoning reminds us of the need to reaffirm the basic idea of separation of church and state.

In his concurring decision, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme, Tom Parker, cited the Bible, as well as Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and other Christian theologians to support his claim that “all human beings bear God’s image from the moment of conception.”

He concluded, “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.” And “Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”

Some Christians will agree. Various Christian communities, including the Roman Catholic church, teach that IVF is wrong, along with abortion. One concern is that IVF results in extra embryos, what the Alabama high court called “extrauterine children.” If they are destroyed, the court suggests that this is murder.

IVF also violates “natural law” teaching about sexual reproduction. Natural law ethics holds that reproduction should only occur within loving, conjugal relations. But IVF involves masturbation and technological manipulation that supposedly violates the nature of sex, love and procreation.

Of course, not every Christian agrees with this moral analysis. Christians are not universally opposed to the procreative use of technology. Nor is every Christian opposed to masturbation, abortion or to methods of birth control that prevent fertilized embryos from implanting in the uterus.

Christians don’t all agree that life begins at conception. Indeed, Thomas Aquinas himself claimed, following Aristotle, that the soul is only present in the embryo at 40 days (for male children) and at 90 days for females.

The world’s diverse religious traditions teach different things about sex, genetic humanity and human reproduction. There is also a sizable and growing number of nonreligious Americans who don’t accept natural law ethics or the idea of a wrathful God.

That’s why invoking the wrath of God in a legal argument seems astonishingly un-American. The American government is the result of a social contract. It is a grand compromise created by “We, the people.”

Moreover, the Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees the right to religious liberty while prohibiting the establishment of an official state religion. The only other mention of religion in the Constitution is found in Article VI, where religious tests for office are prohibited.

But in Alabama things seem otherwise. In a recent interview, Chief Justice Parker said, “God created government.” The founders would disagree. They viewed the government as the result of a social compact that aimed to produce domestic tranquility. John Adams said that the American states were “founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery.”

One important reason to reject Chief Justice Parker’s theopolitics is the fact of religious diversity. This diversity includes a wide variety of Christian faiths. Adams himself had unconventional religious beliefs. He did not accept the doctrine of the trinity and was doubtful about the divinity of Christ. In a letter to his son, he claimed that the idea of an “incarnate God” had “stupefied the Christian world.”

Americans of the 18th and 19th centuries disagreed about religion. These days, Christians disagree about whether “extrauterine children” bear God’s image. And even in Alabama there are non-Christians. According to the Pew Center, 1 % of Alabamans belong to non-Christian faiths and 12% are non-religious. So, it is bizarre to claim, as Justice Parker did, that “the theologically based view of the sanctity of life” ought to guide the law of the land. This is a religiously diverse nation.

The founding social contract created a secular democracy that guarantees religious liberty and seeks to prevent the creation of an established state religion. This idea allows Christians to follow their consciences with regard to IVF, sex, abortion, and everything else. It also ought to prevent the government from imposing a religious doctrine on any one of us.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article286440505.html#storylink=cpy

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Religious Freedom Day: From Jefferson and Adams to Trump and Biden

Fresno Bee, January 14, 2024

“Religious Freedom Day” is January. 16. The day commemorates the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which was passed into law on January 16, 1786. The law was originally drafted by Thomas Jefferson and carried forward by James Madison.

It is worth reading the whole document. It is not long. But it does contain dense prose that brings together a number of important points from theology and political philosophy. Before summarizing it, we might note how different things seem today from the time of the founding. Jefferson and Madison studied philosophy, religion, history, and politics. They spoke moderately and with reasoned arguments.

These giants are quite different from the leading Republican candidate for president, who has been talking a lot about religion. In a Christmas post, Donald Trump wrote of Joe Biden and others he calls “thugs,” “MAY THEY ROT IN HELL.” And before Christmas, in Iowa, Trump said, “Our country’s gone to hell. As soon as I get back in the Oval Office, I’ll immediately end the war on Christians … Under crooked Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted and government has been weaponized against religion like never before. And also presidents like never before.”

This Christian nationalist dog whistle fails to acknowledge that the Constitution makes persecution of any religion illegal. It fails to recognize that in our system of checks and balances, the president does not have the absolute power to declare war on religion. Trump also fails to understand that Christmas is a time of joy and love, not grievance and resentment.

Of course, Trump is free to say what he wants. Thanks to the founders’ wisdom, we have freedom of speech along with religious liberty. The Constitution’s First Amendment ensures that there can be no war on any kind of religion. It also allows Trump to damn his opponents to hell.

Now let’s consider that Virginia Statute. The law states that faith ought to be free from coercion because God created the human mind free. The government should stay out of religion because coercive state power corrupts the nature of faith.

The law notes that the men who lead churches and states are “fallible and uninspired.” It also claims that these faulty mortals have “established and maintained false religions” throughout history. Such crooked men end up warping religion when they try to impose their opinions on others.

