A recent column in USAToday titled “5 rules for faith and politics 2012” proposes rules the authors say would avoid both theocracy and hostility toward religion. But all they succeed in doing is marginalizing people of faith who have the audacity to think their most cherished beliefs about God and morality should affect all aspects of their lives - including how they vote. A review of their “5 rules” indicates what the authors really want is for people of faith to keep their religious convictions to themselves. Their fear of a theocracy is completely unfounded.  Virtually all of the Founding Fathers had a political philosophy that reflected their Christian beliefs and nobody would argue they set up a government that established a theocracy. I suspect what the authors are really afraid of is people of faith waking up to the fact that we must have moral, God honoring leaders if we expect to have a moral, God honoring country.  Their proposed rules attempt to shame religious voters into closing their eyes to a candidate’s moral convictions (or lack thereof).  Moreover, they ask people of faith and their churches to sacrifice the religious freedom that is the foundation of our country.

Their first rule advocates that the wise constitutional provision prohibiting the government from imposing a religious test for office  should apply to individuals also.  They say, “Voters should evaluate candidates based on their policies, their values and their character but not on whether or how they choose to worship.”  Of course, one’s values and character are heavily influenced by religious beliefs.  Not to consider them would be foolhardy.  And I highly doubt the authors themselves would vote for someone whose religious beliefs include child sacrifice (which recent tragic reports demonstrate is not merely an implausible hypothetical).

The next rule would prohibit the Catholic Church from denying communion to politicians who fail to abide by and uphold the Church’s beliefs.  The authors think churches should not hold their members accountable when members act in a way that is contrary to what they say they believe. This effectively encourages hypocrisy. Under this rule, politicians can say they believe abortion is murder on Sunday but vote to allow it (and force all taxpayers to pay for it) on Monday – and their church is absolutely prohibited from taking any action to correct them.  This asks churches to forfeit a long established right to govern themselves and their members without governmental interference.

“Candidates should refrain from citing religion as the exclusive authority for their position on issues,” is the authors’ next proposal and it also restricts religious freedom.   The rule is really just a restatement of part of the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause Lemon Test which requires all government actions to have a secular purpose.  Putting aside whether Lemon is a good test or not, it only applies to the government, not a candidate.  Obviously, if they are elected to office, candidates will want to be able to articulate reasons for their policies that aren’t necessarily based on religious conviction in order to persuade their colleagues that don’t share those convictions.  But when a candidate is running for office, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with saying something like, “my deeply held religious beliefs prohibit me from voting for laws imposing the death penalty.”  This creates no constitutional crisis and many voters are interested in what’s underlying a candidate’s views on a particular issue.

The fourth proposed rule, as explained by the authors, appears to be relatively benign.  As I understand it, they believe politicians should avoid alienating anyone who does not share their religious beliefs, but they should be free to express their personal religious beliefs.  They use former President George W. Bush’s reference to Christ as being the most influential political philosopher in his life as being acceptable.  To the extent the authors are saying they think it’s smart for politicians to avoid offending people of different faiths, that makes sense.  But the idea that this can be accomplished by not using references to God, and instead saying “the Creator,” “the Almighty,” or “Divine Providence” is naive.  These terms may offend any number of groups, including atheists and polytheists.

The final proposed rule is fraught with danger and inaccuracy. It reflects the current law (the “Johnson Amendment”) which prohibits pastors from preaching to their congregations about how a candidate’s platform lines up with scripture. The authors claim this law is necessary to avoid election fraud.  But pastors who preach sermons and apply Scripture to political candidates are not making an “end-run” around campaign finance laws.  They are exercising their right to freedom of religion.  The tax code restrictions that prevent churches and pastors from specifically discussing how their faith applies to a particular election and the candidates in that election trample the First Amendment.  (Click here for an excellent article by my colleague Erik Stanley summarizing the constitutional problems with the Johnson Amendment).  Other tax-exempt organizations, such as veterans’ groups, are allowed to endorse or oppose candidates and remain tax-exempt while giving their donors a deduction for contributions.  Why single out churches and religious organizations for discriminatory treatment?Further, whether such endorsements or oppositions are “deeply problematic from a religious perspective” is a great question for churches to debate but not for the government to mandate. Those who believe their faith requires that they apply Scripture and its teachings to specific candidates and elections are prohibited from doing so by the Johnson Amendment.  The government, in effect, has mandated a winner in what is a quintessential theological debate:  namely whether churches should apply Scripture in a way that opposes or endorses a candidate.  The Johnson Amendment allows government to act as a type of “orthodoxy police” to enforce its own view of how religion should apply to candidates and elections. That is not only offensive from a religious perspective, it is blatantly unconstitutional.

Professor Carl Esbeck is fond of saying, “The government does not establish religion by leaving it alone.”  But the authors’ “5 rules for faith and politics” have the opposite effect.  For the most part, they meddle in the religious affairs of churches and individuals, requiring them to check those beliefs at the door whenever the realm of politics is entered.  This misguided attempt to “cleanse” politics of religion is a bad idea because it tramples religious freedom, and would make politics a completely secular, amoral undertaking.  God knows it’s bad enough already!

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There are times in my life that I thank God we live in a free country.  But then, there are other times I wonder if we are free at all.   The tale of this Texas town makes you wonder if democracy is on life support in our country, and when will the church finally rise up and say, “Enough is enough!”

It all started when the mayor and a few council persons in El Paso, Texas, decided they wanted to provide benefits to same-sex partners of city employees.  Now as could be expected, this did not sit well with many in the community and in the local churches who thought that those who practice this behavior should not receive special benefits.

