Continuing Threats to Religious Freedom in Western Democracies

International Christian Concern, which focuses primarily on violent persecution against Christians in the non-Western world, is also concerned with the continuing threat to religious freedom in the West, which results largely from failure to respect the religious conscience in the wake of the sexual revolution. ICC sponsored a workshop concerning threats in the West at the recent International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington on January 31. McKenna Wendt, Advocacy Manager at ICC thanked Arielle Del Turco, Director, Center for Religious Liberty at the Family Research Council for organizing and moderating the event.

Cultural Background of Western Threats to Religious Freedom

Del Turco first turned to Aaron Edwards, an author and theologian, who served as a lecturer in theology for seven years at Cliff College in the United Kingdom. He was dismissed from his role at a university in 2023 for a tweet in which he expressed “a Biblical view of human sexuality.” Edwards said that Cliff College was the “last bastion” of Evangelicalism in British Methodism, although he was not himself a Methodist “in his own church polity.” In 2019, it was clear that British Methodism “was going to vote on same-sex marriage.” He said that there were “high-up people” in the Methodist Church who were in same-sex marriages before the church acted to approve same-sex marriage (in 2021). But many people could not really be engaged in discussion, since they view the Biblical doctrine of marriage as an attack on their sexuality, which they consider their identity. Consequently, when same-sex relationships are accepted by a denomination, opposition to homosexuality is not tolerated. Opponents are considered “hateful, harmful, bigoted” are “to some extent … dehumanized.”

Edwards said that “anthropology is [now] the area of heresy and orthodoxy in the public square.” Evangelicals in Britain are willing to defend theology, such as the doctrine of the Trinity, in the public square, but not Biblical doctrine related to human sexuality. But he found that for non-Western students, homosexuality is a non-negotiable issue. Non-Western clergy wonder how pro-LGBT advocates can say that the Bible in fact not only tolerates but supports homosexuality. Bennett said that it is by drawing on many commentaries, that leave the obvious meaning of the text doubtful. By reading liberationist ideologies and queer theory, one can read the Bible differently. Non-Western Christians, however, regard this as “a new form of Western colonialism.”

In his own case, Edwards said that he sent a tweet in February 2023 in which he said that:

“homosexuality is invading the church. Evangelicals no longer see the severity of this, because they’re busy apologizing for their apparently barbaric homophobia, whether or not it’s true. This is a gospel issue. By the way, if sin is no longer sin, we no longer need a savior. If we change what sin is, well then, that gospel, that cross and resurrection that Christians love to preach, and that I love to preach, you’re changing it, you’re saying that it’s lesser. Jesus didn’t have to die for all the sins, because he changed the rules. Some sin is OK, even though virtually the entirety of the church believed something different. We just decided that God kept a secret what he really thought all this time, and somehow didn’t get the message until secular, anti-Christian culture decided better, and then the church jumped on the bandwagon.’                                    

This resulted in an immediate storm of criticism by both Methodists and secular atheists. The college denounced him and the tweet two hours after it was sent. It was called “unacceptable, inappropriate language that doesn’t reflect the ethos of the college.” This, despite having a commitment to “Scriptural holiness” on its website. Edwards was suspended on the next workday. Several weeks after that,  he was fired. There was a threat to report him to the police for “hate speech.”  

Del Turco said that while the International Religious Freedom Summit commonly focuses on “worst case scenarios” which are found in the non-Western world, it is also important to understand what is happening in the West. She then introduced Andrew P.W. Bennett, Program Director for Faith Communities for Cardis Law, a deacon in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the Diocese of Toronto, Canada’s first Ambassador for Religious Freedom, and a Senior Fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute. He discussed the cultural background of the attack on religious freedom in the West.

He said that hard persecution of killing, imprisonment, or “highly significant government restriction … have not yet come to our particular shores.” (This writer would point out, however, that the “conversion therapy” bans against private admonition against homosexuality and transgenderism are “highly significant,” and the post-Dobbs violence against churches and pro-life pregnancy centers is, in fact violence). However, Bennett believes that “as democracies, we must meet a higher bar” than simply the general absence of physical violence against traditionally religious people. He identified two areas where there is “a pulling back on robust religious freedom in Canada.” This is true of other Western countries as well. First, “there is a very deep amnesia that exists in our countries.” It is born of secularization, but also “a failure to educate people on the nature of religion.” Some of this thinking comes from the Enlightenment, but increasingly, he said, it is the result of seeing the world through a “woke,” or “cultural Marxist” lens, where “religion itself can never really be good.”  

