Religious persecution worldwide is increasing and U.S. foreign policy must consider the dimensions of conflicts worldwide if democracy and peace are to flourish, Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land told a Rice University audience June 8.
Land, in a lecture titled “Global Security and U.S. National Interests: Why Religious Freedom Matters,” delivered at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy on behalf of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), said if the 20th century was known as the century of ideology, the 21st century is the century of religion. Nearly every conflict worldwide has a religious dimension, and U.S. foreign policy must engage countries that suppress the God-given right to freedom of conscience, Land contended.
President Bush appointed Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, to the USCIRF in 2001 and again in 2003.
“The world is filled with religious-related persecution and the situation is getting worse, not better,” Land said.
Such persecution was the impetus for the International Religious Freedom Act, passed with broad bipartisan support by Congress in 1998, which brought USCIRF into being, Land noted.
Old concepts of national security based on sovereign nations competing for strategic superiority are being replaced by ethnic and religious strife combined with high-tech weapons capability, Land said.
Land cited four reasons why religious freedom concerns are vital to U.S. national interests.
First, Land said, religious liberty has been integral to America’s history.
“I believe we always do best in the world when we reflect who we are and when our foreign policy reflects who we are. And religious freedom, freedom of conscience, is an integral part, a foundational part, of why this nation exists,” he said. “From our nation’s founding, the belief that every human being has a fundamental right to believe, worship and practice according to his or her own conscience has been a core conviction of the vast majority of the American people.”
Thomas Jefferson, Land said, called religious liberty the “first freedom,” and the founding fathers “believed that these rights were inalienable because they were understood to exist prior to society and to government and were granted by neither, but instead were merely recognized and protected.”
Land said the practice of religious freedom entails other rights such as freedom of assembly, free expression and property ownership, and such freedom creates “breathing room” for political dissidents, labor organizers and human rights advocates. Religious freedom fueled democratic reforms in Eastern Europe and has inspired communist China to stifle religious liberty for fear of pressure of similar reforms, Land said.
The second reason religious liberty is vital to U.S. national interests is that it is universal in its importance and applicability, Land said.
Land said religious freedom is fundamental in post-World War II human rights initiatives and is cited in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Helsinki Accords and other international human rights statements.
Also, the promotion of religious freedom is linked to other fundamental human civil rights, including the growth of democracy, Land said.
“Governments that protect religious freedom for all their citizens are more likely to be governments that protect other fundamental human rights,” Land said. “Encouraging stable, healthy democracies is a vital national interest of the United States of America. The spread of democracy makes for good neighbors, it makes for economic prosperity, it makes for increased trade, and it makes for a decrease in conflict.
Land said when societies begin trampling women’s rights, freedom of conscience and children’s rights, “you have a sign, just like when the canaries start dying in the coal mine … that there are poisonous gases loose in that society and they, left unfettered, will cause serious damage.”
Finally, Land contended, religious freedom is a means of fighting the war on terrorism.
Though religious freedom is not and should not be the top foreign policy concern, Land said it is imperative that it be championed for long-term security at home and abroad because it is “arguably the most fundamental component of all freedom.”
Congressional hearings and religious freedom monitoring gives the religiously oppressed leverage against their governments they otherwise would not have, Land said.
Land said he is saddened and surprised by threats to religious liberty in Western Europe. For example, Land said the USCIRF cited Belgium and France for using government security to infiltrate religious groups they considered cults.
“I didn’t really expect that to be the case in Western democracies, but it has been the case and is the case.” Land lamented France’s prohibition against Muslim head scarves, Jewish yarmulkes and large crosses worn as jewelry in French public schools. But to make a difference, the ideal of religious liberty must be followed by government acting on a coherent policy consistently pursued, Land argued.
Religion shapes the worldviews of those involved in conflicts and is a threat because “it exists outside state control,” Land said. “It gathers and motivates people without state approval and it grows despite state attempts to limit or eradicate it.” (BP)
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