Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. Constitution Day is a good day to celebrate one of the greatest blessings of American freedom, the constitutional guarantee of religious liberty. It's protected in the Constitution, this right to worship God freely, pray openly, exercise faith publicly, and pursue our callings faithfully. It is much to be thankful for and also much that needs to be preserved.
These freedoms are a reflection of what scholars Eric and Jennifer Patterson call a religious freedom consensus that's long been present in American culture. That consensus recognizes at least three essentials, that human beings are religious by nature, that religion contributes to the good of society, and that government has a duty to protect freedom in this fundamental aspect of human life. It was as recently as 1993 that this consensus resulted in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RIFRA, which was passed by Congress nearly unanimously and signed into law by then President Clinton. But the religious freedom brand has taken quite a hit since then. It's doubtful that the same act would even pass today.
For many, religious freedom has become code language for license to discriminate. In recent decades, RIFRA and all the principles behind it have been widely questioned. And the pressures have increased to privatize religion in the public square and downgrade the freedom to exercise our faith in all areas of life to merely the freedom of so-called worship, a freedom that's limited to your own heart, your own home, and your own house of worship. Legal challenges to the rights of believers to live out their faith consistent with their convictions have been brought against those who run adoption agencies and homeless shelters and student groups and family businesses. Christians are called to be stewards of what we've been given, and the heritage of religious freedom in this country is one of those things.
And there's plenty that we can and must do if we are to see this religious freedom consensus that we've inherited as Americans be preserved. And Christians not only have constitutional reasons to uphold religious freedom, we have theological reasons. Unfortunately, so many Christians just do not know these theological reasons, much less how they're reflected in the history of their own denominations and traditions. As such, many are not able to articulate why religious freedom is a good and necessary gift of God that is worth fighting for. In their new book, Faith and Freedom, Six Theological Reflections on Religious Freedom, Eric and Jennifer Patterson provide a thorough theological case for religious freedom from various traditions.
Faith and Freedom features the work of theologians who each provide a theology of religious freedom from their own traditions.
Now, as you might expect when Baptist, Wesleyan, Lutheran, Reformed, and Pentecostal Christians all contribute to the same book, each chapter takes a little different approach to this topic. And yet, each scholar offers arguments and angles that will sharpen the conviction of all Christians about religious freedom, no matter the church background that we come from. For example, the Baptist chapter offers a stark reminder of the God-given limits of government. Civil officials are not to dictate or outlaw worship or the pattern of life that flows from it. The Reform chapter builds the case for religious freedom on the doctrine of the image of God, reminding us that God alone judges the human heart and that he requires sincere faith that cannot be coerced.
The Wesleyan chapter draws on that tradition's focus on freedom from sin for sanctification. That leads to personal holiness and social holiness that expresses love for God and neighbor. In other words, religious freedom leads to transformation of lives and society as it allows believers to pursue that charge that's found in Micah 6.8. that we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. From the image of God to the limits of human authority to neighbor love, the theological insights in this volume, Faith and Freedom, can help us develop a richer Christian worldview about what religious freedom is and why it matters.
While these evangelical accounts sound slightly different notes, they harmonize around a few themes. First, because human beings are made in the image of God, they're inherently religious and accountable to God first and foremost. Second, religion and religious freedom serve the good of society, especially through the biblical command to love and serve our neighbors. And third, government should defer whenever possible to this fundamental aspect of human life. Christians need to be able to describe and express these religious convictions in order to uphold a religious freedom consensus in American culture.
And we have to do so both with our words and our deeds. Standing for religious freedom is necessary. It requires courage. Just ask Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who spent more than a decade fending off lawsuits that tried to force him to express views about marriage and gender ideology that were in sharp conflict with his Christian faith. Courage is rooted in our deepest convictions.
Those convictions are shaped over years around dinner tables, in Sunday schools, in classrooms, and in conversations. Families, churches, and Christian schools have the opportunity Even the obligation to cultivate the kind of convictions that can undergird the religious freedom consensus for future generations. In fact, we'll have to if the next generation will stand when courage is called for from them in the future. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download podcasts.
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