The Public Square

Richard John Neuhaus

Copyright (c) 2002 First Things 119 (January 2002): 75-92.

Religious Freedom in a Time of War

It was a mighty battle and alleluias ascended when, in the late 1990s, religious freedom was institutionally ensconced as a goal of U.S. foreign policy. It would not have happened without the heroic labors of people such as Nina Shea, Paul Marshall, Abe Rosenthal, Michael Horowitz, and Representatives Frank Wolf and Chris Smith. And, let it be admitted, Arlen Specter in the Senate. In 1998, the International Religious Freedom Act was passed by Congress, creating a desk in the National Security Council, an office in the State Department, and an independent commission, all charged with making sure that—along with political, economic, and military concerns—those responsible for making policy would make religious freedom a priority. In 1999 the State Department issued its first and comprehensive Annual Report on International Religious Freedom.

To be sure, not everybody was suddenly converted to the importance of religious freedom. In the mandarin world of foreign policy experts, a good many "realists" viewed, and still view, this initiative as an unwelcome intrusion that distracts attention from the cold calculations of power that should guide our thinking about world affairs. The more perceptive, however, recognize that, whatever their personal disposition toward the "soft" phenomenon called religion, it has become an increasingly "hard" factor in the global reconfiguration of power relationships.

There is a justifiable anxiety that in the current war against terrorism religious freedom is once again being put on a back burner as the U.S. cuts deals with some of the most notorious violators—China, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia, for example—in order to secure cooperation and gain momentary tactical advantages. Such maneuverings are understandable. Religious freedom is not and cannot be the only priority in foreign policy, especially in a time of war. But those who worked so hard to make it a priority are justifiably worried that this great achievement could be undermined by the foreign policy establishment’s habits of facile expediency. The religion factor will be and should be vigorously debated in the months ahead. That debate does not pit "realists" against "idealists," but is, rather, a debate about the hard reality of religion in defining, more and more, the lines of conflict in politics among nations. The war against terrorism is—more than it is politic for world leaders to say in public—also a war of religion.

To understand what this necessary debate is about, it is necessary to keep in mind the long and scrambled history of religion in our foreign policy. The International Religious Freedom Act has an impressive pedigree. The history is very nicely laid out by Leo P. Ribuffo of George Washington University in a new book resulting from conferences held by the Ethics and Public Policy Center and published by Rowman & Littlefield, The Influence of Faith: Religious Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy.

America’s understanding of itself as a new thing on the world scene (recall the words novus ordo seclorum on the Great Seal) gave rise to a powerfully moral, often moralistic, and sometimes explicitly religious vision of its mission among the nations. At times, American "exceptionalism" meant remaining aloof from the conflicts generated by the corrupt interests of morally lesser nations; at other times, America’s "manifest destiny" called for waging wars of the righteous against the forces of darkness—notably of Protestant righteousness against Catholic darkness, as in the case of Mexico, Cuba, and the Philippines. The story runs through Woodrow Wilson’s expansive mission to "make the world safe for democracy," Eisenhower’s World War II "crusade in Europe," and the long years of cold war struggle against "godless communism." In the Vietnam War, the moral consensus was shattered, seemingly beyond repair, until, quite suddenly, it reasserted itself in response to the attacks of September 11. Once again, we are in a war portrayed as a conflict between, to use Reinhold Niebuhr’s phrase, the children of light and the children of darkness.

A Mission Vindicated

This history of America’s world mission is usually treated condescendingly by scholars, and Ribuffo’s account is not untouched by such conventional condescension. But in the century past that sense of mission has also been dramatically vindicated, notably in the defeat of Hitler and of what now almost everybody agrees was the evil empire of Soviet communism (never forgetting that, when Ronald Reagan spoke of the evil empire, the bien–pensant establishment was unanimous in condemning his reckless offense against the dream of "peaceful coexistence"). Nor is it evident in retrospect that U.S. action in Vietnam did not contribute to containing the expansionist ambitions of communism, although there is no end in sight of debate over that intervention. So also, President Bush’s strongly moral construal of today’s war against terrorism is, I believe, justified and, we must hope, will be vindicated.

