In which our regular writers toss around
subjects a little more volatile than usual.
The Independent reports that Belgium’s Walloon region is
the latest territory to ban kosher and halal meats. Denmark, Switzerland and New Zealand all got there first, in each case turning
a deaf ear to the protests of Jewish and Islamic minorities.
Tom: That’s fine with me. We’ve already established
in the U.S. and Canada that there are reasonable limits on religious freedoms,
though these have been applied more frequently (and certainly more visibly)
against Christians than against religious minorities recently.
But this is the nature of multicultural
societies. Wherever different religions have coexisted in the same national
space, some limits on specific practices have always had to be set. Where
blasphemy was concerned, the Jews groused to Pilate that “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.” Too bad, so sad. That’s life in the Roman Empire.
Where did the West get this concept of “freedom
of religion” in the first place, IC?
A New National Value
Immanuel
Can: I would say that freedom of religion was
pretty much an unpracticed, if not unknown, idea in Europe before the
19th century. Even after that, powerful institutional churches linked
up with the government enjoyed widespread privilege over dissenting
beliefs. The Middle East, the Far East and Africa ... well, you can
see there was no such idea as religious freedom; and in most such
places, there is none today. But in 18th century Revolutionary
America with its wide-open frontier, we start to see a new thing ...
freedom of religion as a national value. Too many dissenters, and no way
of corralling them all. So to pull them all together, you needed to
guarantee their freedom.
But the philosophical theory used to explain the reasons for freedom of
religion hails from John Locke. It is Locke who explains rationally why
(from a distinctly Protestant perspective) freedom of religion is natural
and inevitable for all people. And that was what the U.S. used.
Tom: If you look at American history, as you say, the promotion of
religious freedom as a national value was really intended to curb infighting
between different groups of Christians. The Spanish wiped out a Huguenot colony
in Florida in 1564 because “they were scattering the odious Lutheran doctrine in these Provinces.” This sort of thing went on for 200+ years.
It wasn’t until James Madison’s essay “Memorial
and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” that it would be proposed
that “the Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and
conscience of every ... man to exercise it as these may dictate. This
right is in its nature an inalienable right.”
Constitutional Freedom
This concept became encoded into the
American Constitution with the First Amendment in 1791. The original idea was to keep the State out of the Church and from interfering with the individual conscience. Today, that has been magically inverted into a right of
the State to keep the Church out of its affairs.
But even after religious freedom became an
American value there were still limits at the state level. Missouri expelled
Mormons as recently as 1838. New York State banned Catholics from public office
until 1806 and in Delaware, public office required an oath affirming belief in
the Trinity. In Maryland, Jews did not have full civil rights until well into
the 1800s.
Short version: Even in exceptionally
tolerant America there have always been some
limits on religious freedom, and that was true back when every single one of
the religious groups being managed by the various states had its roots in
either the Old or New Testaments. And we’re long past that today.
From Mormon to Muslim
IC: Well, and Canada’s
facing the problem now, on a number of fronts. For example, there’s the
polygamous, traditional-Mormon group at Bountiful. Can “freedom of religion”
include the right of powerful old men to marry multiple women, some as young as
14, if your “religion” requires or allows that? And it is okay if you eject
your colony’s consequent ‘surplus’ young men in order to do so? So far, Canada
can’t even seem to decide it’s alright to cap that.
Tom: Let’s not forget
honor killing and female genital mutilation. Not legit in North America, but
they’re certainly happening at least on a small scale already. Muslims are
unlikely to get those legalized until they have the numbers to impose Sharia,
or until they establish no-go zones like they have in Europe where they simply
practice whatever they please and the authorities turn a blind eye rather than risk
a major insurgency.
But
like other so-called “rights” guaranteed to us by paper constitutions and charters,
freedom of religion is largely meaningless once you grant it to more than one
religion. My State-guaranteed freedom to practice what I believe will inevitably
offend Muslims, and at a certain point their State-guaranteed freedom to
practice their religion will eventually offend me even if I am the most
tolerant soul going.
The Clash of Value Systems
IC: Well, what’s
tolerance? I think I wrote a piece on that. It’s when somebody DOES offend you,
but you agree to allow them their liberty to continue. But “tolerance” only matters
if you believe a couple of things Islam denies: firstly, that people are all
valuable, and secondly, that obeying one’s conscience before God is the first
essential duty of every person. If you believe those things, you have to allow
religious freedom. And if you don’t believe those things, you don’t even
imagine you have to give anyone that right.
Tom: This is why “religious
freedom for all religions” doesn’t work. Two groups with clashing value systems
can’t possibly be happy at the same time, so the net effect is that the most
aggressive religions retain their freedoms, while the more peaceful ones have
theirs stripped. An example: Justin Trudeau wants to protect Muslims from hate
speech, so he’s going to limit my freedom of speech to do it. Meanwhile, Muslim
imams are free to say anything hateful they like about Jews and Israel. But it’s
way easier to manage Christians who generally obey State authority than to
manage religions that will not cooperate, so that’s the way the game
is played.
