With help from DIGNITATIS HUMANAE, the 1965 Declaration on Religious Liberty from Pope John Paul VI, and from the early legacy of Methodist preaching, which benefited enormously from British and American religious freedom, here’s my resolution for the 2016 United Methodist urging our church to stand in favor of conscience rights for all:
Freedom of Conscience and Religion
Methodism has been enormously blessed by religious liberty, which allowed John Wesley and his followers to proclaim the Gospel freely, outside the state church, often outdoors, to larger numbers of persons not typically exposed to organized faith. When attacked by angry mobs, Wesley appealed to the magistrates, citing their nation’s protection for freedom of speech and religion. Early American Methodism similarly benefited from constitutional protections for speech, religion and association, with Francis Asbury and other circuit writers, with their followers, freely preaching, meeting, organizing and living out their faith under protection of law.
Freedom of speech, of association and religion is rooted in the intrinsic dignity assigned to every human person, created in God’s image, dating to Creation. God has given to each person a mind, conscience and will to determine his or her own beliefs. Each person has the choice how or whether to heed the Gospel. The God of Christianity does not compel belief or practice, and the church of Jesus Christ is a voluntary association, abjuring coercion, and opposing coercion by others, especially by the uniquely coercive powers of the state.
Religious freedom, with liberty of speech and association, is desirable for the Gospel and any human community fully to thrive, and primarily entails immunity from coercion in civil society. The truth of the Gospel and any other belief system can or should prevail only by its own persuasive power on the human mind and conscience.
Essential freedoms of belief and practice require that all persons be protected from coercion from other persons, groups or any human power so that no persons are forced to act contrary to their beliefs, privately or publicly, individually or in association, within due limits. These freedoms attach to all persons, based on their status as image bearers of God, as described by Scripture and confirmed by human reason and historic church teaching, fulfilled in the Person of Jesus Christ. We affirm that these liberties should be protected by civil law in every society and should be regarded as civil rights.
Persons cannot fully pursue the truth, including above all the Gospel, unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion. The right to religious freedom is not subjective to the person but rooted in God-given human identity. This exercise of religious and other conscience rights must not be impeded, if in accordance with just public order.
We affirm freedom of speech, association and freedom knowing that God orders, directs and governs the entire universe and all the ways of the human community with wisdom and love. Humanity was created to participate in this law, under God’s gentle guidance, so that each person can perceive ever more fully the truth.
All persons are bound to follow conscience so they may respond to God’s grace, which is the ultimate end and purpose of life. No person should be forced to act contrary to conscience, especially in religion, which includes internal, voluntary and free acts regarding each person’s relationship with God. No human power can either command or prohibit acts interfering in this relationship between God and humanity. The social nature of humanity and religion requires external expression to his internal acts of belief and faith, including sharing faith with others and professing religion in community. Injury is done to persons and to God’s design for human life if the free exercise of religion is denied or limited in society beyond the absolute necessity of just public order.
Governments should respect religious life as part of the common welfare. To command or inhibit religious acts would transgress the limits of its rightful power. Freedom from coercion in religion belongs to individuals and to religious communities, which rightfully may govern themselves according to their own beliefs, including advocacy of their doctrine, selection of leadership, public worship, purchasing and maintaining property among others assets, educating adherents, speaking to public life, exercising the rights of citizenship inside or outside government, and promoting institutions in accordance with their faith.
The right to freedom of speech, association and religion devolves upon the whole citizenry, upon social groups, upon government, and upon churches and other religious communities, in common pursuit of the general welfare. Protecting inviolable conscience rights ranks among the essential duties of government, enacted through just laws applicable equally to all, without discrimination. It is a grievous wrong for any government to impose the profession or repudiation of any religion. Individuals and groups, in practicing their own beliefs, should respect the rights of others, with justice and civility. Religious freedom, rightly upheld and practiced, will foster greater community.
