Documents | International Religious Liberty Association

The Journal of the International Religious Liberty Association
1998 Fides et Libertas

Fides et Libertas’ symposium in print has illuminated the meaning of eleutheria, the Koine Greek word for freedom and liberty. More than a few of you actually heard some of our panelists present the oral original of their pieces. In Budapest and Rio de Janeiro, they spoke in French and Russian, in Portuguese and Spanish, but they are published here in an English we hope retains at least a little of the authors’ inflectional flavor which made heavy subjects easy, dense discussions clear and light.

Let each presenter/writer now reprise a salient thought about eleutheria.

John Graz, Secretary General, International Religious Liberty Association:

“Fifty years [after the UDHR] the world is better. And worse. Consider the status of religious freedom. The present must be revived by the message of tolerance from those who wrote and voted the Universal Declaration.”

Carlos Saul Menem, President of the Republic of Argentina:

“A pluralistic society cannot and should not be indifferent to religious and moral values. Without these values the human being is at sea and loses the meaning of his or her existence, ending up a prisoner of self. I underline the importance of peoples and governments to assume with renewed conviction the defense and promotion of religious liberty as essential to the dignity of the human persona and for peace in the world on the verge of a new millennium.”

Iris Rezende, Senator and former Minister of Justice, Republic of Brazil:

“To put limits on religion and to impede the proclamation of faith, yoking it to the power of the state--these discriminatory acts nullify all other liberties. Sad to say, religious leaders arise from time to time who practice moral injustices that are part of their system. Public power is thus constrained to take a position because of the infringement of irrevocable constitutional principles.”

Dwain C. Epps, Coordinator, Commission of the Churches on International Affairs of the World Council of Churches:

“The responsibility for the protection of religious freedom is a shared obligation between church and state, among the churches themselves, between the individual and his or her church, among Christians and people of other faiths, among ethnic and linguistic groups, among majorities and minorities, and among nations and states.”

Gloria M. Moran Garcia, Professor, University of La Coruna:

“Religious liberty is a right ergo omnes. It is a right not only inherent in the state, but also in the person.”

Abdelfattah Amor, Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, United Nations Human Rights Commission:

“All forms of intolerance and discrimination are born in the minds of people. It is, therefore, at this level that any primary action must take place. I will never tire of repeating that it is of primordial importance to develop education for the rights of man, for liberty, and tolerance.

Jacques Robert, Member of the French Constitutional Council:

“Without doubt there are different interpretations of the concept of public order. But let us not confuse public order and social order with moral order and religious order.”

W. Cole Durham, Jr., Professor, Brigham Young University:

“Too often secular blindness combined with bureaucratic insensitivity cripples the ability of religious groups to provide the kinds of contributions contemporary society needs them to make.”

Gianfranco Rossi, UN Representative of the International Association for Religious Freedom:

“Because of political affinities, economic interests, or other reasons, the [UN] member states tend to be selective in their interventions for religious freedom. They speak about some countries; they do not speak about certain other countries. The NGOs will address matters to UN agencies when the governmental delegations keep silence. The duty of non-governmental organizations is not to speak against nations and governments, but for human rights and for religious freedom in the countries where human rights and religious freedom are violated. Experience has taught me that determination and perseverance are required to change the status quo.”

Lee Boothby, President, International Commission on Freedom of Conscience:

“Claiming to provide equal rights to all religious groups, [many countries] adopt legislation that denies that very principle. I remember a time in the United States when some American citizens, on the basis of the color of their skin, were required to ride in the back of the bus. Presently--and unfortunately, it appears some countries have concluded that not only some religions ride in the back of the ‘bus,’ but in fact have no right to get on the ‘bus’ at all.”

Roland M. Minnerath, Professor, University of Strasbourg:

“Everyone will understand the difference between the legal equality due to all groups, including minorities, and the sociological importance and impact of those religious communities which express the sentiments of large parts of the population. Accordingly, there is no need to object when a religious community, because of its continuing link with the identity and history of the nation, receives special recognition by the state, as do the established churches of England, Greece, Romania, Russia, and Scandinavia, or indeed the states where Islam is a state religion. But in these cases it must be clearly provided in accordance with international norms, that all other religious communities enjoy full freedom to exist and develop under the protection of the law.”

