ECPR August 2015, Montreal
Religious Freedom. A European Contribution to an American Debate
Mariano Barbato
Universität Passau / Babes-Bolyai-University Cluj-Napoca
Draft please do not quote, comments are welcome:
[email protected]
Abstract
Religious freedom is a contested term between individual and collective rights. USA, Canada and
others have integrated religious freedom in their international human rights policy despite critical
voices. While some see religious freedom as proper remedy for religious strife others criticize it as a
neo-imperial tool to promote Western values and interests – secular liberalism and Christian mission
alike. The arguments for religious freedom come indeed not only from secular liberals but also from
Christian pressure groups and minority rights activists. The postcolonial critique of the concept of
religious freedom comes from two diametrically opposed camps: one fraction defends religious
collectivism and would prefer blasphemy laws to regulate religious strife. The others side is critical of
any regulation of faith because it sees religious freedom of communities as a threat to spiritual
freedom of individuals. The paper discusses how religious freedom can be conceptualized in the
context of human rights to take the postcolonial critique seriously and secure a middle ground
between collective and individualist approaches.
1. Introduction: Religious Freedom in Foreign Affairs
The International Religious Freedom Policy (IRFP) has become a new battle ground for dealing with
the resurgence of religion in world affairs. Religious freedom is labelled the Frist Freedom in
American history and has its roots in religious dissenters’ and the Enlightenment’s thoughts. The call
for freedom of religious communities can be traced back to the persecution of the Israelites in Egypt,
the Crucifixion of Jesus and the martyrdom of first Christians in the Roman Empire and the Hijrat of
Mohammed and his followers to Yathrib/Medina. From the Genocide on the Armenians to the
Cristero Wars in Mexico, reaching its peak in the Shoah, and continuing in the mass persecution of
communism from Lenin and Stalin to Mao’s Cultural Revolution and Pol Pot’s Killing Fields, the 20th
century denied freedom for religious communities and individual believer on a massive scale.
The current chapter in the history of religious freedom as an issue of foreign policy and international
relations starts in the 1990s in the United States as a question of global human rights concern. The
International Religious Freedom Act became law in October 1998 under the Clinton administration.
Thomas F. Farr became the first director of the State Department’s Office of International Religious
Freedom; Robert A. Seiple the first Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. The act
was lobbied originally by an evangelical initiative but gained wide-spread support even among
secular human right activist groups (Hertzke 2004, Farr 2008, 2012). The secular establishment of
foreign affairs under Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who later wrote about the difficulties of
integrating religion into the secular tradition of diplomacy without enlisting God for one’s own
purposes (Albright 2006, 2012), accepted the issue of religion and religious freedom as part of the
engagement for human rights. Farr, however, criticizes that the integration of religious freedom in
the institutional frame work of human rights reduced the new agenda of religious freedom right from
the start to a trouble-shooting agency that intervenes for the sake of individuals that face
persecution but does not pursue a strategy goal of foreign policy and national interest (Farr 2013).
Nevertheless or because of this rather modest success, the American experiment found its imitators.
Canada established a similar policy (Joustra 2013, 2014), and lately the idea also gained some ground
in European countries. Most recently, the new High Representative of the European Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, announced briefly in her opening statement
to the European Parliament (EP) that freedom of religion is one of three “main domains” of her
human rights agenda (Mogherini 2014). Mogherini has no record of being a religious freedom activist
(Annicchino 2014) and might have responded with her statement to debates and pressure of the EP
(European Parliament 2011, European Council 2011) on her predecessor Catherin Ashton who had
religious freedom not on her priority list. However, even paying lip service to the concept of religious
freedom might provide an opportunity for EP pressure groups like the European Parliament Working
Group on Freedom of Religion and Belief to urge the EU foreign policy to develop an international
religious freedom policy.
Religious freedom has also its adversaries. Of interest are, of course, those who violate religious
freedom for various reasons. In the academic debate, one line of argument is of particular interest
that has clearly no intention to argue for religious persecutions but is nevertheless or because of that
against the religious freedom agenda as a foreign policy instrument. Within the IR community,
Elisabeth Shakman Hurd is clearly the champion of this camp (Hurd 2014, 2015 forthcoming; Hurd et
al. 2015 forthcoming). Critical of the two traditions of secularism, the laicism as well as the JudeoChristian secularism (Hurd 2008, 2010), Hurd understands religious freedom as a tool of American
imperialism for fostering the specific Western secularism on a global scale. Indeed, religious freedom
of the Western tradition is a classical compromise in the Western world, first between Christian
rivals, and later between religious and secular belligerents. And it is also true that the coalition that
advocates religious freedom as a human right that should be of some concern in foreign policy is an
offspring of Judeo-Christian and modest atheist secularism. Nevertheless, this coalition was only
possible and, to some extent, successful because religious freedom is a human right established in
the UN Convention of Human Rights.
Thus, even though religious freedom is mainly promoted by religious lobby groups, they can give
good arguments that religious freedom is a concern mankind has agreed on as important. However,
as it is often the case in human rights issues, the meaning is contested. At the same time the
meaning of religious freedom is usually taken for granted rather than properly defined. Jonathan Fox
suggests that two definitions are commonly present in the background. The modest one means that
no religion might be restricted while some can be supported. The more radical one insists that each
religion has to be treated equal. Based on an impressive data set, Jonathan Fox can show that most
countries pay lip service to the idea of religious freedom but do not apply it (Fox 2014). Indeed, Farr
can tell an anecdote how the French officials at the Quai d’Orsay were offended when asked why
they have lists of unwanted sects by their American colleagues (Farr 2013: 346). This problem can
easily be explained when religious freedom is seen in the perspective of Judeo-Christian secularism
and laicism that provides different arrangements that restrict some and privileges other religions.