Freedom of speech, association and religion in society for all persons is consistent with the freedom of the act of Christian faith and the dignity that God accords to each person. The principle of religious freedom helps create an environment in which persons can without hindrance be invited to the Christian faith, embrace it of their own free will, and profess it effectively in their whole manner of life. God calls persons to serve Him in spirit and in truth, bound in conscience but under no compulsion. God respects the dignity of all persons whom He Himself created, and He desires that all persons be guided by their own judgment and enjoy freedom. This truth appears supremely in Jesus Christ, in whom God manifested Himself and His ways with all persons, issuing the invitation, “Come, whosoever will.”
As the church of Jesus Christ, we pray for domestic order and human flourishing among all peoples in every nation, including respect for freedom of speech, association and religion. We as United Methodists pledge to pray and advocate on behalf of all persons, especially of the household of faith, who are denied these liberties by governments or other actors. Our commitment to social justice, human dignity, the common good, and the freedom of the Gospel, as counseled by Scripture, compel us vigorously and prayerfully to uphold liberty of speech, association and religion for all persons at all times and places.
Comment by Jennifer P on October 19, 2015 at 9:49 am
Mr. Tooley presents a well-written proposal and the UMC would do well to adopt it. I pray that the UMC will once again affirm Biblical Teaching (something that has been downplayed too much in recent generations, especially regarding moral issues).
[One typo – It was Pope Paul VI who issued Dignitatis Humame in 1965.]
Comment by Orter T. on October 19, 2015 at 1:10 pm
A reasonable, yet generous, understanding of religious freedom; something that has been lost for a very long time even within the UMC; along with a teachable doctrine of who God is, who we are and what is required of us in this lifetime!
Comment by John Kay on October 19, 2015 at 9:15 pm
Your plea for respect of conscience rights is one that no one would argue against. However, the issue of conflicting consciences is when we have problems. For example, if we have a conscientious objection to artificial birth control and are an employer while those who depend on us for their health insurance do not have this objection, whose rights take precedence?
Or, if our employer is Muslim and objects to us eating barbecue at lunch, whose conscience is to be obeyed? And, if this statement has to do with doctrine within a church community, is everyone free to choose between competing doctrines based on their own conscience? Or, should there be a common doctrine for all? These are some of the practical, but important, issues. I think the pick and choose approach to doctrine has been proven to lead to disintegration as evidenced by our Episcopal friends. By the way, it was Pope Paul VI.
Comment by Jennifer P on October 20, 2015 at 9:37 am
This is rather a straw man argument.
An employer who is a Muslim and professes the Muslim belief that eating pork is immoral has no obligation to pay for your pork barbecue lunch. If you want pork barbecue for lunch, pay for it yourself.
Likewise, an employer who believes it to be immoral to use artificial contraception and abortion drugs has no obligation to pay for your contraception and abortion drugs. If you want to use contraception or kill your child through abortion, you should pay for it yourself.
This idea that one does not really have rights unless others are forced to pay for your exercise of those rights is ludicrous.
Comment by Papa Mincho on October 20, 2015 at 1:32 pm
Here’s a better example: what if a Muslim owner of a private business refuses to let Catholics celebrate Ash Wednesday at the workplace, since he or she finds Christianity immoral? This would be an example of religious liberty under Mark Tooley.
Another example, and more recent: what if a state office orders her office to refuse marriage licenses to ANYBODY, because the head of that office believes the state has perverted marriage? What if that state official refuses reasonable accommodation (e.g. letting her subordinates do it), and instead wields her very specific brand of Christianity against believers and nonbelievers alike?
This is the problem John Kay describes: you can’t enforce specific doctrines from specific schools of a specific religion when writing laws that impact everybody, because there are plenty of believers and nonbelievers who don’t believe in that doctrine.
Don’t want to be gay? That’s fine. Don’t want to look at gays? There’s plenty of other shows on TV. Don’t want to treat gays like your fellow citizens? There are Christians out there who would think that’s mighty un-Christian of you.
Comment by Dr. Daniel Mercaldo on October 26, 2015 at 11:42 am
We have offered our help, and that of hundreds of evangelical churched in NYC, to Cardinal Dalton in his effort to stand for traditional Christian values.
Comment by Dr. Daniel Mercaldo on October 26, 2015 at 7:06 pm
Thanks for some good insights into this ongoing challenge to all of us in church work. Freedom is not free.