Improving Performance on American Religious Freedom Policy

on February 6, 2014

Photo Credit: pacifica-interfaith.blogspot

Thomas Farr, Director of the Religious Freedom Project and the program on Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy at Georgetown University and Visiting Associate Professor on Religion and International Affairs at Georgetown spoke at a Faith and Law lecture on Capitol Hill on Friday, January 31, concerning the failure of American religious freedom policy. This policy was set in the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, and is handled by a (now vacant) Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom within the State Department. The 1998 “law created a requirement that the U.S. advance religious freedom” as a foreign policy objective, Farr said.

Over the past 15 years that the IFLA has been in force, this objective was “important, but we weren’t doing it well.” As required by the act, the State Department has compiled an annual report to Congress concerning the status of religious freedom in each country of the world, and the Secretary of State has issued lists of Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs), most recently in 2011, which are particularly egregious violators of religious freedom, engaging in such practices as torture, detention, and execution of their subjects in violation of religious freedom.

But while these statutory requirements have been fulfilled, religious freedom has not been worked into American foreign policy, Farr said. The result is that there has been very little positive result from the Congressionally mandated religious freedom policy objective. In fact, 75 percent of the world population lives in countries (most notably populous countries such as China and India), in which religious freedom is commonly denied, either by the state or by groups that the state allows to operate and commit “violent persecution.” But with the possible exception of a temporary improvement in Vietnam, nowhere has America’s religious freedom policy actually improved an on-the-ground situation for religious freedom in another country, although American efforts have saved the lives of persons subject to religious persecution.

Farr proposed that seriously advancing religious freedom as a foreign policy objective serves other American interests, specifically 1) stabilization of areas, particularly the Middle East, which are riven by severe social and political conflict, 2) counterterrorism, and 3) humanitarian concern. Of these, only the last actually seems to be recognized by the American government. While the humanitarian objective may evoke moving rhetoric from those addressing the issue, the “policy implications” of this rhetoric are “very attenuated,” Farr said. But we need a “policy commitment, not a rhetorical commitment” to religious freedom. The stabilizing influence of religious freedom in the Middle East, for instance, “is strategic to us,” pointing to comments made by the Chaldean Patriarch of Bagdad, Louis Raphael Sako. The patriarch observed that Christianity has had a stabilizing influence on the Middle East, and greater conflict will ensue when Christians leave, as is now happening. The services provided by religious minorities in Middle Eastern societies enhance the flourishing of these societies, supports their stability, and inhibits the social conflict conducive to terrorism. Religious freedom is thus a “counterterrorism measure.” While giving Christians of the Middle East as an example, Farr said that protecting religious freedom is not merely a matter of serving Christian interests, although Christians account for the largest number of persons in the world who are religiously persecuted.

The failure to see the value of religious freedom as something positive and in American interests is a result the changed perception about the role of religion in society. Historically, American leaders thought that “political prosperity requires religion and morality,” that religious freedom was the “first freedom,” and that “if you don’t have religious freedom, you can’t have democracy.” But this is no longer the case. The new belief in the “privatization of religion is at the root of the problem” in seeing religious freedom as a public and foreign policy good. Consequently, people question whether advancing religious freedom as a foreign policy goal is even constitutional, or is an unconstitutional “establishment of religion.” Another sign of widespread inability to see the importance of religious freedom is the place of the Office of International Religious Freedom within the State Department. It is positioned “out of the mainstream of U.S. policy” and its head, the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, does not report directly to the Secretary of State. Farr likened this to a general reporting to a colonel.

The legally mandated religious freedom policy also has not been well attended to by the Obama Administration, Farr indicated. For more than two years into his administration, the office of Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom was vacant, and has been vacant again for four months since the departure of Obama’s appointee, Susan Johnson Cook, in October, 2013. He also noted that in identifying “American values” to the world, the administration does not highlight religious freedom. But the office of Ambassador-at-Large must be filled, and Farr urged persons interested in religious freedom to support a good and qualified nominee, and oppose a poor or inadequate one.

Farr advanced three proposals to improve performance on the American religious freedom objective. First, the International Religious Freedom Act (IFLA) should be amended to require the Ambassador at Large to report directly to the Secretary of State, bringing religious freedom into the mainstream of American policy. Secondly, since religious freedom does in fact serve other American foreign policy interests such as political stability and counterterrorism, increased funding should come from programs charged with advancing democracy, human rights, and even counterterrorism. Finally, the current three to five day voluntary training in religious freedom given to Foreign Service personnel should be made mandatory.

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