Obviously, this is the world we live in. Do we need to foster some change, and can religious freedom
be part of the solution or is it part of the problem?
After discussing that for believers religion is not just a matter of choice but that they often
understand their religious life as a duty to follow a call from the exterior, Farr offers a sound but
nevertheless still individualistic approach to human well-being that owes much to the secular JudeoChristian creed: “Properly understood, then, freedom of religion is the right to pursue the religious
quest and to embrace of reject the interior and public obligations that ensue. If people are not free in
both senses, they cannot be said to be living a fully human life. In political terms, religious freedom is
the right of every person to immunity from coercion by civil or other human authority in pursuing, or
not pursuing, the truth of religion” (Farr 2010: 67).
With the empirical data of Jonathan Fox and the definition of Thomas Farr, it might be clear that a
policy for international religious freedom is a request for massive change in the world that aims for a
global public sphere where religious communities and all kinds of individual belief compete side by
side for a more human life. Os Guinness labelled this project for the global public square aptly “soul
freedom.” (Guinness 2013). Religious freedom understood as a concept of challenging settled
arrangements, religious and secular alike, is a reasonable concept for a world in transformation that
seeks new grounds in post-secular pluralist arrangements. However, one has to be aware that it is a
strong normative and political project with a revolutionary power that will face resistance from more
conservative minded people who are ready to defend the domination of their world views and from
those with universalist dreams of another kind, for instance the failed policy of Saudi-Arabia to bring
restrictive blasphemy laws to the UN.
As Fox suggested after his finding that no one applies the noble theory of religious freedom in
practice, we need a deeper discussion of the meaning of religious freedom (Fox 2014). The paper
argues in the first two sections that religious freedom is cannot be persuasively sold to its opponents
as a factor of stability or conceptualized inside the frame work of the economic model of religion.
Arguing that religious freedom is good for everyone and every good thing comes together as soon as
religious freedom is a key priority of foreign policy makes the agenda of religious freedom an easy
target for critique. Section three criticises the conservative and the spiritual critique of religion
freedom. a fourth section discusses the Catholic choice for religious freedom and the Islamic denial
of it inside a market model. The paper argues for religious freedom as a key priority inside a balanced
human rights discourse. The central argument is that religious freedom is a political project of change
that can be defended against its adversaries as a concept inside a culturally regulated market that
accepts individual rights and communal rights as a guiding imperative.
2. The National Interest of Stability
In the Westphalian system foreign policy is guided by the principles of sovereignty and secularity.
States decide internally about the good life that may or may not contain references to religion.
Foreign affairs, in contrast, are about national interest understood as security and wealth but lack
any religious or spiritual dimension. According to the Westphalian legacy, the absence of a religious
dimension is a condition for peace as religious quarrels would lead to endless strife. Globalization
and the return of religion challenge the very basis of the Westphalian system and its concept of
foreign affairs. Today, the boundaries between inside and outside are blurred. States are integrated
in an emerging public sphere where religions and secular world views become the sometimes
contested and sometimes shared context of cooperation and conflict. While the erosion of
sovereignty has been discussed broadly during the last two decades, the return of religion as a
“dimension of statecraft” (Johnston 1994) has attracted less attention in the conceptualizing of
foreign affairs. When it entered the debates of foreign affairs this was mainly as a thread of Islamic
terrorism that gained prominence after 9/11 and the war on terror. However, religious freedom was
established as a tool of foreign affairs 1998, three years before 9/11. Thus, placing religious freedom
inside the humanitarian box was in tune with the time when military intervention abroad was not
legitimized by national interest but by human suffering, albeit the mood on humanitarian
intervention has seen its heyday after the Somali disaster. In the more recent debates, religious
freedom has left the cage of human rights and is presented as a security issue that addresses key
concerns of national interest. In Farr’s perspective the religious freedom approach has important
implications on the war on terror as well as on the most important actor for the US – China:
“*T+he problem posed by the Taliban is not merely one of security. If every current Taliban leader
were killed along with the leaders of al Qaeda (including Osama bin Laden) living on the border of
Afghanistan and Pakistan, an underlying problem would remain. *…+ The energizing core of those
ideas is the conviction of some Muslims that Islam requires violence by its adherents and by the
Muslim state, as a means of fulfilling man’s obligation to God.
Among all the strategies adopted by the United States to undermine Islamist terrorism and to
encourage stable liberal governments in the Muslim world, we have thus far failed to credit one of
the most important objectives: the religious rationale for violence must be turned on its head.
Mainstream Muslims who reject violence and coercion not in spite of Islam, but because of it, must
move to the fore. Until that happens, U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Iraq and its counter-terrorism
efforts around the world are unlikely to succeed” (Farr 2010: 60)
“Religion has also had an important but little-noticed influence on the nation many experts believe is
the most consequential for American interests – China *…+. There is no empirical evidence that
China’s surge of religion can successfully be repressed or controlled short of another brutal and
destructive Cultural Revolution. The trajectory suggests that either the Chinese will find a way to
accommodate religion or turn it into the very thing they (and we) most fear: deep social and political
instability. The United States must begin to address this problem” (Farr 2010: 51-52).