It’s
just interesting to see that Belgium and a few other countries are bucking
that trend.
Reversing the “Coexistence” Narrative
IC: What did you have
in mind about Belgium, Tom?
Tom: I think it’s part
of a growing trend that reverses the “coexistence” narrative we’ve been
force-fed since Muslim immigration became a thing. The Walloons said to their
Muslims (and their Jews, for that matter) in effect, “We know you have certain
things you have traditionally been doing in preparing your meat, and we know
they’re part of your religion, but — and here’s the brand new bit — you can’t do that here.” So the Muslims
pushed back like usual, and the Jews pushed back and used the magic word “Holocaust” …
and then the Walloons went right ahead and passed the ban all the same.
There’s
a certain cultural confidence showing there that hasn’t been seen in the West
for a while.
Now
of course it’s distinctly possible this may not be a good thing for Christians,
because, you know, What’s sauce for the
goose …
Private Matter or No Matter
IC: Yes, quite. I
worry about the prevalence of that word, “religion”. The word is old, but
the way it’s used today is actually very new. According to historian Peter
Harrison, the modern way of speaking — that there’s a whole alphabet’s
worth of “religions” from Anabaptists to Zoroastrians, and Christianity is only
one — only dates from the early modern period. But since that time, we’ve
been increasingly indoctrinated to believe that that collective noun describes
some kind of reality, and that Christianity is “among” other “religions”. It’s
a secular term, really one that is used today to be dismissive. “That’s your
religion” means, “Go away; whatever you say may appear true to you, but it has
no claim on me … I’m of a different ‘religion’, or perhaps of none at all,
and ‘religion’ is a private matter — if it matters
at all!”
Tom: Right. In the West religion is looked at more as a
hobby than any sort of real belief system or life-changing worldview. The idea
that what you believe would alter the way you behave in any fundamental way is
not well understood at all. And that not only misunderstands genuine
Christianity in a major way, it also misunderstands the intensity with which
Islamists approach their religion. For them it’s not a hobby. It’s their
politics, their identity, their culture … the whole nine yards.
IC: Another such term
today is “fundamentalism”. It’s supposed to describe something, but like “religion”
it’s meaningless without saying what the belief in question is. Quakers,
Hassidim and Jihadis are all said to be “fundamentalists”, but vive la difference!
So when “religion” is restricted, we can fully expect that not just “fundamental”
Islam but Judaism and Christianity will get hit soon after.
Not Gonna Play Anymore
But
this is perhaps different, Tom. I think the Walloons are just saying “We’re not
playing Islam’s game.” I suspect the kosher Jews just got caught in that
battle, because they never presented a problem to Belgium before.
Tom: No, and there’s a
much smaller number of them these days. The few that have not taken flight for
America or Israel are deeply deluded about their own level of influence on
European politics, and convinced that if they cry “Anti-Semitism!” a sufficient
numbers of times, things will eventually go back to normal, which of course is
what they’ve done here. But Europe is 70 years removed from the end of
WWII, and mentioning the Holocaust doesn’t have the same effect on Millennials
as it had on the Boomers and Gen X.
And
I don’t see this as a particularly anti-Semitic move by Belgium. As you say,
they were happy to let the Jews do their thing for years. But with the
increasing number of Muslims in the country and with the heightened sensitivity
in secular society to animal cruelty, this wasn’t going to be a win for either
the Muslims or the Jews.
IC: No. But what will
it mean for Christians? Will other localities follow Belgium’s example? It’s
hard to see, given the Islamic influx, that they won’t all be forced to lay
down some basic rules. But when they do, what will be the spill-over effect for
Christians and Jews? I suspect there will be one, because the liberal myth of
the equal value of all religions will forbid the making of any intelligent
distinction, and of clamping down exclusively on Muslims. So religions that
have never been a problem before will be hurt by that.
But
what’s the Christian thing to do here, Tom?
Between God and Men
Tom: Well, obedience to
the civic authorities is our rule of thumb wherever possible and principled,
restrained disobedience where it isn’t. I mean, things like a ban on gathering
in the name of the Lord or a ban on witnessing are worth fighting for and we
really have no other option. I may be wrong, but I don’t see that in the
immediate future. More likely it’s going to be the kind of things we’re already
seeing now: the obligation to bake cakes for gay weddings; the danger of losing
your job if you’re too vocal about your faith during work hours; that type of thing.
IC: That’s good counsel. But I also think that the clampdown may
continue beyond the reasonable and moral; and that there will soon come a time
when we will have to say, with the apostles, “We must obey God rather than men.”
Discerning exactly when we reach that point will be a major challenge for the
Church in upcoming days, I suspect.
Maybe what we have to do is set that point very clearly and firmly right
now. At what point will it become right and Christian to obey God at the cost
of defying our government? It will be easier to decide now; but since
decline is gradual, it may be very hard to believe the time has come when
it comes.
Come it will.
No comments :
Post a comment