Download PhotoThis speech was given in Brasília, Brazil, on August 8, 2023, at a symposium organized by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies in partnership with the Brazilian Center for Studies in Law and Religion. See a news summary of the event.
Distinguished friends and fellow travelers in the cause of religious freedom, it is a blessing to speak to you today. I offer you my greetings and heartfelt appreciation for lending your voice to this symposium.
Academic, diplomatic and interfaith pursuits such as yours are a labor of love — love for faith, country, dialogue, and the prosperity of humankind. The solidarity we feel here stretches to our societies as well. Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho echoes this aim: “It is we who nourish the soul of the world, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.”1
Let us continue gathering together and sharing goodwill. Because we come from different backgrounds and beliefs, we see more and more facets of life. Sustaining a successful society calls for our best efforts. In this endeavor, freedom requires sacrifice, peace involves struggle, love demands discipline.
Being good stewards of our social ecosystems
It is a joy to be back in my homeland. Latin America is blessed with amazing landscapes — thick rainforests teeming with life; endless courses of rushing water; vast lowland plains of green; tranquil sandy shores; white caps of snow high among the mountains; abundant species of plants and animals. Every tree, creek and insect contribute to the balance. God created diverse ecosystems that bless and enrich human life. But we must do our part to preserve creation’s wonders.
Like this system of interdependent organisms, society lives and breathes amid a diversity of opinions, experiences, feelings and beliefs. We need each other in countless ways — to listen, to learn, and to speak. Just as the biological ecosystem is fragile and susceptible to misuse, so the social ecosystem breaks down if we don’t balance our actions. The way we use our freedoms and uphold our responsibilities determines the health of the earth and the health of society.
Individuals can’t escape human differences in society any more than the elements can avoid interacting in nature. The perennial task before us is to not only live together, but live together well. The Christian writer C.S. Lewis penned a fictional account of hell. He imagined the place as a dreary, sprawling town where solitary souls live “millions of miles” from one another. “Nothing but grey void above and below” this urban landscape. The endless isolation is self-imposed. These souls “will go on spreading indefinitely,” moving ever further apart from each other. The residents bicker and complain and “have no needs” from anyone.2 “The doors of hell,” he writes, “are locked on the inside.”3
On the contrary, to live fully is to be grounded in a street, a neighborhood, a family, a relationship, a circle of friends, even a faith. God created a habitat for all his children to dwell together, with room enough to spare. May we be good stewards of this soil and plant all good things thereon.
The unseen dimensions of justice
Everyone is born with a sense of fairness. This God-given instinct helps us navigate our way through the cruelty, oppression, and inequality of life. Movements for justice have inspired people worldwide. The march for civil rights in the United States held a nation accountable to its highest ideals. The fight against apartheid in South Africa created a more humane and equal society. The abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire influenced other antislavery movements. The ongoing struggle for indigenous land rights in Brazil and other parts of Latin America demand respect for agricultural connection. These movements and many more liberate and expand freedom.
But world-altering movements don’t emerge from nowhere. Underneath the activism rests a bedrock of values, customs, wisdoms, traditions, practices and beliefs. Gifts that we’ve inherited, gifts that shape our moral horizons. This foundation holds in place the institutions and ideas that give oxygen to justice. Churches bring people together to discuss the timeless questions of life. Civic and spiritual rituals give meaning to birth, marriage, death, and sacrifice. Families provide the first lessons of love and cooperation to children. Teachers and students envision a better future. Stories of overcoming suffering give us a common remembrance and aspiration. Every generation must decide which traditions to keep and which traditions to reform. Only within a community can the transformations of justice take root.
Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights leader in the United States during the 20th century, taught that justice grows from the collective, not from a lone individual. He called it a “beloved” community because the people belong to each other and practice the cycle of love, responsibility, empathy, and sacrifice. This vision was powered by his experience as a Christian minister:
“But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”4
Suffering touches all of us. At one time or another we each undergo loss, failure, mistreatment, disappointment, and despair. The pain of the world makes us wonder when, or if, God will hear our cries. Justice, therefore, becomes ultimately a matter of faith. We can only hope and believe that the design of creation rewards good over evil, establishes right over wrong, and ensures the rules will be fair. American abolitionist Theodore Parker expressed this hope in 1852 with words that Dr. King would later echo:
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”5
God expects us to participate in this design of justice, in the hard work of harmony. And that involves the messy and beautiful reality of people. Behind every protest movement is the support of a mother, a promise to a father, a commitment to a friend, the memory of an ancestor, a conversation with a pastor or civil leader, the duty to an unseen conscience. A beloved community is a product of religion. It’s not all about liberation, it’s a sacrifice of self. Living together in our differences requires humility, generosity, and a vision of who we are as children of God.