Advocates of the religious freedom agenda argue that the reaction to religious terrorism or religious
tensions should not be a ban on religion in public but the fostering of religious freedom. Banning
religion causes resistance and hate while religious freedom causes a virtuous circle of flourishing
religion that needs not take up the arms to fight for their right to worship as they want (Hoover and
Seiple 2013). For these reasons, international religious freedom policy should be a strategic agenda
of national interest that seeks for global stability:
„The starting point from which American foreign policy should encounter the world of religion is not
the dogma of any particular religious tradition or any particular secularist philosophy. The starting
point should be that of American national interests, of religious realism, and of religious freedom
properly understood. The United States should address the public effects of religion, both positive
and negative, by promoting religious freedom in the fullest sense of that term, including the
advancement of solutions to one of the foremost national security issues of our day – achieving a
stable and liberal balance between the overlapping authorities of religion and state” (Farr 2010: 51).
This statement echoes what Alfred Stepan famously called the “twin toleration” of religion and
democracy. In a nutshell, by their own preferences, religion and the democratic state leave each
other alone: or in his own words: “’twin toleration’ – that is, the minimal boundaries of freedom of
action that must somehow be crafted for political institutions vis-à-vis religious authorities, and for
religious individuals and groups vis-à-vis political institutions (Stepan 2000/2012: 55). “Twin
toleration” is thus the precondition for a stable political consensus on the limited role of religion in
public and politics. For Farr, Stepan’s approach of a stable consensus on the role of religion is a good
starting point to convince religious communities and state authorities alike that religious freedom
should be granted (Farr 2013: 336-337).
Daniel Philpott has developed Stepan’s argument (Philpott 2007, Toft, Philpott, Shah 2011: 20-47) in
a direction that goes well with Farr’s argument for religious freedom as a factor of political stability
(Farr 2013: 337-339). Philpott argues for a consensual differentiation that must be rooted in a liberal
democratic political theology on the side of the religious community and in the fundamentals of the
political theory of the state. If there is a consensus on independence of religious and state authority,
the political system is most stable. If there is an issue about the degree of fusion or separation the
system is seen as unstable. Instability is also suggested if there is interdependence between the two
bodies of authority. Interdependence is seen as a source for quarrel about power and thus a
jeopardizing a stable consensus.
Philpott is certainly correct that mutual consensus based on deepest principles of political and
religious views is a factor of stability. Whether a consensus on independence is more stable than a
consensus on interdependence is a more challenging argument that can be disputed. Many areas of
the world have a very stable idea of interdependence of religion and politics, ranging from very
different ideas of established religions like in Denmark or Bhutan to mutual interdependence on
certain issues like state subsidies for religious schools, kindergarten or hospitals in exchange for the
provision of public service like in the case of the Protestant and Catholic Church in Germany. At least
these European arrangements are not more disputed than the American cultural wars about the role
of religion in public and politics.
Given that radical religious freedom is thin on the ground, as Fox had shown (Fox 2014), there is not
enough empirical data that could show any effect of religious freedom. Religious freedom as a
precondition for peace and stability could end-up as the democratic peace argument: at first not
enough evidence because there were not enough democracies to make quantitatively sound
arguments, and then some evidence that democracy also go to war, at least against non-democratic
adversaries.
Stepan, Philpott and Farr might be right that liberal democracies and their twin toleration are one of
the most stable political systems. On an international perspective, “religious freedom and the making
of a world safe for diversity” (Guinness 2013) is in no way a program for stability but a program for
change. Indeed, it is a scheme for the great transformation of public arrangements for the role of
religion. Again, this does not need to be a bad idea, as is regime change and the spread of
democracy, even if it will not lead to democratic peace. However, for defending national interest,
stability of the status quo and security concerns in general, religious freedom is not an easy tool but
rather a burden. Stability can, at least in the short run, be gained most easily not by religious
freedom but by the establishment of an ideological blend of religious or secular arguments that is
tailored to the goals of a particular situation. The Assad family and their Alawite based rule managed
to suppress the Sunni majority very successful for decades and still manages to survive with their
model in a barbaric civil war. In Afghanistan, the end of the Taliban rule did not bring religious
freedom but an Islamic regime backed by American troops. If religious freedom would be granted in
Saudi-Arabia by the state tomorrow the country would probably turn because of the social pressures
for religious uniformity from a vital factor of American interest and stability in the Middle East into a
failed state of civil war. These examples show that stability usually comes with a high price on human
rights and it is also obvious that a successful establishment of a human right regime based on
religious freedom would turn the world in a better place. However, this is not an easy road to take,
and in the short and mid-term run religious freedom has nothing to do with stability at all.
3. One religious market under God
Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge were among the first scholars of the sociology of religion
who challenged already in the 1980s the secularization thesis as a linear process that will bring an
end to religion in politics, public and private. Instead of a steady decline of religion they examine
declines and revivals of religions. While some religions decline others raise and some declines are
followed by revivals. Secularization is thus not a linear process but can be understood as a constant
challenge that religious communities have to manage. Those religious communities that are ready to
face the challenges by strengthening their teaching are better off to survive than communities that
are ready to compromise. A second interesting finding is that strengthening one’s own faith
successfully does not include the suppression of other religious communities. State restriction in
favour of one religion has the effect that this religion will probably decline while in an open
competition of religious groups religiosity in general is increasing. Religions flourish when the supply
side of religion is like an open market. “Competition is good for business” holds also true for the
market of religion. However those will win who are strong enough to present the best offer on the
market. Less self-confident religious communities give way to strong religions. Secularization paves
the way for more genuine forms of faith through revivals or innovations (Stark and Bainbridge 1985).
