Religious Liberty

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• Responses to Terrorism Dominate Religious Freedom Debate

• Religious Liberty Legislation Gains Momentum in U.S. Congress

• US Proposed Bill to Protect Workplace Religious Freedom

• State Department Report

• Government Funding of Religious Institutions
  

NARLA Kicks Into High Gear

One of the things that has struck me over the last few years working on Capitol Hill is what a distorted picture of religious freedom legislators often have. The reason for this is the loudest voices on these issues are dominated by extremists from the left and from the right. On one side you have people who are actively hostile against religion, and see religion as a threat to their extreme agenda. On the other side you have people who want to enforce their religious views through the state and have no respect for our history of keeping a reasonable distance between the church and the government.

Rather than hoping and praying that the extreme groups that dominate the landscape currently will one day see our point of view, the Seventh-day Adventist Church decided to launch the North American Religious Liberty Association (NARLA). The purpose of NARLA is to give a reasoned, credible and principled message of religious freedom that will be able to compete in the marketplace of ideas.

Indeed, NARLA has already had success in the media, with interviews on C-SPAN which featured the NARLA website during the show "Washington Journal," and National Public Radio. And we are only beginning.

For the first time in NARLA's history, we are opening up membership to those who want to stand with us for religious freedom. I am just so thankful to those who have already decided to join with us and stand strong, and I want to personally invite you to join with us.

Joining NARLA is very simple. Just go to www.religiousliberty.info and you will see on the right  hand side of the page a link to membership which includes the details on NARLA membership

One of the things I find most encouraging are people who are willing not only to talk about religious freedom, but are willing to actually do something. I hope that you are one of those people. If so, you will be very welcome to join with me and our NARLA team as we work to create something remarkable. Join us at www.religiousliberty.info

Liberty Campaign

We are now in the full swing of our liberty campaign in the North American Division. This year the theme is "Liberty: Imagine Your World Without It." For many people around the world, this isn't a theoretical question but rather a day to day reality. Even in the U.S. we increasingly see Sabbath keepers targeted for intolerance in the workplace. And of course, with our understanding of prophecy we know that is only a matter of time until religious persecution returns even here at home.

Conclusion

I want to thank those of you who wrote to express appreciation for my article on our religious liberty work in the December Adventist Review. I enjoyed writing the article, and I am pleased that it touched a chord with so many readers. I also want to thank those of you who continue to pray for our work here on Capitol Hill. The work truly is enormous, but I believe that God has a very unique role for our church and that He will continue to open the doors to accomplish that work.

May God bless you this Sabbath,

James Standish

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Responses to Terrorism Dominate Religious Freedom Debate

Leuven, Belgium .... [IRLA Staff/ANN]

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National responses to terrorism, and what those responses should be, dominated the debate at the latest experts meeting of the International Religious Liberty Association.

Held in Leuven, Belgium, close to the European center of Brussels, the IRLA Group of Experts tackled the conflicting responses to terrorism that can often be counterproductive.

"We chose this issue because it is so relevant today," comments Dr. Jonathan Gallagher, deputy secretary general of the IRLA. "Many countries are responding to the terror threat, and we want to make sure that religious freedom is not a casualty in all this. We believe that freedom of conscience is a vital asset to security--and that to crack down on religious expression will only destabilize society, the opposite effect to what is planned."

The introduction to the final document, "Guiding Principles and Recommendations on Security and Religious Freedom," states that "Religious freedom requires security, just as true security requires religious freedom." It goes on to point out that "the two are interdependent, mutually reinforcing, not exclusive, and do not collide or conflict. Too frequently, responses to religion-based terrorism have involved efforts to enhance security at the expense of religious freedom. These responses have often proved counterproductive, and result in violations of international standards of human rights."

Consequently, "Such violations, which diminish both security and religious freedom, must be opposed by governments, religious groups, people of faith, and all those who truly value human rights," the document concludes. The full text will be made available online at http://www.irla.org.

The meetings, which concluded June 12, were the culmination of a year's intensive study and dialogue that brought together experts for previous consultations in Washington, D.C., and Paris. The IRLA Group of Experts includes church leaders, experts in canon law, and academics from a wide variety of faith communities. The Seventh-day Adventist Church organized the IRLA in 1893, but its membership and leadership now reaches beyond the Adventist community. Today, the IRLA is widely recognized as one of the foremost agencies in promoting and defending international religious freedom, having recently gained "special consultative status" at the United Nations. (See ANN, May 6, 2003.)

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Religious Liberty Legislation Gains Momentum in U.S. Congress
Washington, D.C., USA .... [Bettina Krause/ANN Staff]
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Support for the Workplace Religion Freedom Act (WRFA) is growing, but more letters of support are needed in order to pass the bill in the Senate, reports James Standish, director of legislative affairs for the Seventh-day Adventist world church.

The proposed law would strengthen legal protection for people of faith in the workplace. While current law requires that employers accommodate the religious faith of their employees, there is widespread agreement that the current provisions are too weak to provide meaningful protection. The Workplace Religious Freedom Act is designed to remedy this imbalance in the law by providing protection for a wide variety of religious practices, including the wearing of religiously mandated clothing and hairstyles, and by protecting the right of employees to rest from work on holy days.