Thus, it cannot be “a public good.” The “profound amnesia” exists in the elites, “but also in the public service …[and] the corporate world … the arts world, the media world.” He believes that “this is largely not malicious, it’s just ignorant.” But religious freedom does not simply concern the inner life, but “is fundamentally about living out that faith, and being able to pursue the truth in how you live your life in the world.” Not only elites, but much of the populace has forgotten why religious freedom is important, which is, he said, that “we are hard-wired to seek meaning and truth.”

The other aspect of the loss of religious freedom is the amnesia within the churches. Indeed, he said that “Christians are the worst offenders in this regard.” Christians have to a large extent accepted the secular world’s understanding of religion, which is that religion is basically “a private matter. It’s what I do in the comfortable pew.” One does not talk about his or her faith publically “because I don’t want to offend people.” He said that for the British or Canadians, “politeness has become a vice.” But people must speak about what is most important in life for the sake of building “a common life,” and a democratic society.

Bennett also said that we must combat “the myth of secular neutrality.” The modern state is not neutral about religion. He referred to the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, who spoke of an “open secularism,” that allows people to believe what they want, as long as it doesn’t result in “physical violence,” and a “closed secularism,” where beliefs must be kept private. He said that currently in Canada, there is a state religion of secularism. He observed that it has its own “creeds,” and “rituals,” and “saints,” and “sinners.” While he would defend secularists’ “right to be secularists,” nevertheless, “there has to be the space to differ, and not to defer.”

Legal Threats in Europe

Elizabeth Francis, legal counsel for Global Religious Freedom of the Alliance Defending Freedom in the U.K. then reviewed some actual legal challenges to religious freedom seen in the Western democracies. It is under attack first, by laws that directly criminalize “speech linked to religious belief.” Secondly, by compelled speech which is contrary to one’s religious beliefs. Thirdly, there is the criminalization of thought.

Laws used to criminalize speech in Europe are vague and can be interpreted in many different ways. Police in Great Britain may also record speech which is legal but considered a “hate incident.” This remains on an individual’s record for life. She also referred to the Finnish member of Parliament, Paivi Rasanen, being prosecuted for “hate speech” because she sent a tweet asserting Biblical prohibitions against homosexuality. This was considered a war crime under Finnish law. The worst hate speech law in Europe, Francis said, is the proposed law in Ireland, that specifically allows police to go to the homes and inspect the materials of anyone found to have posted something considered offensive to any protected identity.

Regarding compelled speech, this is particularly a problem for creative professionals. For instance, bakers, florists, photographers, and others who do not want to use their creative talents to express ideas they do not believe.

Attempts at making thought a crime have been noticed in Great Britain, where “multiple times” police come to peoples’ homes and go through all the paper documents they have in their homes and the tweets they have sent. “They’re looking at what’s in our hearts,” people report to ADF. Police may stop pro-life protesters at abortion facilities and ask what they are thinking or praying. One woman was fined for praying outside an abortion facility.

Edwards said it is important to live out our beliefs, as Rasanen did. America only exists because Christians in the past lived out their beliefs. He said we should not pretend that we can keep our beliefs in our “strangely warmed heart … and think that that’s going to stay there.” Such beliefs will “likely erode.” Compelled speech will also erode belief, as, he said, emigres from the former Soviet empire testify. There may even be an erosion of conviction.

He noted the difference between British and American Evangelicalism is “obviously cultural.” Americans are more likely to vocally support Biblical morality. But maintaining a strong Christian culture “depends on you.” In times of external pressure on Christian faith, we should not “shrink back” (as the Epistle to the Hebrews admonishes). We must contravene legal and social requirements, if necessary, to live under the lordship of Jesus. Those churches and Christian institutions that compromise or surrender are on perhaps a slow, but a sure road to extinction.

The Wave of Antisemitism in the West

Paul Teller, Executive Director of Americans Advancing Freedom, a policy and action organization that former Vice President Mike Pence created, then spoke on the newly highlighted problem of antisemitism in the United States. Since the horrific Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, antisemitism in leftist environments has become more open. In the current environment, it is becoming obvious that conservative and strongly religious areas are the friendliest places for Jews. Although this has always been obvious to him, it has not been obvious to many Jews. He said that the term “unveiling” of antisemitism is more accurate than speaking of the rise of antisemitism. “Marxist intersectionality” lies behind the current leftist antisemitism. Jews have above average income, above average education, and “good business achievement.” The intersectional formula of “oppressor/oppressed” classifies such people as oppressors. Attacks on Jews, including even the October 7 attack, are held to be actions of justice. This is a common idea on liberal/left campuses in America.

