The Omnifarium - Religion/ReligiousFreedom.html

Religious Freedom in the 21st Century

Category: Religion
Sat, 25 Mar 2006, 15:34

In Afghanistan, 41 year old Abdul Rahman is charged with converting from Islam to Christianity. Under Afghan law, that act is punishable by death. People of many different faiths find this unacceptable. After all, in a modern world, we all should have the freedom to choose our religion, right? But how much religious freedom do we really have? To start with, let's have a quick look at the history of Christianity.

Christianity began in the ancient Roman Empire. At the time, most people were relatively free to practice the religion of their choice. Sure, there were years during which certain religious groups were persecuted, but on the whole different religions were more or less tolerated. If this wasn't the case, Christians never would have been able to establish and practice their religion. (Reports of vast numbers of Christian martyrs during Roman times are considered to be greatly exaggerated by most historians.)

Of course, things changed drastically during the reign of Emperor Constantine I. Christianity was established as the state religion, and almost all other forms of worship were outlawed and suppressed, often brutally. This included forms of Christian practice that did not conform to the beliefs of the senior bishops in the empire.

For the subsequent 1300 years, the average European had little choice in his religion. The church jealously guarded the rules of orthodoxy, often brutally suppressing any "heresy", such as Catharism and Waldensianism. The Protestant reformation was the biggest challenge to church authority, and millions of people in central Europe were killed during the subsequent wars. Even after peace treaties were signed, the average peasant still had no religious freedom - the religion of a region was still decided by the ruling king, arch-duke, or prince.

Okay then, what about today? Don't most of us enjoy the right to choose and practice our own faith? In theory, yes. But the reality is that most followers of most religions don't choose their faith - it gets chosen for them, usually by their parents. Many children get indoctrinated into a particular church through lessons taught in Sunday School, or in some cases, through religious day schools.

When a child is old enough to make his or her own reasoned choices, few choose to stray from the family's church. Some do, however, which normally isn't much of a problem. However, in some churches, people are often shunned by the family and church. The threat of being shunned is often used as a deterrent against apostasy. Even in churches where this isn't a problem, a person may well stay with the church just to avoid offending or alienating fellow family members.

My point here is that Islam isn't the first religion to take action against those leaving the faith, and won't be the last. But if a church feels it needs to use force or coercion to keep the "faithful" in line, what does that say about the church? Shouldn't a faith attract and retain adherents by the force of argument and reason, rather than the force of intimidation?

Hans

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