Intellectuals are inclined to think that they are certified as intellectuals by virtue of their capacity to complexify, and the messiness of history is such that any conflict provides ample opportunities to highlight evidence contrary to the general truth. In the present war and the larger story of which it is part, I continue to believe that America is—on balance and considering the alternatives—a force for good in the world. And I continue to be impressed by how many otherwise sensible people criticize that proposition as an instance of uncritical chauvinism rather than the carefully nuanced moral judgment that it is.

A very smart ethicist from Harvard asks me, "Why does America have to have a mission in the world any more than Luxembourg has to have a mission in the world?" Which is yet another occasion for observing that there is smart smart and then there is dumb smart. America’s unparalleled influence in the world is attended by unparalleled responsibility; responsibility entails moral accountability; and moral accountability is defined by purpose. Some call it a mission, a word that secularists associate with zealotry but others understand to mean determination. The International Religious Freedom Act is part of that history of determined resolve, as is the American commitment to advance the cause of human rights across the board. Religious freedom is the first of human rights, for it is religion that grounds the dignity of the human person in his relation to an authority that transcends temporal powers.

What Counts as News

The 1998 act did not introduce a new factor into U.S. foreign policy, but reflected renewed urgency about a dangerously neglected factor. There is also the sheer fact of the dramatic growth in religious persecution, mainly, but not only, of Christians. Christians were and are systematically persecuted, chiefly in Communist and Muslim countries. The list is long and includes China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, and Sudan. Using rigorous criteria, Paul Marshall estimates that 200 to 250 million Christians are relentlessly persecuted for their faith, while 400 million others live "under non–trivial restrictions on religious liberty." The 1998 act passed because a remarkable coalition of Jews and Christians was prepared to do battle not only with the foreign policy mandarins but also with oldline liberal churches and secular human rights organizations who complained that concern for persecuted Christians is an instance of "special pleading." That complaint overlooks the fact that all speaking out for human rights—whether for Buddhists in Tibet or Jews in the former Soviet Union—is special pleading for those who cannot plead for themselves.

It is true that the media generally ignore or downplay religious persecution. For people in the news business, the news business is big news. A journalist jailed in Iran is likely to get more attention than two million Christians killed or enslaved in Sudan. Justified outrage is expressed at Islamist laws requiring women to wear veils, but much less notice is paid the fact that in some countries conversion to Christianity by a Muslim is punishable by death. After all, why would anyone want to convert to Christianity? Exotic religions, such as Tibetan Buddhism, get a modicum of respect, but one would not want to be found pleading the cause of Baptists or Catholics. To the mind steeped in the mythology of secularism—and, while some still deny it, the antireligious bias of the major media has by now been documented beyond reasonable doubt—Baptists, Catholics, and others who are assertively Christian represent the religious oppression from which the enlightened are only tenuously liberated. I exaggerate but slightly. It is true that in the last five years more attention has been paid to religious freedom by human rights groups and the media, but the general pattern is still one of indifference and incomprehension. The persecution of religion, and especially the persecution of Christians, simply does not fit the secular story line of oppression by religion. Liberal opposition to the 1998 act and the campaign for religious freedom was solidified by the sure sign of great evil afoot, namely, the support of the cause by the "religious right."

Four Scenarios

This picture is changing, however, and it is reasonable to think that the change will accelerate. An essay by the estimable Samuel Huntington in The Influence of Faith recounts the ways in which, for more and more governments in the world, religion is the chief source of, or threat to, their legitimacy. Contrary to secularist expectations in the West, we are witnessing what is aptly described as the desecularization of world history. States seek to control religion, if necessary through repression and persecution, precisely because religion is becoming more important. Christianity in particular is, around the world and in almost all its forms, the carrier of democracy and political liberalization. Huntington cites a Chinese government publication that, taking note of the Church’s role in the collapse of Soviet communism, pointedly concludes: "If China does not want such a scene to be repeated in its land, it must strangle the baby while it is still in the manger." And strangling religion is precisely what the Chinese regime is determined to do.

