Religious Freedom in the Asia Pacific

Barton Dempsey on March 10, 2016

The Asia Pacific is known for many things: beautiful beaches, rich cultures, hospitable people, and most formidably religious intolerance. By intolerance, I do not mean violating rules of political correctness. Rather, by intolerance, I mean the vast religious freedom violations aggravated by various governments, criminal organizations, or radical religious groups, which seek to restrict individuals from freely practicing any faith of their choice.

From February 18-21, religious leaders, government representatives, and experts from 27 countries gathered in Taiwan to consider the ramifications of continued religious freedom violations and discuss a new way forward. This gathering was the first ever Asia Pacific Religious Freedom Forum (APRFF), and was co-hosted by China Aid and the Democratic Pacific Union.

Additional co-sponsors and partners included Freedom House, Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice, The Heritage Foundation, Taiwan Interfaith Foundation, Humanistic Culture and Education Foundation, The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, International Religious Freedom Roundtable, Stefanus Alliance International, and multiple others. The conference was hosted by Taoyuan City in northwestern Taiwan.

Violating basic human rights like freedom of religion adversely affects social stability, community and economic development, and human flourishing. Thus, the APRFF sought to promote religious freedom and awareness. The APRFF encouraged collaboration between regional leaders for promoting religious freedom, aiming to establish and reinforce networks of religious freedom advocates across numerous fields. They also addressed specific correlations between religious freedom, immigration, and socio-economic impacts on society.

The most notable outcome of the APRFF was the Taiwan Declaration signed by participants in support of religious liberty. This document outlined the mutual support for religious freedom and called for action to advance of religious liberty. The document concludes:

 “Therefore, the signers of the Taiwan Declaration urge all governments, religious institutions, academic institutions, and non-governmental organizations to actively advance freedom of religion or belief by adopting and fully implementing commitments and laws to upholding freedom of religion or belief in their respective communities and countries.”

What does this mean?

Time will only tell.

Certainly, the APRFF is a historic event and the resulting Taiwan Declaration is a much needed and timely step in the right direction.  Nonetheless, this event and document does not in itself result in the advancement of religious freedom across the Asia Pacific. Forums are on-going and declarations are just words on paper. What will be done with them is yet to be known.

The hope is that the attendees will return to their relevant spheres of influence and advocate for real change in the Asia Pacific, and effectively use their power to bring awareness. Additionally,  that the countries represented will enact laws protecting freedom of religion for all people under their respective care.

This is still a first step, one which recognizes the egregious human rights and religious freedom violations which harms whole societies and stifles human flourishing. Such a strong-handed stance against liberty is common practice in countries such as China, Myanmar, Pakistan, and North Korea. This Declaration is a powerful statement and more like it are needed. If religious freedom is to be realized globally, the world must band together in support of human flourishing and fight against those who seek to kill, stifle, and destroy.

How should Christians respond?

Religious freedom is at the heart of a proper Christian worldview. Jesus Christ established this as recorded in the book of Matthew while being questioned about the duty of man to government,

Jesus said, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  (Matthew 22:21 ESV)

For Christians, the matter of religious freedom is more than a political issue. It is a matter of the human conscience. Only God, our creator can own our conscience, no human or human institution ever can. Certainly, history has proven through the brutal acts of slavery that man will attempt to control man, but can never truly own their conscience. That is reserved for individual hearts and God. When Jesus said “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” he was referring to a coin which bore Caesar’s image. The human conscience bears the image of God, seeing that all humans have been made in the image of God. (Genesis 1:27). Therefore, as Christian we believe as Christ taught, that we should render unto Caesar things that belong to Caesar’s, our consciences do not.

Thus, as Christians, we must support freedom of religion. While we should hope and pray that all will be won to Christ and redeemed to God, we must support the God-given right of every human being to freedom of religious expression. This means we respect and have tolerance for Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and the non-religious.

I am grateful for the APRFF and hopeful that change will eventually happen. Join me and pray for religious freedom across the world.

A society that truly supports human flourishing can only be reached when religious freedom is protected.

  1. Comment by DannyBoyJr on March 10, 2016 at 10:55 pm

    But what if it is the Christian majority that is stifling religious freedom? I am a UMC member in the Philippines and here the Roman Church has a de-facto establishment in the Philippine government. While they do not prevent protestants from proselytizing, they have made Catholic dogma the laws of the land.

    For instance, we Methodists believe that divorce is not ideal but is sometimes necessary when a marriage is over. But thanks to Catholicism, we are one of only two countries that ban it.

    Same goes for prophylactics like condoms. We oppose fornication but we allow its use by married couples. The Roman Church is fighting the use of such prophylactics and has successfully defunded our government agency that is providing condoms and other reproductive health services (not abortions!) to married Filipinos.

    And the Roman Church, above all other denominations, can freely give mandatory religious education classes in public schools even though we have a wall of separation of church and state in our constitution.

    Since the Roman Church claims that 80-85% of the country are members, they should be given preferential treatment.

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