The statute further says that “our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions.” This means that every person has the same civil rights, no matter what they believe (or don’t believe). Civil government exists to maintain peace and good order. Beyond that it should not go. The state does not exist to enforce religious orthodoxy.

The statute concludes by paraphrasing the philosopher John Locke, saying, “truth is great and will prevail if left to herself.” There is a suggestion here that political coercion tends to undermine truth. At the same time there is the hope that if people were left alone to develop their own consciences, truth would win out and we’d all be better off.

These are important ideas found deep in the heart of the American tradition. They also remind us of a different kind of political tone. The founders valued civility, moderation and restraint. Of course, from time to time, the founding generation engaged in heated political rhetoric. These men were human, after all. In the election of 1800, supporters of John Adams accused Thomas Jefferson of being an atheist. William Lin, a clergyman who opposed Jefferson, said the election of Jefferson would “destroy religion, introduce immorality, and loosen all the bonds of society.”

Despite that hyperbole and animosity, Adams and Jefferson eventually reconciled after their respective presidencies ended. They went on to exchange a number of letters in which they discussed religion and philosophy. These letters show that Jefferson was not an atheist. Nor was Adams an orthodox Christian. Rather, these were inquisitive minds trying to make sense of religion.

It is religious liberty that allows us to think critically about our beliefs. In the long run, wisdom is found in free and moderate discussion. And it is better to argue reasonably than to wish that your opponents should rot in hell.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article284146833.html#storylink=cpy

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Religious Liberty, Modesty, and The Morality Police

Fresno Bee, October 2, 2022

Morality is not external conformity. Let’s keep this in mind when thinking about recent protests in Iran against the “morality police.” Those protests broke out in response to the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being detained by the morality police for wearing her hijab (a head covering) too loosely.

For Americans of the present generation, the notion of the morality police is hard to fathom. How strange that anyone cares whether women cover their hair.

Of course, societies have often attempted to control women’s lives, bodies, and sexuality. A hundred years ago in the United States, swimsuit police tried to prevent women from showing too much skin at the beach.

We’ve come a long way. Thanks to the secular principles found in the First Amendment, we are free to wear what we want. There is no morality police here because we view fashion as a form of free expression.

There are limits, of course. Schoolchildren are not free to wear pornographic or offensive T-shirts. Nudity is prohibited. And in a recent case out of Everett, Washington, the courts upheld a law prohibiting baristas at the Bikini Hut coffee shop from dressing like strippers. The Ninth Circuit Court drew a line at “pasties and a G-string” with your coffee.

But beyond those limits, our secular system holds that fashion, sex, and sexuality are private matters, not subject to policing. This is the result of a long struggle against a more restrictive worldview. And some Americans might prefer a return to modesty and conformity. Until recently, school districts prohibited girls from wearing tight leggings or yoga pants — including here in Clovis, which only changed its policy this year.

So, let’s not take the struggle for liberty and privacy for granted. It’s only been about 20 years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned laws against sodomy, in Lawrence v. Texas. It’s only been seven years since Obergefell v. Hodges gave same sex couples the right to marry. And challenges remain. The court has called the idea of a “right to privacy” into question with the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year.

Behind these legal issues is a basic argument about the importance of liberty. This is related to a claim about the futility and absurdity of trying to police fashion, sex, and modesty.

Americans pledge allegiance to the idea of a country founded on the idea of liberty and justice for all. Liberty means that you can wear a hijab or a bikini. The choice is up to you.

And if I don’t like your choice, I can choose not to look. We forget this important point with regard to modesty. Rather than worrying about women flaunting their bodies, why don’t we insist that men stop ogling them?

There is no doubt that state power can dominate people. But police power does not actually create modesty or virtue. It is futile to use police power to enforce external conformity to norms of fashion, virtue, and modesty.

Clothing and hairstyles have nothing to do with the content of your character. It’s what’s inside your head and your heart that counts, not what you wear on the outside. That’s why the idea of fashion police is absurd. It is a meaningless exercise in enforcing conformity that is only skin deep.

Morality is simply not the kind of thing that results from the application of external force. The way to make people moral is to educate them, not to beat them into compliance. External force is useful for animals. We fence them in and leash them. But that’s not how you treat human beings.

Arresting people for what they wear (or don’t wear) also breeds discontent and further nonconformity. Women protested against the swimsuit police in the United States a hundred years ago. They are pushing the limit in the case of bikini baristas. And in Iran, women are burning their hijabs.

To force human beings to conform to some standard of modesty is degrading and ineffective. Secular systems of law respect our freedom to decide for ourselves about what we believe about modesty and how we adorn our bodies. This approach is respectful of our humanity, our rationality and our liberty.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article266575386.html#storylink=cpy