National Review
Religious persecution abroad reminds us why religious freedom is important
Since the United States is the country that reigns and defends global hegemony, the prevailing winds of American society and politics are of the utmost importance compared to other countries. What happens here has a ripple effect: the cultural commitments and values that manifest in American politics inevitably spill over the borders of the republic and affect the lives of men, women and children around the world. It has always been like that with superpowers. At the dawn of Pax Britannica, an Englishman named William Wilberforce decided that he did not like slavery very much. He met a few other guys in London’s Clapham Circle who thought the same way, and a few years later the global slave trade had been almost completely dismantled. The priorities established by the hegemonic powers are always felt in distant lands. Several Western countries have replaced religion with state worship in the past century and, as a result, have come to see the American prioritization of religious freedom as incomprehensible or ridiculous. On the other hand, many non-Western countries still depend on a state-sponsored religion to provide social cohesion and to guarantee the legitimacy of the regime. Where the drive to conserve political power is strongest, the promotion of religious freedom is weakest. It should not surprise Americans to learn that the belief that freedom of conscience is a non-negotiable component of a human society is maintained only by America. We were reminded of this last month by Alexander Dvorkin, who since 2009 has been the head of the Russian government’s “Council of Religious Experts”. The purpose of this body is to decide which religious groups in Russia should be designated as “extremists” and, therefore, “liquidated”. Among Dvorkin’s recent targets were Jehovah’s Witnesses, who were banned and brutally repressed in Russia in 2017. Dvorkin can therefore be called, without much exaggeration, the great inquisitor of the Kremlin. Dvorkin seems determined to subjugate all other forms of religious association to the domain of pro-Putin, the statist wing of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was successful enough in this regard to have his services requested on several occasions by the Chinese Communist Party, which has invited him to go to China and Hong Kong in the past to provide help and coverage for his own repression efforts. On February 25, Dvorkin delivered a speech at a conference in Paris, during which he talked about how the increase and easing of US pressure affects his ability to follow the Kremlin’s guidelines. He also provided a useful summary of how the Putin government has seen the development of religious freedom in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union (it should be noted that “sects” and “cults” are the terms that Dvorkin likes to use when talking about heterodox religions): In the 1990s, the new Russia, painfully acquiring its shape, faced a massive invasion of totalitarian sects, which instantly attracted thousands and tens of thousands of new adherents to its ranks. . . . Gorbachev’s Law on Freedom of Conscience (1990) helped to give free rein to cults and they achieved spectacular successes. . . . A new law on freedom of conscience and religious organizations was passed in 1997. The law was the result of difficult commitments and agreements, but still, to some extent, allowed to limit the activities of the services. The real progress in the Russian state’s attitude towards cults began sometime after 2015 and more or less coincided with the deterioration of Russia’s relations with Western countries. Observing a correlation between the deterioration of Russian-Western relations and the progress of his policies, he noted that many of Russia’s western neighbors used to show a similar inclination towards religious intolerance, but that the long-term influence of the United States softened it. “Many Western countries that have already set an example in the fight against cults, such as France, Germany, Belgium and Austria, are gradually revising their positions under pressure from the United States,” lamented Dvorkin. Flexible European states had to reinforce their own commitment to religious freedom to remain in good standing with global hegemony. As a result, Putin’s Russia was left with only China as a bedmate when it comes to a policy of religious persecution. Dvorkin may seem to Americans (correctly) a sinister figure, but it is important to remember that he is not exotic. In the great movement of human history, he is the norm and we are the exception. The brutal application of religious orthodoxy has been a sine qua non of human social organization since the early days of recorded history. In his masterful work The Ancient City, published in 1864, the French historian Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges showed how prehistoric religious beliefs first shaped domestic institutions and then the civic institutions of ancient Greece and classical Rome. To be a citizen in Athens was to be an obedient member of the city’s official religious cult: at sixteen or eighteen, he [a young Athenian] is presented for admission to the city. That day, in the presence of an altar, and in front of the smoking flesh of a victim, he pronounces an oath, by which he always commits himself to respect. . . the religion of the city. From that day he is initiated into public worship and becomes a citizen. Specificities have varied at different times and places, but the role that community-based religious commitments, endorsed by the state and reinforced by violence, have played in human social organization has been enormous. The official religion has been the standard method used by human beings to coordinate their relations with each other. Julian, the Apostate, Augustine of Hippo, the Spanish inquisitors, John Calvin, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell. . . the list of violent religious executioners continues indefinitely. Dvorkin, it seems, is a fairly normal human – even banal. Americans are the real freaks (and I mean “freaks” in the best possible way). As early as the 17th century, there were settlers in American colonies whose political views on religious freedom were so progressive that they sounded almost extraterrestrial to the Europeans with whom they lived. Take Roger Williams, for example, certainly one of the greatest Americans in history. Born in 1603, Williams was a Puritan minister and theologian who founded what would become the colony of Rhode Island. He was one of the first known abolitionists in the Western world, a staunch supporter of church-state separation and a tireless activist for fair negotiations with Native Americans. He ended up becoming the first English-speaking settler to write a book on Narragansett’s Native American language. In 1636, Williams was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay colony for spreading “new and dangerous ideas” like “freedom of conscience”. His influential writings on religious freedom made him, in many ways, the morning star of the First Amendment. He described forced worship as “rape of the soul” and condemned the “oceans of blood” that were shed trying to enforce conformity. Surprisingly, for a man of his time (and a Puritan minister), Williams even favored full religious freedom for Muslims, Jews, and atheists. He justified his position thus: A civilian sword (as the regrettable experience in all ages has proved) is far from bringing or helping an opposite in religion to the repentance that magistrates seriously sin against the work of God and the blood of souls through such procedures. . . . The religion that needs such instruments of violence to keep it that way cannot be true. Arguments like this have never been well received by kings or commissioners, but they won the day at Independence Hall on July 4, 1776. All talk of America as “Earth’s last best hope” can easily turn to angry chauvinism and openly nationalist idolatry, but on the narrow political issue of religious freedom for the human race, it is exactly correct. Alexander Dvorkin told us that. If the American commitment to religious freedom falters and fails here at home, freedom of conscience may not last long in this world, or at least in much of it. The torch lit by Roger Williams is still being carried by the United States and its citizens, but the current government worries us. The career of Xavier Becerra, recently confirmed to head the Department of Health and Human Services, suggests that very little respect will be accorded to groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor. As the government follows a hostile agenda to the rights of conscience, many religious Americans may wonder what has happened to our fundamental commitment to religious freedom. The enemies of religious freedom across America’s borders are currently wielding terrible power. Here at home, it has never been more important to defend freedom of conscience, the jewel in the crown of the Constitution – beautiful but fragile, and so, very rare.