But, of course, it is the war with Islamically inspired terrorism that is most forcefully changing the perception of religion, and of religious persecution, in world affairs. Huntington asks, What can be done? and proposes four possible answers. First, the U.S. and others who share its purpose can employ their resources in pressing the concerns mandated by the 1998 act and related human rights agreements. But Huntington is skeptical. "Some of these measures might make some difference; a few could be counterproductive; most are likely to accomplish little in promoting progress toward religious liberty." "Second," he writes, "if religious persecution is in part a consequence of the power and importance of religion as a source of identity, legitimacy, and conflict, then logically religious persecution might be reduced if religion became less important in the lives of people." But he acknowledges that it is doubtful that states can do much to make that happen, and trying to make it happen would likely increase religious persecution, which, in turn, might increase the importance of religion in people’s lives. Remember Tertullian on the blood of the martyrs.

The third possibility that Huntington entertains is that, since religious freedom is mainly a Western and Christian cause, and since religious freedom is most egregiously violated by non–Christian, mainly Islamic and Chinese, societies, the answer is for non–Christians to become Christians. But such a mighty missionary initiative, he writes, would likely provoke an equally mighty resistance, including increased persecution of Christians. "Religious liberty would come about only if Christianity were victorious in a global war of religions." So Huntington is left with the fourth scenario, which is encouraging tendencies in non–Christian religions that are supportive of religious freedom, in the hope that the "ecumenical personality" of such religions will prevail over their "darker personality." "Moving in this direction would at best be a long, slow process, but it may be the only practical one." "Religious liberty," he concludes, "is an issue where it is difficult to be optimistic without being utopian."

I am not optimistic by disposition and I am anti–utopian by conviction, but I am inclined to a somewhat more hopeful set of possibilities. Whether or not some efforts are "counterproductive"—and the law of unintended consequences is always hard at work—it is a great and necessary thing, and a thing necessary to American greatness, that this country be the champion of human rights, and of religious freedom in particular. History is not the inevitable march of progress, but there can be progress in history, and the last half century’s widespread promulgation of the belief that there are universal human rights is an instance of progress. We will have been defeated if we acquiesce in, or are perceived to have acquiesced in, the claim that the promotion of that belief is no more than an instance of the "cultural imperialism" of the West.

As for a decline in religious influence, Huntington is probably right in thinking that is neither likely nor desirable. For better and for worse, the indicators are almost all in the other direction. But a vibrant expansion of Christianity need not mean "a global war of religions." A longer historical perspective is required. In his 1990 encyclical Redemptoris Missio (The Mission of the Redeemer) John Paul II spoke of the third millennium as "a springtime of Christian evangelization." In the same encyclical he declared that "the Church imposes nothing; she only proposes." When the Chinese dictatorship is replaced by a more humane regime—and one may reasonably think it is more a matter of when than if—the Christian proposal could have a world–transforming effect in aligning that society with the cause of human dignity. That is not optimism, and certainly not utopianism. It is a reasonable hope that may or may not be vindicated.

Islam is the great question for this century, and perhaps beyond. Christians need not abandon their evangelizing mission by joining with others in trying to create a dialogue with Muslims in the hope of eliciting Islamic support for human rights, including religious freedom. But, of course, whether or not that is possible must be answered by those who credibly speak from the heart of Islamic faith and practice. The aim of the current war is to demonstrate decisively that the murderous global ambition of the political ideology called Islamism has no future whatsoever. Once that is demonstrated, Muslim leaders will be free to search for a usable past that can help in constructing, also for Islam, a more sustainable future. Meanwhile, and it may be a very long meanwhile, the United States must be, and must be seen to be, the uncompromising champion of human rights, including the first and the font of all rights, which is religious freedom.

Jews and Christians: Attention Must Be Paid

Over the years, many readers have said how much they appreciate this journal’s attentiveness to Jewish–Christian relations. It must be admitted, however, that a good many others have indicated their puzzlement about that. My own reflection on Jews and Judaism in Christian America comes out of a complicated mix of theology, sociology, political philosophy, and autobiography. Perhaps an autobiographical word may be permitted here. I was born and reared in the Ottawa Valley of Ontario, Canada, and my childhood world was that of a German Lutheran working class in which the "others" were French–speaking Catholics and the Anglo–Scot establishment that ran almost everything. There were several apparently well–to–do Jewish families in the small town of Pembroke, involved in clothing and furniture businesses, but none of us really knew them.

