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Event: Georgetown hosts first of three forums on religious freedom and U.S. foreign policy
February 25, 2008
By Beth Hearn
“From our very inception as a nation, religious freedom has been central to our ideology,” said Allen Hertzke, Professor of Political Science and Director of Religious Studies at the University of Oklahoma, at an event Monday at Georgetown University co-hosted by the Council on Faith and International Affairs and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. Yet he asserted that until the mid-1990s, religious freedom as a human right was largely ignored.
Its profile has been raised significantly over the past decade, in large part due to the passing of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) – and the creation of the Commission on International Religious Freedom – in 1998. Nina Shea, vice-chair of the Commission, talked about the efforts made to raise awareness of this human right through annual reports and designation of countries of particular concern.
This is not, however, the only reason for a rise in public and governmental awareness of the issue of religious freedom. Since the birth of the Commission there has not been any reduction in persecution of religion because, said Shea, of the strength of “world forces.”
Daniel Philpott, Fellow of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, pointed out that the world has been undergoing a process of “desecularization” over recent years.
The last decade, then, has been one in which religion and religious freedom have become more and more prominent in U.S. public awareness and foreign policy, both in terms of the need and the desire to promote religious freedom.
Jeremy Gunn, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, introduced the idea that religious freedom cannot be regarded as a solitary issue. U.S. consideration of human rights “does not begin or end with religious freedom,” he said.
In this sense, the emphasis on religious freedom is just one aspect of the United States’ vision for the world. Brian Grim, of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, explained the fact that there is a clear mathematical correlation between religious freedom and other basic freedoms, and also with general socio-economic wellbeing. He asserted that freedom of religion promotes stability and can “energize social participation.”
Religious freedom, he said, has the potential to lead to broader religious participation, which in turn leads to positive contributions of religion to society. Social or governmental restriction of religious freedom, meanwhile, leads to a greater degree of violence related to religion.
It was suggested by an audience member, however, that the causation actually flows in the opposite direction: that socio-economic wellbeing and a nation’s sense of security in itself leads to an increase in religious freedom.
Jose Casanova, a Sociology professor at Georgetown, was the first speaker to introduce the idea that religious freedom has the potential to clash with other values, citing the rights of minority groups and indigenous peoples to protect their religions and cultures from evangelism. He stressed the fact that the right to convert between or away from religion must be protected, and that this entails a right to proselytize, but was critical of the aggressive tendency of some evangelical groups. Promotion of religious freedom may, he said, be perceived by many as tied to American imperialism.
He did not suggest that religious freedom should be restricted in any way, merely that it is of vital importance to recognize that “my right to worship God as I see fit might be in tension with your right to worship God as you see fit.”
Following this point, an audience member suggested that to protect women’s rights it may be necessary to “step on the toes of” religious freedom. In response, Grim cited data that shows a correlation between religious freedom and women’s rights.
It was made clear, therefore, that the promotion of religious freedom is inextricably tied to other human rights and Western values. This was made explicit by Lauren Homer, of the International Law Group, who said that “we can’t give religious freedom to groups who want to take away the religious freedom of others.” Religious freedom cannot be defended to the extent that it justifies the violation of other rights, such as those of women or religious minorities, she said.
The religious freedom that is promoted by IRFA and U.S. foreign policy comes as part of a package that includes freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, democracy and the rights of women and minorities.
During the final debate, Robert T. Smith of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University, pointed out that criticism has been levied against the Commission for International Religious Freedom due to the fact that it does not rate the United States in its annual report, implying that the U.S. is the standard against which all others are judged. Liu Peng, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, made the accusation that the U.S. appears to use religious freedom for political leverage – it places greater emphasis upon it when it is politically expedient to do so.
Unfortunately, by the time these criticisms were made, those speakers who may have been in a position to defend the International Religious Freedom Act – or respond to these concerns – had already left the event. |
