OPINION:
Since President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek reelection, Kamala Harris has been all but confirmed as the DNC’s candidate for president.
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As others have pointed out recently, Mrs. Harris has often supported legislation that would have limited religious freedom. For instance, Mrs. Harris previously supported the Do No Harm Act, which would have limited the scope of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). For instance, the bill proposed that the RFRA “should not be interpreted to authorize an exemption that permits discrimination against other persons, including persons who do not belong to the religion or adhere to the beliefs of those to whom the exemption is given.”
Mrs. Harris also favored the Equality Act “which would force Catholic hospitals, for example, to perform gender transition surgeries, open women’s restrooms to men, and force girls and women to compete against boys and men in athletic competitions.”
Given her record, it would seem safe to assume that Mrs. Harris has relatively little interest in maintaining the sort of religious freedoms religious communities have enjoyed thus far.
The doctrine of religious freedom in the United States governs the relationship between political and religious allegiances. While adherence to the state’s conventions and laws is expected to maintain some sense of societal peace and stability, religious freedom ensures the state does not use coercive means to force individuals to act against religious convictions. As Christians evaluate the coercive, means Mrs. Harris has supported to curtail religious freedom, we need to recognize that coercive means are not the only mechanisms that could distort Christian religious freedom.
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Religious freedom isn’t simply lost through legal decisions and governmental action. It may also be lost by blurring the distinction between the church and the state so that our religious devotions shift to the state (whether we notice or not). As sociologist Robert Bellah notes, American civil religion “borrowed selectively from the religious [Christian] tradition in such a way that the average American saw no conflict between the two.” The threat of coercive action against religious freedom represented by Mrs. Harris, then, is not the only problem. The use of that threat to encourage Christians to compromise our commitment to the Triune God and strengthen our allegiance to a state god that serves the state’s interests is also problematic.
As such, Christians can’t assume that the enemy (Donald Trump) of our enemy (Mrs. Harris) is our friend. Mr. Trump is far less likely to attack religious freedoms, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is a friend to Christianity or has a vested interest in making disciples of Jesus Christ. It would be naïve to think that either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump are committed to the flourishing of the body of Christ unless such flourishing serves their political purposes. Mrs. Harris’s opposition to religious freedom uses the coercive mechanisms of the state; however, we shouldn’t ignore the non-coercive ways Mr. Trump employs religious language and the threat to religious freedom to advance his campaign. We must take care not to elevate American Civil Religion over our Christian convictions. To do so would be to lose our religious freedom without any government coercion.
Christians need to ensure that our religious freedom is nested within a biblical notion of Christian freedom. Religious freedom involves a freedom from negative consequences for religious practice. It precludes the government from using coercive means to curtail an individual’s religious practice. Religious freedom allows those who adhere to religious convictions “as long as they play ‘the role of a religion and function as a religion’ in your life.”
Religious freedom is important in a number of ways, yet it is situated within Christian freedom rather than above it. Christian freedom does not assume Christians will be free from negative political or social consequences. Instead, it assumes that Christians are free to live under Christ’s authority regardless of our circumstances. Neither Mrs. Harris or Mr. Trump can offer Christian freedom and neither of them can take it away.
There is no doubt that religious freedom is an important doctrine in the United States. Christians, however, must recognize that apart from Christ, religious freedom represents something of a covert form of slavery. As such, my interest is not to discourage Christians from recognizing the threat Mrs. Harris poses or to encourage Christians to vote for Mr. Trump to preserve religious freedom. Instead, it is to gesture toward something like Thomas Sowell’s observation that “…there are no ‘solutions’ in the tragic vision, but only trade-offs…”
When we choose between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Harris, we are choosing a particular set of trade-offs rather than solutions.
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At the level of human analysis, Mr. Sowell is, in my estimation, correct to suggest that there are no solutions only trade-offs; however, Mr. Sowell requires theological revision. There is a solution. His name is Jesus Christ. Because Christians see Christ as the solution, we need to take care not to make religious freedom a fetish … an obsession that becomes a de facto excuse to neglect discipleship. It is through discipleship that we learn to live under the authority of Christ refusing to trade the sharp edge of the gospel for the dull instruments of “right” and “left” political ideologies.
Religious freedom apart from Christ can only lead to confusion. Preserving it has some proximate value, but no ultimate value because the liberation we receive through faith in Christ does not require governmental permission to worship God without threat of punishment. Christian freedom gives teeth to religious freedom because without Christ, freedom is the word we use to describe a lifestyle in which individuals are given license to serve sin in a way they see fit.
So, while Mrs. Harris may take aim at religious freedom and Mr. Trump may protect it, Christians should be situating religious freedom within a biblical and theological vision because, as I note in “Serpents and Doves,” “Our goal is not to be political animals formed by and dependent on the state but to be disciples trained in the politics of the gospel to point to and glorify the Triune God.”
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James Spencer earned his Ph.D. in Theological Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He believes discipleship will open up opportunities beyond anything God’s people could accomplish through their own wit and wisdom. As such, his writing aims at helping believers look with eyes that see and listen with ears that hear as they consider, question, and revise the social, cultural, and political assumptions hindering Christians from conforming more closely to the image of Christ. James has published multiple works, including his most recent book “Serpents and Doves: Christians, Politics, and the Art of Bearing Witness,” “Christian Resistance: Learning to Defy the World and Follow Christ,” “Useful to God: Eight Lessons from the Life of D. L. Moody,” “Thinking Christian: Essays on Testimony,” “Accountability, and the Christian Mind,’ and“Trajectories: A Gospel-Centered Introduction to Old Testament Theology.” In addition to serving as the president of the D. L. Moody Center, James is the host of “Useful to God” a weekly radio broadcast and podcast, a member of the faculty at Right On Mission, and an adjunct instructor with the Wheaton College Graduate School.
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