Religion has formed the foundation of cultures and societies the world over–for thousands of years. Only relatively recently in human history has society begun to question its utility and purpose. This is unfortunate because only in the last 800 years of human history–beginning with Magna Carta, the Treaty of Westphalia, and later protections in British Common Law–have societies begun to provide the legal framework necessary for religions to flourish independent of a political majority’s approbation, [1].
The United States was the first democracy of its size to guarantee broad protections for religions on a national scale. Indeed, religious liberty is the first right enshrined in the U.S. Bill of Rights, [2]. Guaranteed by both the non-establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment, this crucial freedom was enshrined to protect churches from the government’s potentially intrusive and corrupting influence, [3] and believers from unlawful government restriction on their ability to believe and practice their beliefs.
The Founding Fathers knew that religion and religious liberty would play crucial roles in ensuring the success of the American experiment. John Adams said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion,” [4]. George Washington said, “If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution … might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it,” [5].
Why did Adams and Washington believe this about religion? Among other things, they and many of the other framers of the Constitution knew that religions everywhere quietly perform a number of thankless tasks that substantively contribute to the wellbeing of all societies. One of these, as Adams identified, is to teach moral principles that encourage people to voluntarily obey the law without having to be compelled to do so.
250 years later, however, some Americans see religion as an obstacle to the success of this country because it impedes “enlightened” thinking. Others view religion as an impermissible threat to the modern civil rights movement and new protected classes, despite the protections for religion in The Bill of Rights [6].
This last point is especially ironic because religion was a critical component of many antislavery campaigns of the 19th century in Britain and the United States, [7], the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, [8], and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, [9].
These prominent examples do not come close to accounting for the very real impact of everyday religious doctrines that transform lives and families, helping nations counter troubling social trends. Religiosity has been found to bolster the child bearing rate in countries with low birth rates, [10], has been linked to a decrease in the rate of drug use and risky activities among youth and adults, [11], and has been shown to have a net positive impact on mental health, [12].
Even so, many continue to question the value of religion and its legal protections, which is problematic for both people of faith the world over and for all societies. Here I identify two threats to religion and religious liberty, which are due, in large part, to misperceptions and misuse of religion and its practitioners.
The first threat comes from believers and nonbelievers who recognize the good religion does yet try to strip faiths of certain socially “problematic” beliefs in an effort to make them more palatable while still preserving their positive impact on society.
These efforts are misguided because religion does not exist simply to increase the birth rate, lower drug use, or improve mental health. Rather, those benefits to society come about as a natural consequence of believers implementing rigorous religious doctrine and teachings in their personal and public lives. I assert that the primary purpose of many (if not most) religions is to teach people to “hope for things which are not seen, which are true” and to prepare them for life after death, [13].
As New York Times columnist David Brooks once noted, “Vague, uplifting, nondoctrinal religiosity “doesn’t actually last. The religions that grow, succor and motivate people to perform heroic acts of service are usually theologically rigorous, arduous in practice and definite in their convictions about what is True and False,” [14].
The second threat to religion and religious freedom is the phenomenon of politicians and political movements using religion, religious doctrine, and religious symbols as tools to achieve certain social or political goals. This use of religion causes onlookers to lose sight of the true purpose of religion and see it instead as a means to a political or social end, which causes it to lose credibility in the eyes of an increasingly secular public [15].
I realize in writing this article that I am probably preaching to the choir about religion–at least as far as my defense of its role in society and its legal protections goes. However, I urge you, reader, to recognize that the continued blessings of religion and religious liberty will only be realized if people like you and me seek to counter these present social trends.
We must be faithful and true to whatever religious belief we might espouse. Let us not neuter its life-saving doctrines or relegate it to political purposes. As Elder Quentin L. Cook taught, “There is no better demonstration of the great benefits associated with religious liberty than for devoted members of various faiths who feel accountable to God to model principles of integrity, morality, service, and love,” [16].
Let us work together to preserve and protect religious liberty here so that other countries and peoples are inspired to do the same.