Whereas Stark and Bainbridge’s focus was on the emergence of new cults paralleling the decline of
established churches, most recently Stark proclaims the triumph of Christianity in the times of
globalization. Stark summarizes four reasons for the attractiveness of Christianity: Its sound message,
its accessible scripture, its adjustable pluralism and finally its modernity: “Inevitable, as the religion
of the West, Christianity is associated with Western modernity. Thus, for many in the less-developed
world, it is nearly impossible to separate their embrace of Christianity from their acceptance of
modern culture in general.” (Stark 2011: 412). A global market of religious freedom is good for
successful competitors but might cause some problems for less competitive local religious
entrepreneurs who seek some state protections against the forces of the market even though they
would be better off with some “structural” reforms to improve their competitiveness.
Jonathan Fox and Ephraim Tabory confirm in their rich empirical study based on a very broad data
set that those societies that have less state interference on the market of religion are more religious
than those countries where the state regulates the market by imposing restriction on some while
supporting others (Fox and Tabory 2008). A general flourishing of religion might however be neither
in the interest of adherents of a secular creed (China) nor of members of a religion with high power
ambition but less religious vitality (Syria). The secular Bath regime of the Assad family in Syria, for
instance, is based on the rule of the religious minority of the Alawites. They granted religious
freedom to other minorities but restricted the religious freedom of the Sunni majority. The result is
the Islamic state and a bloody civil war but from the perspective of the Alawite and some other
minorities that still support the dictatorship of Assad this is preferable to a “normal” Sunni majority
rule and their restriction of religious freedom on minorities. We will come back to this example and
the question of power when we discuss the critique from the side of what I call spiritual secularism.
Based on the market model and insights on the effects of revival and decline, Brian J. Grim and Roger
Finke present a more extended research agenda that does not only examine the interference of the
state but take also the societal pressure of the dominant religion to restrict the public appearance of
other religions into account (Grim and Finke 2011). Like in the argument about stability, they have
evidence that these attempts to secure the domination of one creed over all others are not likely to
succeed. A multicultural society is much more stable and peaceful than a society that entered the
vicious circle of persecution and resistance. From these findings they criticize Huntington’s concept
of homogenous civilizations and plea for multicultural societies based on religious freedom:
“We contrast Huntington’s clash-of-civilizations argument, in which social conflict is the result of
cultural clashes across boundaries between civilizations, with our alternative theory in which we
propose that it is the attempt to restrict religious activity – regardless of whether it is across
civilizations or within a civilization – that leads to higher level of social conflict and, specifically,
higher levels of violent religious persecution. We propose that diverse religions can coexist in the
same geographic space without conflict. But when the restrictions on religion become heavy and
deny the religious freedoms of some or all, violent religious persecution and broader social conflict
are likely.
In other words, multiculturalism with religious pluralities does not lead to violence as Huntington
suggests – the attempt to prevent multiculturalism and religious pluralities does” (Grim and Finke
2011: 62).
And they conclude:
“The key finding is that government and social restrictions of religion are the mechanism through
which social, political, economic, and religious differences make a difference. *…+ Supportive of the
religious economies model, violent religious persecution and conflict increase to the extent that
governments place restrictions on religion” (Grim and Finke 2011: 86-87)
From their perspective, restriction of on the freedom of religion comes with a high price tag attached
that goes beyond the argument of stability. The vicious circle of the denial of religious freedom a nd
the resistance against this suppression leads to further restrictions and persecutions, resulting in
endless strife that is a burden for the well-being of the whole society, causes political instability, and
poses threats to security but also in economic terms.
In a recent study Grim and others (Grim, Clark and Snyder 2014) extend this argument of a free
market of religion to have positive effects on economic growth. Thus a free market of religion fosters
religiosity in general, lets the best religion win the competition, secures peace and stability and is
also good for business as it strengthen the spirit of open competition. Religion in public and politics,
as long as it is based on religious freedom and accepts the free completion of various creeds, can go
very well with liberal democracy and the flourishing it promises in general. From this perspective,
Farr can argue that religious freedom is a cornerstone of a decent society:
“The fact is that a regime of religious liberty is much more than the absence of religious persecution.
Religious freedom anchors a political order in which individuals and religious communities are not
only free to worship privately, but also act publicly in significant ways – to worship in community, to
manifest religious truth claims, and to influence public policy, bounded by the same democratic
norms and laws that limit other individuals and associations in civil society. Where religious liberty
truly exists, citizens are certainly free from torture and abuse, but something much more
fundamental has occurred in the political order: the religion-state relationship has reconciled by
means of a culturally sustainable compact. In such a polity the natural tensions between the claims of
religion and the claims of the liberal state are continually reconciled and rebalanced. If U.S.
diplomacy were successful in encouraging this aspect of democratic development, it would help
ensure that democratic elections and democratic constitutions yielded stable, liberal governments
rather than fragile concoctions of sectarian interest groups.