I was told in catechism class that the Jews were responsible for killing Jesus, which is why they had had such a hard time through the centuries. They brought the curse on themselves, we were told, when they cried out, "Let his blood be on us and on our children." (This was before the widespread awareness of what had happened in the Holocaust.) No big deal was made of this, and it was not joined to any overt animus against Jews. It was simply stated as one of the unhappy facts of history. There were sometimes statements that in today’s climate would be deemed anti–Semitic. For instance, trying to get a lower price on a purchase was regularly called "jewing" somebody down. I mentioned that to a twenty–something editor the other day. She had never heard the expression. But I cannot say that the few passing references to Jews and Judaism in my childhood—and they were no more than passing references—made much of an impression on me, except to make me suppose that it must be unfortunate to be born into the troubled history of the Jewish people.

Then, in the late 1950s, Rabbi Sol Bernards came to speak at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Working for the Anti–Defamation League of B’nai Brith, Bernards was going around the country, much in the manner of an itinerant preacher, alerting people to a new thing under the sun, "the Jewish–Christian dialogue." I was immediately hooked, and "the dialogue," as it is commonly called, has been an integral part of my life and thought ever since. Not too many years later, when I was pastor of a black parish in Brooklyn, I came to know Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and we formed a fast friendship, first in shared activism against the Vietnam War and later in countless hours of intense theological and philosophical conversation—usually in his smoke–filled office (he with his cigar and I with my pipe) high in the tower of Jewish Theological Seminary up on Morningside Heights. More than twenty–five years after his death, Heschel—or Father Abraham, as some of us called him—is widely acclaimed as the most important American Jewish thinker of the twentieth century. Heschel and I disagreed strongly about what Jews and Christians, qua Jew and qua Christian, must disagree about, namely, the person and work of Jesus in the purposes of the God of Israel. It was always disagreement in the service of truth, and within friendship and civility bounded by a shared acknowledgment of covenantal accountability.

Among most Christians and Jews, it is fair to say, the Jewish–Christian dialogue is viewed as something of a curiosity carried on by people who are "interested in that kind of thing." I am convinced that it is critical to our common future, and to the future of the American experiment. It must be admitted, however, that the dialogue is often banal and something of a bore. In 1989, I wrote with Rabbi Leon Klenicki Believing Today: Jew and Christian in Conversation. In that book Rabbi Klenicki offers withering comments on what he calls the "tea and sympathy" aspect of the dialogue. For many years there was, for instance, the annual Brotherhood Week, sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The idea was that you would take somebody to lunch whom you otherwise had no reason to talk to all year round. I recall an early dialogue experience in Kansas City. The speakers were a rabbi, a Catholic priest, and myself (then a Lutheran pastor). The priest wound up the proceedings with some observations of the "only in America" genre. There are many important differences between Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, but what unites us is stronger than what divides us, he opined. On what unites us I expected him to say something about our common devotion to the God of Israel and the covenant with Abraham. But he drew a different lesson from the dialogue. "When we scratch beneath the surface of our differences," he triumphantly concluded, "we discover that we’re all good Americans."

In many years of working with Catholics and Protestants of all varieties, I am not sure that I have ever heard a word that could fairly be described as anti–Semitic. For most Christians, and especially for the evangelical Protestants now increasingly prominent in our public life, the attitude toward Jews and Judaism is entirely benign. It is simply that it is no big deal. For Jews, a small minority in an overwhelmingly Christian society, the relationship with Christians is necessarily a very big deal indeed. Therefore, it should be a big deal for Christians as well. Not only because a decent respect is owed to the more than five million Americans who are Jews, but also because the anxieties and cultural influence of Jews are a major factor in creating a new conversation about the future of "Christian America." I should add, however, that while American Jews typically worry a lot about the Christian majority, in my experience most Jews show slight interest in the Jewish–Christian dialogue. That is a curious phenomenon best addressed by Jews.