Gunnar Staalsett, Bishop of Oslo:

“On the horizon there are signs of a new emphasis on religious freedom as both a political and a moral-human rights issue. But strong currents work against such an emphasis. Privatization of belief does not inspire strong engagement in the arena of religious freedom. Secularization leads to an indifferent attitude toward all religious issues. A shift from religion to religiosity may mean that organized religion evaporates into a mist of spirituality in stark contradiction to the basic understanding of religion as community life. A virtual declaration of religion as a non-virtual reality to the modern human of cyberspace is more difficult to contend with than the antagonism of warring religions and competing confessions of yesterday. And the heralded ‘longing for religion’ as a characteristic of this generation is not necessarily to be interpreted as a longing for true religious freedom for all.”

Rosa Maria Martinez de Codes, Vice Director of Religious Affairs, Spanish Ministry of Justice:

“The Spanish Constitution of 1978 substantially changed previous policy concerning religion. Thus, from a traditionally religious state has evolved a pluralistic, non-confessional state.”

Valery Borschev, Member of the Russian State Duma:

“We remember that the first violation of human rights was committed on a religious basis. One person did not like how another person established his relationship with God. So he killed him. The killer was Cain and the victim was his brother Abel. All who choose Cain’s way choose destruction. We must therefore promote dialogue to maintain religious pluralism. This dialogue should be initiated not only by representatives of government, parliamentary deputies, or defenders of human rights, but also by believers themselves. If believers act decisively to achieve religious pluralism, it will be achieved. We have a great mission. We should be worthy of it.”

Bao Jia-Yuan, Associate General Secretary, China Christian Council:

“It is generally accepted that social pluralism means a society that is more tolerant, that has more space for the exercise of religious liberty. China is led by a political party that is avowedly atheistic, and thus theoretically it should not have any love for religion. But as it is now, the party is not so dogmatic as to work for the extermination of religion. Rather it works with religion for the well-being of the people.”

Carol O. Negus, Founding Executive Director, Council for America’s First Freedom:

“Religious bigotry has an inevitable evil consequence on religion itself. Young people growing up in such an environment--in the atmosphere of forced religious practice, come to recognize its hypocrisy. Monolithic religious systems may employ governmental power in an effort to compel allegiance and obedience to orthodoxy. But a union of government and religion cannot compel the assent of mind and heart. A dry secularism, devoid of mystery and passion, cannot breathe life into a nation’s values. Our religious consciousness, with its universal sympathy for the afflicted and its reverence for God’s creation, has within it the power to lift up the fallen and bring harmony amid diversity.”

Jonathan Gallagher, Director, Adventist News Network:

“Ever-widening globalization [in the new millennium] results in an apparent paradox. Increasing religiosity accompanies decreasing tolerance. For the question is not what people are permitted to believe, but to what extent they are allowed to put their beliefs into practice. With a more uniform society worldwide in which local governments are less important than the concept of ‘global humanity,’ the ideal of toleration may be presented as a glowing tribute to progress, but its implementation will be strictly limited: ‘You can believe anything you want as long as your beliefs do not impact others.’”

And what shall we more say? Much more, of course, for these who have spoken here do not claim the last word. If the International Religious Liberty Association is to continue to contribute to the global colloquium on religious liberty, Fides et Libertas must hear from you. In 1999 we want to deal with the various aspects of proselytism and religious liberty. We invite you to nominate significant speeches you have heard and articles you have read. And we specifically solicit your original contributions to be considered for publication.

We close with a prayer of St. Paul from his second epistle to the church in Corinth (3:17)--a prayer appropriate to every religious tradition in our pluralistic world because it is a prayer for eleutheria:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

The first word is fides. The last is libertas.

Richard Lee Fenn

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