Religious freedom, a risk we must take

Joshua Gilbert is alarmed by the growth of religious nationalism in the United States.

On his campaign trail for the 2024 election, Donald Trump made a promise that there would be another ban on travellers from Muslim-majority countries, even stricter than the one he made in 2017. Sure enough, one of his first executive orders of his second presidency was to call for this ban to be enforced within 60 days of signing.

To get a sense of how people may react to another ban, all we need to do is look back at the sentiments expressed after the first.

In January 2017, shortly after the first ban, a man named Marq Vincent Perez broke into and burnt down a mosque to send an intimidating message to the local Muslim residents in Victoria, Texas. He had shared his intolerant views openly on social media, including in certain threads where he had discussed his plans to commit this act.

While most Americans would not approve such violent actions, this is just an extreme example of the broader issue of bigotry and intolerance in the US. And Islamophobia in the States is certainly not limited to this single case.

It is a frightening thought that the greatest enemy to religious freedom is not always secular intolerance. It can also be religious intolerance, where one religious group refuses to allow another to function. In a country like the United States, a Christian-majority nation built precisely on the willingness to live and let live, it is saddening to see such acts of intolerance and to discover that many citizens are sympathetic to them.  

A survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, for instance, found that in 2024 three in ten Americans either adhere to or sympathise with Christian Nationalism, an intolerant religious ideology that seeks to identify Church authority and the political State. 

Of these, the report’s executive summary says, “nearly four in ten Christian nationalism Adherents (38%) and three in ten Sympathizers (30%) agree that ‘because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country’”. 

It can be tempting for a Christian to believe that this union of Church and State is politically desirable, yet history is full of examples which show how pure religion ends up corrupted by the alliance.

An emphasis on Christian-American political identity easily leads to the demonisation of marginalised groups which fit neither category of Christian nor American.

To see this in action, we only need to look at contemporary American politics where the contrast between this nationalistic Christianity and the gentle, merciful and loving Christianity found in the Gospels could not be more striking.

In practice this nationalistic approach jettisons the Christian ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ or Christ’s distinction ‘Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God’ to be left with an exaltation of the State and only the empty shell of Christian charity. 

And so Vice President JD Vance can use a Christian concept ‘Ordo Amoris’ (the order of love) to justify what seems to me an un-Christian policy: the exclusion of the one in need by cancelling or suspending almost all US foreign aid programmes and the threat of mass deportations.

This led to a rapid and dramatic rejoinder by Pope Francis, in a letter to the bishops of the US, rejecting Vance’s interpretation of ‘Ordo Amoris’ and proposing another interpretation: “love that builds a fraternity open to all”.

I have no axe to grind against Vance (or even against Trump for that matter). The Vice President of the United States is right to be concerned about the integrity of his country and he comes across as a dedicated public servant and a devout Christian. I just think he’s mistaken in this case.

My big concern is to defend the wider reality of religious freedom which can be threatened by any act of intolerance by any group holding the reins of power.

Instead of letting our diverse religious convictions divide us, we should acknowledge and respect our mutual religious freedom. To this end we can be helped by a few principles which I take from Catholic Social Teaching but which in fact any person of good will would willingly embrace.

The first is the recognition of the dignity of all humans, irrespective of race, gender or economic standing. In other words, the inherent preciousness of every human being, made in the image and likeness of God.

The second principle necessarily follows from the first and is the notion of the Common Good. As weak as we are, we all have a potential for good and can work together to promote conditions in society which are good for all, and not just my group, creed or tribe.

As the French political philosopher Jacques Maritain (1882-1973) argued, people are naturally inclined towards the Common Good as part of the natural Moral Law inscribed in their consciences. With this comes intrinsic human rights (the Common Good can only be built on the recognition of these rights), and this includes the right to religious freedom, which everyone should cooperate in respecting.

Indeed, he saw this cooperation as a sort of democratic secular faith which should underpin the political conduct of all members of a society.

In other words, whatever we believe, we should believe in the rights of others to hold their beliefs too.

This entails that the notion of religious freedom must be universally shared amongst everyone and that, to be effective, members of differing religions must assimilate to the societal customs and laws.

This is the other side of the coin. If you want society to respect your own beliefs, while you may not share the beliefs of the society you happen to find yourself in, you should at least respect its basic values.

Maritain’s writings on human rights clearly paid dividends since they were very influential in the drafting of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Most notably, article 18 recognises the right to ‘freedom of thought, conscience and religion’.

Irrespective of how people interpret (or misinterpret) Mr Trump’s vague and equivocal remarks, or how strict his second ban will be, the intolerant sentiments amongst some Americans remain.

This is not to say that a State doesn’t have a right to defend itself or control immigration into its territory. It does. And Islam does not seem to have a good track record of respecting other religions whenever it achieves dominance.

Recognising this, and taking steps to protect oneself from such a development (for example, by limiting how many Muslims enter one’s country or vigilance over and actions against possible radicalisation of young Muslims) is prudence not intolerance.

Yet we can’t oppose the radicalisation of Muslims while encouraging that of Christians. And the person in need must be welcomed, whatever his or her creed, and religious freedom is a fundamental right and thus a risk we should take. 

Indeed, the universal recognition of religious freedom which I have described is therefore always ambitious though, it could seem, in the current political climate, completely idealistic.

Yet as those of us who are Catholics are living a Jubilee Year of Hope proclaimed by Pope Francis, I can only hope that the respectful and dignified treatment of others becomes more normal in mainstream politics. Catholic social teaching can help achieve this, but ultimately it can be agreed upon by everyone without a biblical or Christian background.

It just needs people of goodwill, whatever their religion, to stand up together to affirm the human dignity of all and the need to seek the good of all, and we could bring about real change.

It should not be ‘America First’ or ‘Britain First’ or any country first, except in being first to serve others. We need to reintroduce the notion of service into political rhetoric which should not be merely “What’s best for us?” but rather “How can we best serve the world?”

While it can be easy to feel disheartened by the insular and intolerant politics in America, a touching counter-example is the Shoulder-to-Shoulder Campaign for American Muslims, which seeks to connect with religious institutions to end anti-Muslim rhetoric, discrimination and violence. As endorsed by 38 American religious institutions, including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, their vision is simple: to treat everyone respectfully, carefully, and with dignity.

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