Princeton University’s Catholic philosopher and emeritus IRD board member Robert George was honored yesterday with the John Leland Award by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). On hand on Capitol Hill to present the honor for George’s intellectual advocacy for religious liberty were ERLC chief Russell Moore and Virginia U.S. Congressman Frank Wolf.
“Religious freedom is under assault everywhere,” Wolf said. “We’re all too willing to be tame Christians,” he lamented, noting that believers are commanded to “take up your cross.” Wolf surmised that U.S. Christians, now facing domestic threats to religious liberty, should now reflect all the more on suffering and witness by the global church.
George admitted: “I am an irritant like John Leland,” recalling the early Virginia Baptist preacher advocate of religious liberty for all. “Religious freedom allows us to be as we are…as rational intelligent free actors,” he said. “We bear the mark of divinity. We are God-like in self-transcending power.” He stressed that “conscience has rights because it has duties.” And, “We honor rights of conscience because people must be free.”
A “coerced faith is no faith at all,” George said. True religious freedom includes being able “to bear witness in public and private…individually and corporately,” with everyone protected. Religious freedom abuses violate the core of humanity and violate society. Connecting religious freedom to wider human rights abuses and terror, George noted that the four host countries of Osama bin Laden were all egregious violators of religious freedom. Today more than 5 billion live under religious restrictions.
George lamented the persistent narrative that Christians are “never the victims but only the persecutors,” as well as the “persistence of anti-Semitism.” He noted that Christmas time is often a favorite time for violence against Christians where they are vulnerable minorities. And he said that anti-Semitism is often expressed as “criticism of Jews violating human rights.”
Citing the U.S. failure to designate and impose sanctions on regimes that religiously persecute under the International Religious Freedom Act, George regretted the preference for “religious engagement” over active help for the persecuted, by which the U.S. loses its leverage against repressive regimes. The policy inertia and indifference continue despite agreement across the political spectrum that religious persecution is wrong.
George called it a “scandal” that in our very religious and still predominantly Christian nation we are so little concerned about the rights of fellow Christians and others who are globally persecuted. Citing threats to domestic religious freedom, he urged that we best “promote abroad by honoring at home.” He urged President Obama to withdraw the HHS Obamacare mandate compelling religious groups to subsidize abortifacients and contraceptives, urging a “robust conception of the rights of believers.”
Outspoken on religious freedom, sanctity of life and marriage, George is not only following the example of John Leland but also William Wilberforce as a resolute social reformer braving the disapproval of societal elites.
Here is a text version of George’s remarks.
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