In short, the United States can attack the very structures of persecution by advancing ideas and
institutions of religious freedom that support the same goals as liberal governance – the flourishing
of citizens in a well-ordered civil society. In order to accomplish this, however, America’s
international religious freedom policy must recognize the particular role that religion often plays in
public lives and the role that it can play in the public life of a liberal democracy, always taking into
account variations in culture, ethnicity, nationality, politics, and economic development. *…L+iberal
democracy does not require the banishment of religion from the moral judgments that inform public
policy and shape the laws and norms designed to promote the common good. *…+ Lasting stable
democracies – what scholars call ‘consolidated’ democracies – are possible only when culture
supports them, and culture in the twenty-first century is increasingly influenced by religion” (Farr
2010: 62-63)
Indeed Farr can make here again an important point about the importance of the nuanced and
complex role religion can play in society. Religious freedom is crucial for promoting these kinds of
complex settlements. However, religious freedom is not a remedy to cure all ills and establish a
utopian paradise. Even though one can subscribe to this model of pluralism and competition one has
to be aware of the fact that others do not like competitions or prefer another kind of competition
that is not based on religious communities but on individual spirituality.
4. Adversaries of religious freedom
The market model can be used to explain why some prefer a regulated market or even prefer to
monopolize the market or call for other units as the principle agent of the market. Globally, the
monopolist or oligarchs of the religious market are very well positioned while in the US debate the
proponents of religious freedom found their counterpart in what I suppose to call spiritual secularist
that are in favour of individual spirituality but understand all religious communities with clear
concepts of belonging under an authority as an oligarchical threat to the religious market.
4.1 Monopolists between Blasphemy Laws and Hate Speech
First I will turn to the opponents of religious freedom who nevertheless signed the UN Charted of
Human Rights including the right of religious freedom. In contrast to what the proponents of
religious freedom are suggesting these opponents of religious liberty do not search for a peaceful
and stable settlement of an open market of religion but they prefer a society that is dominated by
one world view and one power, in China state communism and Saudi-Arabia Wahabism. They are
ready to pay the price for persecuting religion for the very reason that they prefer a closed and
regulated society over an open society where power has to compete. In a parlance of economies of
religious they can be termed monopolist. To avoid monopolies in a market economy, anti-trust
regulations are necessary. However, these regulations have to be imposed on the big players. It is
interesting to see that the global governance frame work of the world market has not managed to
establish an international agency that secure anti-trust regulation on a globally agreed basis. Even in
purely economic questions, fair competition is a hard to achieve when states prefer to support their
national champions on the world market.
Instead of anti-trust regulations, we see attempts also on the religious world market to protect the
monopolists at home and the “national champions” abroad by international regulations. SaudiArabia launched an initiative at the UN that was meant to counter the call for freedom by an antidefamation act establishing a kind of blasphemy law on the global scale. This initiative could not win
over the support of other religious actors. They were suspicious that the blasphemy laws that are a
very powerful tool inside Muslim majority countries to keep minorities at bay will be inside and
outside Muslim majority countries and in the emerging public sphere foster Muslim interests.
Indeed, under blasphemy laws a wide range of actions from missionary activities and conversion to
other religions or world views or just criticizing aspects of Islam to showing religious symbols and
performing religious practices publicly can count as an offense. Blasphemy laws are clearly against
religious freedom in these cases. On the other hand blasphemy laws and religious freedom can f it
perfectly if the common target is the restriction of social pressure on religious communities. The
caricature question shows how slippery the slope is that we enter here. From the Danish cartoons to
the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo, religious communities can persuasively claim that they feel attacked if
they have to accept these kinds of social pressures. Nevertheless, in a liberal society freedom of
speech usually trumps freedom of religion. In addition, religious freedom is currently under severe
attack from those who want to establish a monopoly of “a newly aggressive atheism and a heavyhanded separationism that both call for the exclusion of religion from public life. Another is the
overzealous attempt of certain activists of the sexual revolution to treat freedom of religious ad
belief as an obstruction to their own rights that must be dismantled forever.” Ox Guinness continues
to argue that “*c+urrent Western forms of hate speech, for example, operate in a similar way to the
blasphemy laws put forward on behalf of Islam, and they are equally misguided” (Guinness 2013: 17).
The market model and the very idea of competition do not guarantee a peaceful society as long as
neither the monopoly question nor the question of what count as a fair competition is agreed on.
There is a challenged consensus in Western democracies if it counts as fair competition when some
understand the right of freedom of speech as a right to lampoon religious people. The state has to
take side. The liberal secular state usually defends those who lampoon while the autocratic religious
state usually persecutes them. Indeed, a modest version of religious freedom that is not understood
as being under attack by any act of deviancy or critique, but allows restriction on the freedom of
speech, could be a starting point to mitigate the extremes and find a middle ground. Like all markets
also the market of religion is not working without some regulations, restrictions and protections. And
it is a very controversial and open political question who deserves protection from the state and who
has to be restricted. The market alone will not do.
4.2 Spiritual Secularism
The other group of opponents of religious freedom is not suspect for establishing blasphemy laws
and anti-defamation acts to defend the dominance of one religion – however I am less sure about
“hate speech”. Daniel Philpott argues persuasively against a position that “will allow religious people
to express themselves publicly through their dress but not their doctrines, through their clothing but
not their convictions. That position, though, is one of a strict secularist” (Philpott 2015).