There is a genuinely new thing happening, and it is connected to the "only in America" theme. Only in America and only today is there a sustained and intellectually rigorous engagement between Christians and Jews—albeit a small minority of both—about what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be a Jew, and what it means to be Christians and Jews together. In Europe before the Holocaust there was—with the exception of a few individual dialogues such as that between Franz Rosenzweig and Eugen Rosenstock–Huessy—slight motivation for such an engagement; and after the Holocaust there were not enough Jews left for such an engagement. In Israel, there is not the critical mass of Christians necessary for authentic dialogue, and the Palestinian Christians native to the area are politically traumatized and, to put it gently, disinclined to dialogue. So it is "only in America" after all.

What is happening here, for the first time in two thousand years, for the first time since the apostle Paul pondered the continuing "mystery" of Living Judaism, for the first time since the Church condemned Marcion as a heretic in the second century, for the first time since so many things in our tortuously entangled relationship, is that believing Jews and Christians are encountering one another on a footing of civil equality in a shared exploration of the way through history of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. This is a new thing, and a thing of inestimable importance to all who care about the future of Judaism and Christianity. It is also of importance to Muslims and people of other religions and of none, as we think about the future of an American experience in which civil tolerance and religious devotion are not enemies but allies. These two concerns converge and reinforce one another. While the spiritual and theological encounter between Jew and Christian is immeasurably more important, civil amity is no little consideration, and is indispensable to the encounter concerning higher and deeper things.

It is fair to say that, apart from small special interest publications expressly devoted to the subject, this magazine pays more attention to the Jewish–Christian connection than any other in the country or, to my knowledge, in the world. Many readers love it, some are puzzled by it, and perhaps there are a few who dislike it. Never mind, we will continue to pay attention, in the hope that the circle of the attentive, both Jewish and Christian, will one day be greatly expanded.

Home Schooling and Social Capital

When it got seriously underway in the mid–1980s, many thought home schooling was little more than another gesture of disgruntlement on the part of "the religious right." Today, it is estimated by some that two million children are being home schooled, and the movement is beginning to look like that great thing ever chased by liberals, the wave of the future. In the Atlantic, Margaret Talbot sympathetically reviews Mitchell Stevens’ study of the phenomenon, Kingdom of Children (Princeton University Press), and notes some odd twists. For instance, in the 1960s it was leftist thinkers such as Ivan Illich, Paul Goodman, and A. S. Neill (of Summerhill fame) who promoted, under the banner of "unschooling," the revolt against standardized education. Through circuitous routes, the idea caught on among conservative Christians worried about the militant secularism promoted by the public schools, and mainly among evangelical Christians who, unlike Catholics, did not have a school system of their own.

In home schooling, women are the chief teachers, and one may think that their decision to stay at home with the kids is a protest against regnant feminisms. Talbot’s essay suggests it’s a bit more complicated than that. "Deeply immersed in these values as they were, however, the women Stevens interviewed were hardly immune to the more mainstream ideals of womanhood shaped in part by liberal feminism. Like their contemporaries who had chosen to combine outside careers with the raising of children, they felt the attractions of using their minds and education in systematic, diligent ways; of possessing a sense of purpose independent from their husbands’; and of avoiding the tedium of housecleaning. The daily life of, say, the stereotypical 1950s housewife, trussed up in an apron and a short strand of pearls, seemed pallid and irrelevant to them, too. They wanted, as several women told Stevens, to be recognized as more than ‘just moms.’ Home schooling was in some ways the perfect solution; a souped–up domesticity with higher stakes and more respect." The home–schooling movement may also assist another feminist goal, getting dads to assume more responsibility. Talbot writes: "Moreover, fathers are actively encouraged to help their wives in whatever way the wives find useful, since the job of training young minds is regarded as both singularly important and singularly demanding. Christian home schoolers are ‘refreshingly explicit about the human costs of raising children,’ Stevens found. ‘They devote considerable energy trying to explain why children "need" full–time mothers, and they also are careful to celebrate the doing of that work.’"