Teller said that after the October 7 attack, he and some associates wrote a letters to the Departments of Justice and Education inquiring what was being done about campus antisemitism. There was no reply from the Department of Justice, but the Department of Education said that its website had been altered to address the issue and memos had been sent to particular schools. But there is no “official U.S. government action to combat this.”

Del Turco said much of the adversity experienced by Jews is not the result of government laws or policies, but a culture in which leftist antisemitism is acceptable. She asked what we can do to change the culture. Edwards said change must “start at an individual level.” Try to address people who are “persuadable.” He asked how leftists would know that, with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, they would have stood up against Nazi antisemitism? Statistically, most people would have given in to their “need to join the crowd.” Instead, the Biblical doctrine of human dignity, that human beings are the image of God “should make you love your neighbor.” By standing against attacks on human dignity, we can create a better culture.

Bennett said that “antisemitism is the symptom of something much deeper, and that is a moral rot within Western democracies.” At the heart of this is “a deeply flawed anthropology” and “a denial of human dignity.” Currently, antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine, but “the methane gas” is the “cultural Marxism that has permitted something that used to be on the fringes of society.”  Today, antisemitism is “contextualized, but it’s the same nasty pernicious hatred.” He maintained that mainstream Protestantism has “aided and abetted” contemporary antisemitism with its rhetoric of moral equivalency. Christians have a special duty with Jews to fight the moral collapse of Western society, he said, since both share ethical monotheism, and an anthropology that acknowledges the divine image. He observed that “Germany was a highly civilized society, coming out of the nineteenth century,” but secularization resulted in a debased anthropology that attributed dignity instead to racial struggle.

Looking to the Future

Francis referred again to Paivi Rasanen, the Finnish member of Parliament charged with “hate speech” for a tweet expressing the Biblical condemnation of homosexuality. ADF is maintaining that Rasanen has a “fundamental human right” to express her deeply held religious beliefs. Francis said that even though Rasanen has so far been vindicated by lower courts, the case is being appealed to the Finnish Supreme Court, and the years long litigation that she has been involved in and the review of her writings back to 2004 is a punishment by itself. But ADF will go to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

Del Turco observed that “what happens in the United States has a big impact on the rest of the world.” Teller agreed that “if we have strong American leadership on religious liberty, we will get more religious liberty around the world.” He said that there was better leadership on religious liberty during the Trump administration. He and others formerly in the Trump Administration are “doing what we can to speak up and encourage others to speak up.” He said that we should support “elected leaders and religious leaders,” and international organizations that are advocating for religious freedom. They are calling attention to the Rasanen case, and also to the underreported ongoing killing of Christians in Nigeria, and the Christmas Day attack which killed 200 Christians. While he does not expect the Biden Administration to restore Nigeria to the list of Countries of Particular Concern (State Department designation as particularly bad violators of religious freedom), he does think it is important to apply pressure and make the public more aware of what is going on in Nigeria.

He also spoke of the religious liberty violations occurring during the period of the coronavirus lockdown, when churches were closed, while many stores, such as liquor or hardware stores remained open. The attempt to require artists to use their artistic talents against their will to express ideas that violate their religious precepts is another domestic violation of religious freedom. These violations should be corrected if America is to lead the world in law and policy concerning religious freedom.

Del Turco asked Bennett what he saw as “emerging or future threats” in the area of contemporary religious freedom, and what hope there might be for an improvement in the religious freedom situation in the future. Bennett said that one reason for hope is the fact that in the West, we have democratic systems. But “good education” about religious freedom is needed for democracies to be effective. There may continue to be erosion of religious freedom in the future, not necessarily maliciously, but simply because many people do not see religion as important. People should be taught that, as human beings, we are ”hard-wired” to seek truth, and then to order our lives according to the truth we have found. He said that this is as important for the “atheist, as for me a Ukrainian Greek Catholic.” He also thought that Western societies should become more oriented to face-to-face encounter, rather than preoccupied with social media. Otherwise, he believes that religious freedom will ebb away “bit-by-bit.” This is because religious freedom rests on “the inherent dignity of the human person.” Religious and other real freedoms are “not the gift of the state,” but are recognized because “we bear the image and likeness of God.”

Wendt said that ICC regards the violations of religious freedom in the West as an issue which it finds “vitally important.” While ICC is commonly concerned with the violent persecution occurring in the non-Western world, it also wants violations of religious freedom in the West to be understood as persecution. Indeed, this writer would add, if current attacks on religious freedom in the West are not publicized and dealt with, violent persecution will reasonably follow, as attacks on churches and crisis pregnancy centers have shown.