Daniel Philpott was obviously disturbed how a sensible scholar like Elisabeth Shakman Hurd could
link those in favour of religious freedom with the murders of the Islamic State and accusing both of
having a Manichean world view (Philpott 2014, Hurd 2014). While I am supportive of Daniel Philpott
and critical of Elisabeth Shakman Hurd in this debate, I see no contradiction between Hurd’s
argument and her earlier work on secularism (Hurd 2008, 2010). Her fight against religious freedom
as a tool of Western foreign policy (Hurd 2014, 2015 forthcoming) is very much in line with her longstanding arguments. In the case of IS, she understands the International Religious Freedom Policy as
part of the problem that caused IS not as part of the solution that can stop it. “In this worldview,
individuals are identified based on perceived religious affiliation—for instance, he’s a Muslim, she’s a
Christian, they are part of a particular “religious group.” These groups are publically consecrated as
discrete faith communities and official spokespersons are called forth to represent them. A
“religionized” political landscape takes shape. Faith leaders who enjoy good relations with the
political authorities are emboldened, while others are marginalized. Dissenters, doubters, those who
practice multiple traditions, and those on the margins of community fade into the background” (Hurd
2014b).
Hurd has criticized in her earlier work two version of secularism: laicism and Judeo-Christian
secularism (2010). In her view, religious freedom is part of this secular parcel. Indeed, it is a
compromise between Judeo-Christian secularism and laicism. Demanding religious freedom is a way
of exporting these kinds of secularism. Indeed, understood as a foreign policy tool in the name of
national interest, stability and a free market of religion, it could be understood as part of the secular
war that tries to take the religious opponent seriously but fails to understand what is going (Stacey
2013).
Nevertheless, Hurd’s approach also has severe shortcoming. She and her collaborators are
advocating not a neutral version of pluralism but a third version secularism that could be called
spiritual not religious. In contrast to laicism and Judeo-Christian secularism, this spiritual secularism is
the representation of a growing segment of Western societies who – in Grace Davie’s word – believe
without belonging (Davie 2002). Spiritual secularism imagines a world without restrictive ties of
belonging to certain religious groups that give credence to some religious authorities. Imagined is a
world that is full of spiritual or non-spiritual individuals who freely decide what deity they worship or
what meditation technique they use or refrain from. Religious freedom like the whole concept of
religion is understood as a construction that does not favour the individual rights of spiritual or nonspiritual people but the power of communities and their authorities that can define what religion is
and what not. These kinds of spiritual freedom can bring about open societies while religious
freedom can only strengthen the belonging to certain social groups.
Spiritual secularism is the most advanced version of post-modern Western secularism but it is less
suitable for the emerging global public sphere than some might think. In fact, the religious freedom
agenda that indeed ascribes religious communities and their authorities some power is much more in
line with global realities than the ultra-individualistic approach of spiritual secularism.
Thus, Hurd’s argument has two severe shortcomings: First, her Western concept of believing without
belonging grasps certainly also some important aspects of the reality of the Middle East when she
talks about dissenters or “those on the margins of community”. In 2007, there has been a massacre
on Yazidis near Mosul – the city taken over by IS in summer 2014 – in revenge for a stoning of a
Yazidi girl by her community because of her relationship with a Sunni boy. If this is the kind of
problem Hurd thinks about, it is not persuasive why the agenda of religious freedom should be an
obstacle to prevent this kind of atrocities. The concept of religious freedom takes communal rights as
well as individual rights into account.
Hurd’s denial of the importance of communal religious bonds for the reality of, for instance, Syria,
before anyone has imposed religious freedom there, is remarkable when she argues that “It makes
the regime’s argument that it is the only bulwark against sectarian warfare a la Lebanon and Iraq
more plausible. This framing of the conflict energises categories of religious difference—Christian,
Alawite, Sunni—that might not otherwise necessarily define it” (Hurd 2014a: 228). Without any
major influence of American sponsored religious freedom activists and despite controversies inside
the various Christian communities about the supporting or challenging Alawite rule in Syria, these
belongings – sometimes without believing – are very strong constructions that constitute the Syrian
society. Thus it would be more effective to reckon with them instead of denying their relevance or
arguing for schemes of their deconstruction. The later would be, by the way, are major imperialistic
project that might cause even more trouble than any liberal religious freedom approach that accepts
that there are powerful religious communities.
A longer quote of Hurd’s approach might clarify the problem of the hyper-individualistic approach of
spiritual secularism:
“Religious freedom advocacy does not merely enforce a universal norm, as liberal internationalists
would have it. It helps to create individual subjects and ‘faith communities’ for whom choosing and
believing in religion are seen as the defining characteristics of what it is to be a modern religious
subject. The right to choose to believe (or not), then, becomes the essence of what it means to be
free. To achieve this unity in freedom of belief—belief in belief, as it were—across communities of
belief (and non-belief), is what it means to have achieved religious freedom.
This particular model of religious freedom empowers religious authorities in positions of power at
the expense of dissenters, doubters and those on the margins of community. It may also undermine
democracy. [footnote omitted] And this is a third paradox of religious freedom. The promotion of
religious freedom may undermine democracy not because democracy is necessarily secular, but
because the hierarchical, institutionalised forms of religion defended by the US bishops, the US
Department of State, USCIRF Open Doors, the EU, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Canada’s
DFAIT, and other advocates for religious liberty regulate—and may even eradicate—the potential for
non-established, minority, diverse and democratic forms of religion to flourish” (Hurd 2014a: 234).
This quote in length captures what I mean with spiritual secularism. Religious authorities and
established communities are the enemies of free-floating spirituality of individuals or small groups.
Believing without belonging is the ideal of this position. The agenda of religious freedom is already
hard to achieve but there is even fewer evidence that any society beyond some circles of Western
Europe and West and East Coast America should subscribe to this project of spiritual secularism.
4.3 The Catholic vs the Muslim experiences in the market model
Within the market model comparing Catholicism with Islam could illustrate how powerful the
oligarchies of the religious markets are and when they subscribe to an open market and freedom of
religion and when they refrain from doing so.
