Religious Freedom: Did Christianity Make Any Positive Contribution?

I am interested in Ed’s characterization of history for several reasons.  I believe it is important that people understand what the Biblical worldview proposes about how the world works.  Because religious intolerance unfortunately has been practiced in the name of Christ, I believe it is important that people evaluate the faith based not on its abuse but on the teachings of Jesus Christ.  Finally, I believe that historical truth matters, for purposes of informing future policy decisions and sound application of the law, and this version of events does not adequately reflect the historical truth.  (By the way, I also find lacking those writings that try to ignore or minimize contributions to the American project made by Enlightenment thinking.) 

I first responded to this particular assertion by Ed:  “Surely one should be able to point to specific references in the Bible or in Christian tradition that argued for religious tolerance if that was true, but one cannot.”  Because Ed asked for specific references, I offered a quote from Jesus and another from renowned historian Bernard Lewis (who is not a Christian to my knowledge).  Here is the substance of my post:

I suspect that you would agree that a separation of church and state is one of the necessary characteristics of a religiously tolerant society. Historian Bernard Lewis asserts that the idea of a separation of church and state “is, in a profound sense, Christian.”  (What Went Wrong? p.96)  Jesus himself stipulated the separation when instructing, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Islam and other civilizations are in stark contrast. According to Lewis, “At no time did [Muhammad and his successors] create any institution corresponding to, or even remotely resembling, the church in Christendom,” that is, an Islam separate from the state. (p.99) Many Roman emperors and Egyptian pharaohs claimed to be gods, leaving state and religion intertwined.

(For further discussion see also Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success.) 

You are welcome to read the ensuing exchange (Ed, Ramsey, Ed, Ramsey, Ed).  In the end, Ed rejects the notion that the Bible commands separate institutions, but I make no such claim.  I do claim that “the idea of a separation of church and state ‘is, in a profound sense, Christian,’” and that it is consistent with Biblical principles even if not commanded by the text.  (I would argue also that the idea of separate institutions – although it seems simple and obvious to us now – was an important pre-Enlightenment step in the development of a more fulsome notion of “separation of church and state.”)  Consider, for example, Ken Myer’s commentary on Nicholas Wolterstorff’s claim in Until Justice and Peace Embrace:  “They [Christians] are to struggle to establish a holy commonwealth here on earth.”

If by holy commonwealth he means the Church, that’s fine.  The Church is, after all, a holy nation and a royal priesthood.  But the Church is a commonwealth only in a metaphoric sense.  It doesn’t have a representative at the U.N.; it doesn’t maintain an army or put people in jail or issue driver’s licenses or do any other things commonwealths do.  Wolterstorff continues, “Of course it is [not was: is] the mandate of all humanity to struggle toward such a community.”  Well, no, it’s not.  There is nothing in the covenant with Noah, which is the most significant instance in Scripture of God addressing fallen mankind en masse, about holiness.  There couldn’t be.

It is most certainly not the mandate for all humanity to be struggling to build a holy community or commonwealth.  Not even the people of God in our epoch of redemptive history are called to create a holy culture, because Christians are called to go out into every culture with the gospel.  We are a people, to be sure, but our peoplehood is spiritual.  Culturally, we are Jew and Gentile, Greek and Roman, European and African.  (All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians & Popular Culture pp.50-51)

I did not press Ed to respond directly to my (and Bernard Lewis’) narrow claim – i.e., the idea of separate institutions is a Christian one.  

Instead, I continued to engage on another claim of mine concerning Biblical worldview, namely that the

foundations for [freedom of conscience and practice] are in the Bible.  God created man in his own image, meaning (in relevant part) that we possess self-determination. He gave humans the choice of whom we would serve; He does not coerce obedience or love. In story after story in the Bible, we see the consequences of those choices.

Ed’s two-part challenge to this claim is serious.  He points first to a Biblical example involving ancient Israel, and then the Biblical notion of hell:

[1] The consequences of those choices often included commands from God himself to slaughter entire civilizations for daring to worship other gods. The Midianites are a good example, an entire society slaughtered except for the virgin females, who were taken as the spoils of war - and all because two of their women “tempted” some Israelite men to worship other gods.  [2] And of course, the very notion of hell is about as contrary to the notion that God gives humans the choice of whom to serve as it can possibly be.  “Do what you want...but if you choose wrong you’ll have your flesh burned off for all eternity” isn’t exactly tantamount to religious freedom.

Of these two points, I find the Biblical concept of hell easier to understand and explain, so I told Ed, “G.K. Chesterton once described hell as a monument to human freedom. God honors the decision of a person to reject Him, by allowing that person to spend eternity forever separated from Him.”  It may be difficult to submit one’s will to this aspect of the Biblical worldview, but it ought not be difficult to understand intellectually.

Less straightforward is how to reconcile the paradox of God’s grant of self-determination to humans and His destruction of the Midianites for their rebellious behavior.  Ed argues that the “fact that God does order people killed for worshipping other gods is enough to disprove the notion that the God of the Bible does not coerce belief.”  This conclusion presupposes that freedom from coercion requires not just freedom of choice but freedom from the consequences of our choices.  (Note: this seems like a reasonable presupposition when considering an American citizen’s right to religious freedom.  But I did not claim that the First Amendment is codified in the Bible.  I contended that the “foundations” for religious freedom can be found in Biblical principles.)

Put less strongly, the conclusion presupposes that freedom from coercion requires that God not unduly (or disproportionately) penalize those who choose to follow other gods.  Otherwise, the argument goes, people are left with no meaningful choice;  they are, in essence, coerced by the threatened consequences. 

But what does it mean for God to “unduly penalize” a person for choosing to follow other gods?  The question presupposes the basic principle of justice:  “to each his due.”  And what is God due?  From a Biblical perspective, God is due “loyalty, worship, and obedience.”  He has given us the “supreme benefit” – our very being – thereby incurring “supreme obligation.”  “To deny Him is the deepest form of treason – much more serious than the ordinary sort.”  J. Budziszewski, What We Can’t Not Know 31 (discussing the First Commandment). 

With these other Biblical principles more plainly in view, it becomes much more difficult to conclude that the Midianites have suffered injustice.  If there is no injustice, then there is no undue penalty for choosing to follow other gods.  If there is no undue penalty, then there is no coercion.