Religious Freedom
In the Declaration of Independence, the American Founders acknowledged certain truths given by “nature and nature’s God.” Among them is the truth that each of us is created equal by God and is given by him certain rights that are inalienable.
That truth, and the right to defend it, is under siege.
Our First Freedom
In America, religious freedom was long considered the “first freedom,” the foundation on which all the others are built.
In America, religious freedom was long considered the “first freedom,” the foundation on which all the others are built.
Our Founders read history and understood human nature. They believed that if we humans abandon the authority of God, we will inevitably turn inward, redefine virtue to suit ourselves, and employ freedom as a quest for power and license. As John Adams put it “our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.”
But the Founders also knew that the coercive power of government was not the vehicle to keep God in their revolutionary experiment. Their solution was to empower, but not require, Americans to acknowledge the transcendent source of inalienable rights, an authority infinitely greater than the state.
This gave Christians a huge responsibility, and a magnificent opportunity. It still does.
The First Amendment recognizes both the rights of private worship and of public exercise of religion.
The First Amendment recognizes both the rights of private worship and of public exercise of religion. We are free to convey the love of God through Christian schools, hospitals, and charities. We are free to contend in political life for our views on justice, peace, equality, and the common good.
This right of free exercise has produced the most dynamic, compassionate civil society in the history of mankind. It has yielded tens of thousands of religious hospitals and schools. It has enabled faith-based charities that serve the poor, homeless, abandoned children, the aged sick, and the dying. It provides hope for the desperate. It has contributed mightily to public morality.
Much of this was accomplished by faithful Christians. Did they do it to fulfill themselves? Perhaps, but that does not explain the enormity of their achievement. They did it for love of God and neighbor.
But that history is being rewritten.
The Assault on Traditional Faith
Today American elites are attacking Christian institutions that remain faithful to Jesus’ teachings on life, marriage, sexuality, and the beautiful distinctions between man and woman. The loving witness of the Little Sisters of the Poor, or Christian adoption agencies, is slandered as “hatred.” The federal “Equality Act” would remove all morally orthodox witness from American public life.
The Christian response is discordant. Some simply redefine the moral teachings of Jesus. Some affirm with their words the calumny that Christians are haters.
Can they unite to witness the truth?
A Unified Christian Response?
Christians have always had an answer for the siren lure of liberty untethered to truth. Paul wrote that “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1). Ours is the freedom to witness God’s love by giving of ourselves for the good of others. It is the freedom to resist our sinfulness and seek to live virtuous lives, and to demonstrate that true happiness lies in fidelity to him.
In 1794, Abigail Adams wrote to her daughter that if Americans reflect “upon our ‘being, end, and aim,’ … we shall be convinced of our frailty, and satisfied that we must look beyond this transitory scene for … happiness. True religion … approves virtue, and the truths which promote it….”
Defending Religious Freedom for All
At the Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) we defend religious freedom for everyone, including those who, with the Founders, believe that achieving the common good requires citizens free to contend for public virtue, grounded in nature and nature’s God.
To this end, RFI’s America’s First Freedom Curriculum is being taught nationwide. To defend the morally orthodox, we have developed the RFI Crisis Toolkit for Religious Institutions. To strengthen future American leaders we are providing training, in hubs around the nation, for exceptional undergraduates. We are supporting the National Committee on Religious Freedom, and are developing an alliance of Evangelicals and Catholics to defend religious freedom by exercising it together.
Our Duty to Defend
After the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was accosted by a Philadelphia matron who demanded to know what the delegates had achieved. “A Republic, madam,” Franklin replied. “If you can keep it.”
America is founded on religious freedom for all. If we permit the erosion of this foundation, America will suffer grievously. We Christians who have benefited so much from living in this blessed land have a duty, as well as a right, to tell the good news about God and man.
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Dr. Thomas F. Farr is President of the Religious Freedom Institute in Washington D.C. Inspired by the Judeo-Christian principles of the American founding, RFI defends and advances religious freedom for all people. Farr was the first Director of the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom. A Roman Catholic, he also served as Director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University.