Catholicism is an interesting case in the debate of religious freedom as it moved in the last five
decades from an opponent of human rights in general and religious freedom in particular to one of
the most powerful advocates of human rights and religious freedom. The Second Vatican Council is
the watershed that, at least in some respect, turned the Catholic doctrine upside down. One can
argue that the Vatican Council corrected on theological grounds a former decline of its teaching and
returned to the original doctrine of freedom of faith. The act of believing needs personal freedom
not external pressure. The Muslim world could learn from this Catholic move by giving more
credence to its own tradition that there shall be no force in questions of faith. From a social science
approach it is interesting what theological potential complex belief systems like Catholicism and
Islam have but even more of interest is the question why and when communities change their
interpretation of the doctrines.
When the Second Vatican Council took place in the 1960s, the Catholic Church faced at least three
challenges: the rise in the post-colonial South, the oppression in the communist East, and the decline
in the liberal West. There was no chance to win back the support of the Western states to impose
Catholic rule by state power. In the East, however, communism was the totalitarian “political
religion” that was able to oppress each religion that was not going to conform to the communist
creed. No wonder that an American Jesuit and a Polish bishop, and later pope, drafted the document
that brought the breakthrough of religious freedom in Catholicism (Hertzke 2012: 409). This change
was the crucial factor that brought about the third wave of democratization from the old Iberian
global empire to Central Europe (Huntington 1991) and could be understood as a Catholic Wave
(Philpott 2004). The raise in the South was of particular importance as the Catholic Church moved
since the 1960s increasingly to the post-colonial Global South which has experienced strong
demographic growth. The weak post-colonial states were no ally the Church could rely on, quite the
contrary. The church often has to fulfil state-like services that could only performed closely tied to
the old centres of Catholicism. Thus, the Church re-invented itself much more as a transnational
actor that was ready to play on the level of states as well as on the level of societies. The church has
lost its political centre in Western Christendom and gained a status as a global player that has to
perform its missionary task without the backing of colonial rule of Western Christendom in the
Global South. The model of a free market of religion became attractive for the Catholic Church. The
Catholic Church is losing some adherents to other competitors, particularly in Latin America, but
overall it is doing very well.
What was strategically a good choice for Catholicism is less attractive for Islam today and thus it is
not likely to occur. In contrast to Catholicism, Islam is not in danger of losing the backing of the
political authority in core states. There is much tension inside the radical version of Islam from
Wahabism to the Muslim Brotherhood about what political authority should do but none of them is
arguing for a neutral state or the twin toleration. Even secular models in the Arab world favour
strong restriction against other religions or atheism. As long as this backing is there, and there is no
evidence that it will be weaker in the foreseeable future, there is no incentive to change the model.
Similar to the old Catholic doctrine, it makes sense to ascribe “no right to error” at home but defend
the freedom of religion with anti-defamation campaigns abroad to allow market entry elsewhere. In
contrast to Catholicism, that is operation transnationally and globally, Islam has still a huge
geographical centre that is growing on its peripheries. The global market model is less attractive
under these circumstances. The Muslim world is much better off to defend with some protection
clauses the home market and try to gain market shares in the open market of others.
5. Religious freedom with in the Human rights discourse
The agenda of religious freedom is ambitious and there are many doubts that it can be implemented
successfully, particularly as an agenda of national interest, stability and making the world safe for a
liberal market of religions. Nevertheless, like all human right concerns religious freedom is an
important issue to end human suffering and worth to be put forward as a more modest policy of
international human rights advocacy.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations mentions religious freedom as late
as in article 18 (albeit freedom of speech comes with article 19):
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom
to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public
or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
Already in this classical text, freedom of religion is understood as a conceptual compromise of
institutional, individual, and communal rights between secular beliefs and religions. It is thus also a
pluralist compromise of laicism and Judeo-Christian secularism.
Religious freedom has been established as an American foreign policy tool and as part of human
rights discourse in a pre-9/11 world. This is actually still a good idea. Religious freedom should do
primarily what some protagonists of religious freedom are not completely satisfied with: rescue
persecuted people.
However, this task should gain much more attention inside the human rights discourse. In fact, most
human rights activist are not likely to prioritize religious freedom as they understand in accordance
with spiritual secularism religious authority still as a threat to their secular or spiritual idea of human
flourishing. Amnesty international for instance is more in favour of campaigning for the legalization
of abortion than for religious freedom as a human right. Given the magnitude of human suffering
because of the lack of religious freedom, the first task could be to win the mainstream human rights
activist for a modest agenda of religious freedom, not an easy task considering the hostility of some
branches of this spectrum towards religion,.
On the other hand, persecuted religious communities should strengthen their transnational ties and
push the agenda of religious freedom forward. They are the only one with a genuine interest in the
issue and they are many. However, even inside, for instance, the Catholic Church the traditional
esteem for martyrs of faith is shrinking. Solidarity has to grow inside the religious communities first.
Stephen Hopgood persuasively argued that the end times of a human right regime that does not care
too much about the concrete human rights of suffering people but implements the rule of “Human
Rights, capitalized” are about to come. “Human Rights is a global structure of laws, courts, norms,
and organizations that raise money, write reports, run international campaigns, open local offices,
lobby governments, and claim to speak with singular authority in the name of humanity as a whole.