The relational ground of religion
What would happen if everyone did what they wanted and never thought of other people? What would a world of maximum individual choice look like? How would a society of self-interest survive? Among the many forms of human organization, religion gives us a sense of responsibility toward one another, frames our struggles within a story of redemption, and helps us see our fellow beings as souls not objects.
Religion provides a moral reservoir from which everyone can drink. Here are some examples. The wellspring of human dignity comes from sacred texts — passages in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian New Testament, the Quran and eastern writings testify to the inherent worth of human beings. The language of law and politics has a moral intonation. Our understanding of human rights and universal liberty stems from religious ideals. Our cherished holidays and collective celebrations carry religious meaning. Behind humanitarian service often stands the devotion of congregations. Though religion has no monopoly on morality, it provides an unparalleled proving ground to be the best we can be.
Faith challenges the fashions of the age. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said that religions “act as a counter voice to the siren song of a culture that sometimes seems to value self over others, rights over responsibilities, getting more than giving, consumption more than contribution, and success more than service to others.”6
To live in the modern world is to be constantly distracted by the moment. But belonging to a religious tradition helps us think about the contributions of past generations and inspires our hearts to live up to their memories. British political thinker Michael Oakeshott expressed how the high aspirations of society depend on the deep ground of religious heritage to give them meaning: “Moral ideals are a sediment; they have significance only so long as they are suspended in a religious or social tradition, so long as they belong to a religious or a social life.”7
In the end, justice is about people more than it is about ideas. As human beings, we are naturally planted in relationships, from birth to death. When we drift into solitude, away from our roots, away from our connections and convictions, we weaken our ability to fight for justice. People being around people, pursuing a common good, is the beginning, middle, and fulfillment of a civil society.
What is religious freedom for?
As we live our lives in places where people range from Catholic to Pentecostal, atheist to fundamentalist, introvert to missionary, how should we act? By permitting so many expressions of belief, religious freedom may magnify the discomfort of difference. But it also enhances our best human impulses. It frees us up to do good things:
The freedom to disagree. The freedom to share. The freedom to worship. The freedom to assemble. The freedom to speak. The freedom to protest. The freedom to reform bad laws. The freedom to search spiritually. The freedom to change your religion. The freedom to associate. The freedom to travel. The freedom to contribute to charity. The freedom to pray. The freedom to teach your children. The freedom to believe. The freedom to go to church. The freedom to manifest your beliefs in public. The freedom to follow the voice of your heart.
But freedom without obligation can only go so far. When it comes to relating to people of other faiths or no faith at all, religion lifts us out of our selfish desires. The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches me to be answerable to God, to my fellow beings, and to myself. This obligation comes in many forms, and has little to do with freedom:
The obligation to show respect. The obligation to be civil. The obligation to listen. The obligation to learn. The obligation to show empathy. The obligation to give your opponent the benefit of the doubt. The obligation to analyze your own beliefs. The obligation to support a friend who is persecuted for their religion. The obligation to be honest. The obligation to be patient. The obligation to find good in other religions. The obligation to love your neighbor as yourself. The obligation to study tradition and history. The obligation to honor the law.
These responsibilities are the glue that allows choices to make a positive impact. When the two work together, all parts of society benefit in a beautiful synergy. The system of religious freedom provides ground rules to address disagreements in employment settings, enables us to alleviate suffering, empowers congregations to help in disaster relief, incentivizes programs to feed the hungry, allows church leaders to counsel the youth, entrusts professional volunteers to provide career counseling and treat the addicted, and many more services.
Responsibility ennobles freedom.
The more generous religious freedom laws are, the more broadly religion is empowered to perform good works. This partnership between religion and society engenders more peace. Yale legal scholar Stephen Carter explains: “Only religion possesses the majesty, the power, and the sacred language to teach all of us, the religious and the secular, the genuine appreciation for each other on which a successful civility must rest.”8
The many flowing from the one
In conclusion, let me return to the analogy of landscapes. The Iguazú river flows through the south of Brazil until it cascades off a vast plateau. There the largest waterfall system in the world crashes from the rocky heights to create one of the globe’s most breathtaking wonders. People flock from everywhere to behold its beauty. Unimaginable amounts of water rush in one river then separate to form hundreds of unique falls. This is a mirror of human society. We share the same substance but flow our own way, all the while heading in the direction toward God.
These falls converge on the border between Brazil and Argentina. Here a film called The Mission was shot decades ago. Based on a true story, a group of Spanish Jesuit priests lived among the indigenous Guaraní community in the 1700s. After a rough start, the two sides came to love each other. When the Portuguese slave trade threatened to capture this people, the priests stood ground with the Guaraní. Though the armies easily won, the Catholics and Indigenous sacrificed their lives for each other and put human dignity above all else.
Likewise, the most noble of human undertakings involve sacrifice and using our freedom to help the people around us. Following the conscience that burns within will always lead us to a beloved community.
Notes