"This is a serious issue," notes Standish. "The Adventist Church alone receives approximately a thousand requests each year for help from members in the United States who are experiencing difficulty in the workplace. Other faiths are experiencing similar problems. There is a broad consensus that now is the time to do something to remedy this problem."

Adventists around the country have played a key role in attracting cosponsors for WRFA and moving this legislation forward. "There is an urgent need for church members across the United States to contact their elected representatives in Washington and express support for WRFA," says Standish. He notes that letters have been sent to every Adventist Church in Missouri, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine encouraging Adventists in these states to contact key senators in order to encourage them to support the bill.

There is growing bipartisan support for the legislation; Senators John Kerry and Rick Santorum are the lead sponsors, and the bill has recently picked up an additional twelve cosponsors, including Senators Hilary Rodham Clinton, Tim Hutchinson, Joseph Lieberman, and Gordon Smith.

For more information about how to support WRFA go to http://ola.adventist.org.

United States: Proposed Bill to Protect Workplace Religious Freedom
Washington, D.C., USA .... [Miriam Cho/ANN]
Copyright (C) 2001 by Adventist News Network. 

Seventh-day Adventist leaders joined with United States Senators John Kerry and Rick Santorum at a June 26 press conference to announce the introduction of the Workplace Religious Freedom Act (WRFA) of 2002.

James Standish, director of legislative affairs for the Adventist Church, spoke at the Capitol Hill event, saying the church is "very excited about the progress of WRFA and the publicity it is receiving.

WRFA is important to Adventists because religious freedom means freedom to live our lives in accordance with God's plan. WRFA ensures Adventists in the workplace of their right to practice their faith."

Senator Kerry began the press conference by emphasizing that "it should be clear in our laws that no worker should ever have to choose between keeping a job and keeping faith with their cherished religious beliefs." Senator Santorum joined Kerry, explaining that WRFA only asks for reasonable accommodation, but it creates an incentive for employers to accommodate the spiritual life of Americans.

Also present at the press conference was Austin Beadle, an Adventist, who told the media how he lost his job because his employer refused to accommodate his Sabbath observance.

A broad coalition of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh organizations have joined together in support of WRFA. While civil rights laws require employers to attempt to accommodate their employee's faiths, the Supreme Court has interpreted this requirement to impose a very low level of responsibility on employers. WRFA strengthens the protection afforded people of faith in the workplace by requiring employers to take reasonable steps to accommodate the sincerely held religious beliefs of their employees, unless such accommodation would require significant difficulty or expense to their businesses.

"Seventh-day Adventists are called by God to be the foremost advocates of religious freedom," says Standish. "Unless Adventists from all walks join this effort, we will never fully fill the role that God intends for this church."

For more information about WFRA, go to www.ola.adventist.org.

State Department Report

    The U.S. State Department releases a report on the worst violators of religious freedom each year. This year Iran, Iraq, China, Burma, North Korea and the Sudan were named. While each of these nations does indeed have a troubling record, there were nations left off the list that should have been on it. This includes Turkmenistan and Saudi Arabia. We will continue to work with the State Department to ensure that the list of violators of religious freedom reflects the realities of persecution rather than the realities of politics.

Government Funding of Religious Institutions

    You have no doubt heard a lot about the President's faith-based initiative and school vouchers. Recently the President signed an executive order mandating agencies to implement his faith-based initiative, and thereby avoided the legislative process. Last year the Supreme Court found school vouchers to be constitutional. I won't go into details about these two programs (there is information about them on http://ola.adventist.org in the Issues & Analysis section), rather I want to give a brief overview of the big picture.

    The Adventist Church has not taken an absolutist approach to government funding. Rather, we take a common sense approach. We recognize that it's not the role of government to fund preachers, evangelism and other exclusively religious activities. But under some circumstances, the government can fund health care, education, and social services provided by church affiliated entities. But this funding is only appropriate when it does not compromise church autonomy and integrity and the church does not become dependent on the funding.

    And there in lies the problem. When churches receive ongoing government funding, it is virtually impossible not to become dependent on that funding. And once we are dependent, it become very difficult to give that money up, even if the government changes the regulations that accompany the money in ways that threaten the integrity and autonomy of the church.

    When it comes to the idea of churches contracting with the government to provide socials services (the faith-based initiative), therefore, we must be exceedingly cautious. At the very least, I suggest that churches set up separate nonprofit corporations that are entirely separate from the church to contract with the government. Also, each church must work with its conference and union to be sure that all the necessary checks and balances are in place and that you have the accounting, legal and managerial infrastructure to ensure the contract is carried out precisely within its parameters. The potential for government investigations and retribution when contracts are not fulfilled precisely is catastrophic - the health care industry's travails at the hands of government investigators is a case in point.

Finally, it is a strange paradox that in a time of unparalleled financial wealth in our church that people are looking to the government to fund our good works. Maybe it is time for each of us to open our hearts and our wallets a little wider and support our schools and our community services a little bit more generously, and enjoy the blessing of God that comes with financial sacrifice, rather than sacrificing our independence in exchange for government funding.