Necessary Tensions

Talbot discusses the work of Christian Smith and David Sikkink published in these pages ("Is Private Schooling Privatizing?" April 1999), which shows that home schooling families are at least as involved in civic activities and the building of "social capital" as those who send their kids out for education, and she ends with this thought: "I don’t think we need worry much about their socialization in the narrow sense, either. With the exception of a few wackos in the Idaho panhandle, home–schooling parents are not bent on isolating their children, and most home–schooled kids make friends through the Scouts or church groups or volunteering. Indeed, in a study conducted a few years ago the sociologists Christian Smith and David Sikkink found that home–schooling families are actually more enmeshed in their communities than public school families. They are more likely, for example, to have voted in the previous five years, participated in an ongoing community–service activity, or gone to the public library. And the few psychological studies that have looked at categories such as ‘self–concept’ and sociability have detected no problems and some advantages for home–schooled kids. It would be ill–advised to set much store by such studies, given the difficulty of measuring something like self–concept, but at least they don’t raise any alarms."

But Talbot knows there are other concerns. "More difficult, I think, is the question of whether home schooling poses any sort of a problem for society; a threat to social cohesion, for example, or a brain drain from the public schools. Smith and Sikkink’s study suggests that there is little reason to worry that home schooling diverts people from civic life. What may be more worrisome is the prospect that home schooling will attract new recruits motivated mainly by disenchantment with the quality of their public schools. There is some evidence that recent converts to home schooling fit this profile. In a Florida state survey conducted from 1995 to 1996, for example, ‘dissatisfaction with public schools’ edged out ‘religious’ motivations for the first time as the leading reason for home schooling."

Home schooling creates tensions, Talbot admits, but that may be for the good. "Secular liberals may not much care for the particular forms of social capital that evangelicals and fundamentalists build, but build them they do. And if one shares the worry that the American citizenry is growing more selfish and monadic, the home schoolers’ brand of civic participation is no small thing. Of course, one might argue that the home schoolers’ activism is too narrow and self–interested to count as social capital. But that may be too narrow a way of thinking. As Smith and Sikkink argue,

American democracy thrives on the widespread participation of its citizens in a host of different kinds of associations that mediate between the individual and the state, often even when those associations are not manifestly political or liberal. . . . [T]he experience of association and participation itself tends to socialize, empower, and incorporate citizens in ways that stimulate democratic self–government, even if they involve some particularity and conflict in the process.

"Christian home schoolers,"Talbot concludes, "embody a coherent, living critique of mainstream education and child–rearing that can be bracing, a model of carefully negotiated, mildly irritating separateness, of being in but not of modern consumer society. For the rest of us, the tensions that creates may be the most useful thing about them."

While We’re At It

Sources: Margaret Talbot on home schooling, Atlantic, November 2001.

While We’re At It: Apocalyptic Muslims, Religion Watch, November 2001. United Methodist Board of Church and Society on war, Institute on Religion and Democracy press release, November 1, 2001. On the scientific study of religion, Religion Report, November 2001. Evangelicals and NFP, Christianity Today, November 12, 2001. George McKenna on liberalism and barbarians, Human Life Review, Spring 2001. Stanley Kurtz on Alan Wolfe, Policy Review, June 2001. On Fr. Donald Cozzens, U.S. Catholic, July, 2001. On religion and self–help, Publishers Weekly, July 2, 2001. On Anglophobia, "Quote . . . Unquote" Newsletter, July 2001. Hanna Rosen on the evangelical world, Ethics and Public Policy Center Conversations, No. 5, July 2000. On the right not to be born, ZENIT, July 15, 2001. Martin Marty on equality, Context, July 15, 2001. Oakland’s new cathedral, Sacred Architecture, Spring 2001. On modern liturgy, Ministry & Liturgy, September 2001. Euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the loss of self, Lancet, August 4, 2001. On the "parallel Magisterium," Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2001. Gilbert Meilaender on evangelical catholics, Lutheran Forum, Summer 2001. Marc D. Guerra on Darwinism, Religion & Liberty, July/August 2001. On British Muslim opinion, www.andrewsullivan.com, October 30, 2001. Herbert Muschamp on progressive architecture at the World Trade Center, New York Times, September 30, 2001. Patriotic prophylactics, American Life League press release, October 1, 2001. Family planning and army recruits, International Right to Life newsletter, May/June 2001. Planned Parenthood’s offer of free abortions, Population Research Institute, September 28, 2001. On Damien Hirst, New York Times, October 22, 2001. UN population report, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, www.c–fam.org. Robert Louis Wilken on the double Church, Antiphon 6:1.