Religious Freedom Day commemorates Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute For Religious Freedom on January 16, 1786 that established the principle of separation of church and state.
The First amendment states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison both believed there would be no freedom of religion without the separation of church and state. They had both seen religious persecution in Colonial America.
Our founding fathers were not perfect, but they got freedom of religion right.
What is freedom of religion? My definition is freedom of religion is the freedom to worship and express your religion as you choose, and the freedom not to at all.
The government may not promote a religion or pass any law that prohibits the free expression of religion. The reason a mandated all school prayer is unconstitutional is this would represent a public institution promoting a religion. However, the Christian Right falsely claims schools are religion free zones. In America, while our public schools can’t promote or coerce religion, they also can’t prohibit the free exercise thereof. The ACLU has advocated for students of many faiths who were denied the right to express their faith in a public school. The ACLU website lists what schools can and can not do.
In recent decades, a Christian Dominionist and Christian Nationalist movement puts our freedom of religion at risk. At the heart of Christian Nationalism is the belief that America was and is a Christian nation. This is an expression of religious supremacy, not religious inclusion or religious freedom. The difference? In my view, religious supremacy says “we are the majority, and we have the freedom to do what we want.” Religious inclusion and religious freedom both stop and ask “Who do we all have here?”
It is important to point out that dominionism isn’t necessarily the same thing as being an evangelical Christian. Chris Hedges notes that in an interview with Amy Goodman.
In Baptist News Global, Rev. Michael Curry (the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church) states that Christian Nationalism is theologically wrong. It replaces the Jesus of the New Testament with with an ambiguous Christ figure who can be adapted to any cultural context. He also notes these impulses fueled American slavery, religious support for apartheid and the rationalizations of the Nazi church. He talks about this more in the webinar can be found here (23:00 mark and 34:00 to 40:00).
In the past, the Christian Right focused on public schools, abortion, a foreign policy influenced by end times theology, opposition to LGBT equality, and trickle down economics.
The movement seems to be getting more, not less extreme. In Ohio, Republican Senate candidate Josh Mandel said during a debate there is no such thing as separation of church and state and we should be instilling faith in the workplace and everywhere in society. Michael Flynn recently called for one religion in the U.S.
That’s unprecedented far as I know. I think an effective counter argument is in opposing this we are not being anti-religious. Instead, we are opposing religious supremacy and we are supporting both religious inclusion and religious freedom. The Democrats should not cede the religious ground to the Republicans.
In an interview with Morning Joe, New York Times op-ed columnist Michelle Goldberg states (at 3:30 mark) that as their numbers decline, evangelical Christians are becoming “even more hard edged” which causes their numbers to decline even more. She expounds on this in an op-ed. "The Christian Right Is In Decline And Taking America With It." The movement is just as dangerous in decline.
A 2020 PRRI Survey shows that white evangelicals are actually declining as a percentage of the population. In 2006, they were 23% of the population. In 2020, just 14.5%. For years, I have read articles predicting the demographic demise of the Christian Right. The demographic predictions weren’t that far off, but the Christian Right was able to maintain their political clout.
In the webinar, Andrew Whitehead breaks it down further. At the 10:15 to 13:00 mark, he talks about how prevalent Christian Nationalism is. While 19.83% are “Ambassadors” or Christian Nationalists another 32.1% he classifies as “accommodators” or leaners.
There are cracks in Christian Right. In recent years, some high profile evangelicals such as Russell Moore and Beth Moore (no relation) have left the Southern Baptist Convention. The Christian Right may be increasingly toxic as its contributing to a decline in religion.
How do we effectively respond to the rise of Christian Nationalism? I do not have all the answers there, so it’s open for discussion!
As I see it, our founding fathers did not create a Christian government. They created a government with no official religion. The majority of Americans just happened to be Christians. Americans are free to worship as they choose or not to.
I think it’s important not to cede the religious ground to the Republicans. The Religious Right likes to faith-bait Democrats by claiming we are a "godless party." But that is false. The Pew Research data shows that most Democrats have a faith. So does the PRRI Survey. In 2012, Minnesotans United For All Families refused to cede the religious ground in the campaign against the marriage amendment
and won.
In 2018, Minnesota Republicans proposed an amendment that would allow public schools to display the motto "In God We Trust." When Democratic State Senator John Marty opposed the amendment, he was attacked on Fox News by a colleague, Minnesota Republican Dan Hall as being anti-religious and out to suppress religion.
But Senator Marty is not anti-religious. As Frederick Clarkson noted, he is a sincere Lutheran. He is also the great grandson of a Lutheran pastor, the grandson of a minister, the son of a minister, and would soon be the father of a minister. He has talked publicly about his faith and why it led him to support marriage equality. He also authored the Minnesota Health Plan that would provide health care for all Minnesotans.
Those of us who opposed the “In God We Trust” amendment stopped and asked “Who do we all have here?” The “we” included students of non-Christian faiths and students without a faith. Contrary to what Republicans said, the amendment was not about religious freedom, but religious supremacy. And opposing it wasn’t being anti-religious, but being religiously inclusive.
The pro-choice religious community is a majority or near majority of the religious community, but it needs to be better organized. It is false that most people of faith are anti-abortion. The Pew Survey shows that the majority of white mainline protestants, black protestants, and Catholics believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Frederick Clarkson talks about this in his article "Is The Pro-Choice Religious Community A Sleeping Giant."
There are several protestant denominations that are officially pro-choice. These include the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Lutheran Church (ELCA), the Methodist Church, the Unitarian Universalist Church, and both conservative and reform Judaism.
Sadly, one point Frederick Clarkson makes is that the pro-choice religious community is not well sought out by the pro-choice community, the media, or elected officials. We can debate why, but
one factor is fear of losing their tax exempt status. The Christian Right has also spent years trying to undermine mainline protestant denominations.
There are strong faith arguments that can be made for issues such as abortion rights, universal health care, a living minimum wage, climate change, same sex marriage, racial equality, and more. We need to make those arguments.
Earlier, I linked to a webinar where Rev. Michael Curry talked about how whenever in history the Church went astray, it was because the New Testament Jesus was replaced with a Christ like figure adapted to any cultural context to justify what people want to do to other people. I think that’s what has happened today. In addition, a lot of megachurches resemble corporations more than the Jesus who drove the moneychangers out of the temple.
The Golden Rule is taught by all religions. Maybe most of us want the same things and we can all work together to create a better world for all? I wrote a diary about my visit to local Mosque. That sermon could have been given in any Christian church or Synagogue if you just substituted “Allah” for “Jesus” or “God.”
We Democrats want to have a big tent and promoting religious inclusion and building coalitions can help us do that. In Trump’s Republican Party, everybody hates everybody.