Human Rights advocates make their demand that all societies adopt global norms on the basis of a
uniquely universal and secular moral authority. Often highly legalized, Human Rights norms are not
flexible and negotiable. They are a kind of secular monotheism with aspiration to civilize the world”
(Hopgood 2013: IX). In fact, the agenda of religious freedom is in danger to become also capitalized
in order to adjust the Human Rights Regime to a world where religion is back. As far as this is the
case, Hurd’s critique contains important warnings. Religious freedom, not capitalized but as a modest
concept, could bring much more effect if the reduction of human suffering is the aim. A modest
concept of religious freedom does not argue for an open market but for some protection against
religious and secular monopolies and for a pluralism that accepts some oligarchical structure but
insists on the freedom of individual dissenters.
Conclusion: Religious freedom as a chance to rethink the religion of human rights
In scholarly discourses and in practitioner’s discussion alike, foreign policy debates on religion saw in
the last years the rise of the old concept of religious freedom. Indeed, religious freedom became a
core concept for dealing with the international resurgence of religions. However, religious freedom is
a contested term. While advocates of religious freedom see it as remedy for religious strife others
criticize it as a neo-imperial tool for promoting Western values and interests – secular liberalism and
Christian mission alike. Despite critical voices, the USA, Canada and lately European states and the
European Union have integrated religious freedom into their human rights agenda of foreign policy.
The effect of this new agenda on the ground is modest. Some prisoners facing persecutions for their
faith have been released but there is evidence that suffering of persecuted faithful is still
quantitatively and quantitatively one of the major ills of this planet. The persecution of Christians,
Yazidis, Shia and dissenting Sunni Muslims in the Islamic State is the last mass atrocity in this respect.
But is the promotion of religious freedom the cure? The Islamic state is doing in a multicultural and
multi-religious area what Saudi-Arabia has established in a more Sunni dominated region:
establishing a religious rule that imposes a strict interpretation of the Quran on the Muslim
population and give no rights to worship or appear anyhow in public with acts and symbols related to
non-Muslim religions. While Saudi-Arabia is a strong and reliable ally of the West, delivering oil in
exchange for protection, Saudi-Arabia petrol dollars are known not only for being recycled in the
capitalist economy as consumption or investment but also for sponsoring Wahabism abroad.
Also China is still persecuting diverse religious groups from Falun Gong to Evangelical and Roman
Catholics in union with the pope, Muslim Uyghur and the Dalia Lama and Tibetan Buddhism. Both
countries are nevertheless actors of stability in the sense of supporting the political status quo of
Western dominance, albeit trying to increase the share they have in it. As far as the transformation
of the world in one market of growth and free trade is concerned, Saudi-Arabia and China are the
most important partners of the Western World apart from the G7 partner Japan.
Religious Freedom is thus not a precondition for political stability and economic growth. The national
interest of America can do without religious freedom. Indeed, it could contain the risk of an overstretch to push for it. The persecution for religious reasons in both countries is indeed linked to the
rational to cooperate with the West but not be dominated by the West or become like it. The policy
of religious freedom might not be meant to support Christian missionaries. Nevertheless, the chances
that religious freedom would have this effect should not be underestimated. The sportive spirit of
“May the better win” or the old rule that competition is good for business will not persuade
everyone.
Nevertheless, religious freedom needs not to be abandoned on the agenda of foreign affairs. It can
have a positive effect if it is not understood as new tool for bringing about a pure utopia of liberal
democracy, human rights, and human flourishing. Religious freedom as a perfect market based on
refraining from any interference from the state to restrict one religion or support another religion
more than all religions of minorities, world views of dissenter, and of course all those who have
nothing to do with religion at all, apart from making jokes about it or arguing for imaging a peaceful
world without it, will not work. A free world is full of tensions and they have to be mitigated not
solved on one principle. A realistic version of deep pluralism reckons with deep controversies. Politics
of becoming (Connolly 1999) end the suffering of those whose suffering is the basis for the
flourishing of others, at least in their understanding. At least during the period of transition, they will
suffer, too. And, if Chantal Mouffe is right, there is no hegemonic constellation that can integrate
everyone and please all demands (Mouffe 2005). In fact, spiritual secularism has the tendency to
favor a specific kind of individualistic postmodern spirituality of believing without belonging. The
effect is a third version of Western secularism that paves the way for “Californian falderal” in
Habermasian parlance (Habermas 2007: 409-410). One needs not to subscribe to the Habermasian
verdict but there is also no need to get rid of traditional religions that established a complex tradition
that is guided by formal or informal authorities that try to keep the religious traditions alive and
preserve the religious communities into the future.
Religious freedom can have a future if it is understood as a compromise between individual rights of
choosing one’s own believe and communal rights to keep the flock together under one authority. In
addition, religious freedom can foster a culture in which diverse religious and state authorities accept
the rights of the others as checks and balances of power. Twin toleration can have many ways of
combining or separating power of state and religious authority. Religious freedom can remind the
powerful that religion should not become an ideology to legitimize the rule over people but that
religion is the longing for something that cannot be brought about by human agency. Religious
freedom is also a reminder for the individual citizens that rights are not free-floating commodities
that can be distributed and then used according to one’s pleasing. Freedom is always a conditioned
notion that has nothing to do with omnipotence but with the ability to engage with others
respectfully and voluntarily instead of trying to dominate others in order to prevent being dominated
by them. Religion is a Latin word and steams from “religare”, binding something back. Religious
freedom can have the meaning that freedom needs its bonds to culture and community even though
it is the motor for peaceful change in favour of free persons and their dignity.
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