So in November, 2010, the citizens of El Paso, by popular petition, placed on the ballot and passed an ordinance prohibiting unmarried domestic partner benefits.  This was democracy in action!  A mayor and a few elected officials announced that they intended to pass a bad law, and several citizens responded with a grassroots effort and voiced their collective will to the city.

But the mayor and these council persons were not too pleased that their plans were thwarted by the people.  And so the city council responded to the people’s vote by passing an ordinance that undid it, and provided benefits for unmarried couples.

This act of defiance of the expressed will of the citizenry did not set well with many El Pasoans.  Even those who supported benefits for unmarried couples were outraged by the council’s actions.  And so a movement was initiated to hold a recall election to remove the mayor and two council persons from office.

Petitions were signed.  Signatures were gathered.  Blood, sweat and tears were spent in this effort to hold these elected officials accountable for their actions.  And at the end of the day, over 15,000 signatures were collected, well over the required number to hold a recall election.

But if you thought that this Texas mayor would just hang up his spurs, you would be a few bullets short of a six shooter.  This mayor, wanting to hold onto his job, filed a lawsuit against a church and several religious leaders, claiming that their efforts in promoting the recall election were illegal, and violated Texas criminal law.

What was it that this mayor alleged these Christians did?  Obtain signatures from dead people?  Have Charlie Brown sign the petition?  Promise a free pass to heaven?  No.  The “criminal acts” that the mayor alleged were the circulating and distributing of a recall election petition by the church.  In other words, pure grassroots, political speech!

Apparently, according to the mayor, churches are not allowed to participate in democracy.  And if it is a church that collected signatures to oust him from office, then such signatures don’t count.

We, at ADF, are vigorously defending the church’s right to be fully engaged in the culture.  Christians and their institutions are not second class citizens who are banned from the democratic process.  Throughout our nation’s history, the voice of the church has steered us through trying times.  From the Revolutionary War, the Underground Railroad, women’s suffrage and to the Civil Rights Act, the church has provided a moral compass as we made our way through history.

So even if it requires Supreme Court review, we will stand up for the right of churches to be heard.  Enough is enough.
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An Egyptian court is reported to have sentenced a man to three  years in jail and hard labor because he ”intentionally insulted the dignity of the Islamic religion and attacked it with insults and ridicule on Facebook.” No mention is made of exactly what the man said, or what his religion is, but it’s likely that he wasn’t a Muslim because the court observed that ”all members of religions are obligated to tolerate the others’ existence.”

Egyptian law prohibiting insulting another’s religion in an attempt to protect religion obviously has the opposite effect.  If merely criticizing Islam can land you in jail for three years, you will very likely refrain from saying anything that remotely appears to view other religions negatively (such as ”Jesus said, No man cometh to the Father but by me.”)

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a study on August 9, 2011 that directly ties laws prohibiting the defamation of religion to an overall decrease in religious freedom.  We need to do all we can to assist Christians in places like Egypt by pressuring their governments to adopt laws that protect freedom to believe and to express those beliefs – even if they might be deemed critical of others.  Moreover, we must diligently defend religious freedom in our own country by resisting all efforts to characterize speech critical of other religions as “hate speech” that is somehow less deserving of full constitutional protection.

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The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is rightly concerned that religious freedom as we’ve known it in this country for hundreds of years is increasingly under assault – by our own government!  In an open letter to his fellow bishops, Bishop Dolan, President of the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops lists numerous examples of government laws, policies, and regulations that have been propounded without any regard for the religious liberty upon which they are trampling.  He notes that the Department of Health and Human Services has recently required religious organizations to provide a broad range of reproductive services (such as abortion) to employees and/or the people being served by the ministry – many of which are in clear violation of the religious teachings of Roman Catholics as well as many Protestant denominations. The Department of Justice has refused to defend laws protecting marriage, and recently argued before the Supreme Court in the EEOC v. Hosanna-Tabor case that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment doesn’t provide any special protection for churches from governmental interference with their decisions to hire ministers.

All church leaders should heed Bishop Dolan’s call for vigilance and action. If we tolerate these intrusions on church freedom and independence from governmental control, we are setting ourselves up for eventual loss of the freedom to worship and live our lives as the Bible dictates.  If your church’s ministry is being restricted in any way, or government officials are requiring your church to govern itself in a manner that violates its religious principles, contact the Alliance Defense Fund at TellAdf.org right away.  We have over 30 attorneys on staff and a department specifically dedicated to defending the Church’s right to hear and speak the Truth on a pro bono basis. We also have over 2,000 allies that have committed to provide legal services to churches free of charge. Please contact us if your church is experiencing the assault Bishop Dolan has clearly identified. We will stand with you to make sure these attacks on religious freedom are not successful.

A report of yet another Christian punished for violating laws prohibiting criticism of other religions has come out of Pakistan. This time, the victim is a 13-year-old girl who made the mistake of writing something in her school work that was deemed “blasphemous”. In Pakistan, criticism of Islam is considered defamation and is punishable by death. Authorities weren’t so harsh in this existence, but did expel the girl from school and forced her mother to change jobs.

This is just one more example of  how efforts to censor speech because it is critical of other religions is a danger to freedom. In a recent post, I cite statistics demonstrating that laws prohibiting defamation of religion under the guise of protecting religion invariably have just the opposite effect and end up limiting religious liberty. In the West, such laws often take the form of prohibitions on “hate speech” or “bullying.” If you haven’t noticed, any speech that even hints of being critical of another’s religious beliefs, political views, or lifestyle choices is labeled “hate speech” or “bullying” in our society. If we succumb to popular efforts to criminalize it, we will begin sliding into the abyss of religious persecution with Pakistan.

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