Why does religious freedom not look very…freedomy? Because it amounts to a one-sided conversation about what counts.
Episode 31 of the Make Saints podcast: “What is religious freedom?”
the episode script
I know you’re familiar with the phrases “religious liberty” and “religious freedom” but what do we actually mean by them? We get the ideas of liberty and freedom (well…sort of, at least we think we do).
And, for the most part, we think we know what religious means.
So why do we have such wildly different ideas about what all of this means?
I’ve discussed the trouble we have with understanding freedom in previous episodes. So maybe it’s time to talk about what we actually mean by religion.
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Religion
There are really two working definitions of religion that we all draw on. One is the more technical one used by organizations, governments, churches, academics, and pretty much anybody that wants to get this junk right. Religions are systems of belief and the organized people who practice them.
A religious tradition can be described by its common sets of beliefs, but religions themselves are embodied by the people. So a religion is established, embodied, and common among people.
The other working definition of religion is like…vibes. Not as in vibes as a form of religion. No, I mean, whatever someone’s vibes decides religion is. So, like, people (even Supreme Court justices) think a “sincerely held belief” counts as “religion”–but really, only in the court cases that they like. They don’t think a pot church represents a religious institution, for instance, but think a craft store does.
So on the one hand, we have a working definition most of us use and another some of us use to their advantage. So…guess what this means for freedom.
Religious Freedom
In recent years, the idea of religious freedom turned from something we all, more or less, agreed on to something few of us do.
Back in the 1980s, a wide variety of Christian denominations worked with groups from other religions to support the original Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). This came about over the concern in a particular court case against a Native American group and the use of the peace pipe. They saw the curtailing of religious and cultural practice of Native Americans as potentially harmful to all religious groups.
So they worked together to find a way to protect all religions from undue restrictions.
Thirty years later, Evangelical Christians sought to reframe that earlier conversation to support their vision of religious freedom; without the support of most other Christians, let alone anyone else.
The difference in the case
What was different in the second round of RFRA cases at the federal and state levels in the 2000s and 2010s was that the pursuit of Evangelical Christians was not religious freedom, but unlimited liberty for a certain religious tradition.
They specifically wanted to elevate the liberty of white evangelical protestants with conservative politics above the rights of others.
Even as many Roman Catholics have signed on to these pursuits, we must recognize that this isn’t the unfettered liberty of all religions or even all Christians. It is the elevation of certain Christians that agree with them.
The Court Cases
The many cases before the Supreme Court have shown this similar character.
In the Hobby Lobby case, the court suggested they were protecting the religious liberty of the employer to not provide healthcare to their employees. But they restricted the liberty of the employees seeking healthcare they could get anywhere else.
In several cases involving shop owners unwilling to sell to certain groups, the court sought to protect the religious liberty of the owner to discriminate. But they restricted the religious liberty of, say, a couple to live into their sacramental life together.
And in a recent example, the Supreme Court sought to protect the religious liberty of a high school football coach to publicly pray with his team after a game. But the religious liberty of the players, coaches, and families were not even respected in the Court’s decision. They were deemed irrelevant.
Freedom = liberty + equality
As I described in an earlier episode about freedom, the fundamental principle of freedom is that it only exists in concert with everything else. Like, your freedom is always dependent on the freedom of your neighbors. Always.
The equation goes like this: Freedom = liberty + equality.
The most famous description of freedom is attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes and amounts to the idea that your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. It’s a way of saying you have a ton of personal liberty to do so much stuff, but when that liberty starts running into other people’s liberty, then you’ve found the limits of your liberty.
What all of this talk of religious liberty and religious freedom is doing, is that it is trying to argue that the first amendment allows for no limits on anyone’s religious liberty. Which, OK, sounds great, until other people start to get hurt. But they’re saying No, no, no! That’s not enough! You can’t limit their religious liberty! Ever!
But, when people literally argued that their religious liberty was being restricted by Hobby Lobby or a football coach, they were like pppttthhhbbbbt! Nonsense. Doesn’t count.
The unfettered liberty of some isn’t the classic definition of freedom. Nor is it one that can be recognized by most people.
Because we can look at this stuff and see that this whole thing feels off.
Pretending freedom is maximal liberty
Of course we can see how they got there. And it really does seem like a conundrum.
We want religious freedom. We also want everyone to have it.
This is why we need to recognize the fundamental difference between maximal liberty and maximal freedom. We all have the most freedom when we all have as much liberty as possible. Every one of us.
This is why we’re getting tangled up in our understanding. Because maximal freedom requires that we balance our desire for maximum liberty with equality. So that our religious faith is protected from the pressure of football coaches and players, for instance.
Diminishing Voices
The Supreme Court has done a lot to mess up our sense of religious freedom, but they aren’t the only ones.
For many of us who consider ourselves religious: whether it be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, what have you: we are constantly having to navigate both of those working definitions of religion.
And the same applies to our religious traditions.
As a Christian, the media has constantly referred to these court cases as “wins” for Christianity.
And yet, each one has been at the expense of people just like me or people in my congregation. People whose sincerely held religious beliefs are being violated. As Christians. By other Christians.
This is clearly not a “win” for Christianity. It isn’t greater religious freedom. But guess who wins every time a journalist calls it that?