For this year’s Lefever Lecture on ethics and culture, the director of the Religious Freedom Education Project and a senior scholar for the First Amendment Center of the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Dr. Charles Haynes spoke on Wednesday, Feb. 12. His lecture, titled “Soul Liberty: The Meaning and Significance of Religious Freedom in America” covered religious life and liberty in the American public. Haynes is also the author of two books, “First Freedoms” and “Religion in American Public Life.” He is best known for his work regarding public schools and First Amendment issues that arise in a school setting. He has played a large part in constructing guidelines on religious liberty in schools as well as endorsing an assortment of religious and educational institutions.
President Carl Strikwerda opened the lecture Wednesday night. “‘Congress shall make no law…’” Strikwerda said. “With those few, simple words, a divide opened in human history. We can argue that in no other society before had there been the decision to enshrine in law that the government was to allow for religious liberty. But what do those words actually mean?”
Haynes opened with a statement of the role the United States has played in free religious expression. “Religious freedom, after all, is a fundamental principle of our experiment in democracy,” Haynes said. “We are beneficiaries in this country of what is surely the boldest and the most successful experiment in religious freedom, or liberty of conscience, that the world has ever seen: only sixteen words – the first sixteen words to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ Just sixteen words. That’s a miracle, don’t you think?”
Despite the United States’ stance on religious freedom, there are still “outbursts of hate and violence”, Haynes said, referring to anti-Semitism as an example. “Jewish families came to America seeking a safe haven from persecution,” Haynes said. “They left behind centuries of oppression in Europe where periods of limited toleration were frequently broken by waves of tyranny – confined to ghettos, excluded from most professions, subject to periodic massacres and expulsions, Jews had long known persecution throughout Christendom.”
Even today in America, these divisions can cause hotly-debated, hostile arguments. “Sometimes, these wars of words can lead to outbursts of hate,” Haynes said. “The growing intolerance directed towards Muslim Americans is an example. It is clear that we need a clearer division of the First Amendment now than at any other time in our history.” Despite the United States’ progress towards equality in all aspects of life, there is still a lot of ground to cover, especially regarding free conscience in terms of religion. “Conflict and debate are vital to democracy,” Haynes said. “We should welcome it and encourage it. But how we debate, not only what we debate, is critical.”
“Principles from the First Amendment are the civic charter that enables us across our differences to live with one another and to work for a common vision of the common good,” Haynes said. “Is it messy? Of course it is. There are those who despise and fear this mess. For some Americans, the United States, by opening its doors and protecting people of all faiths and none, is becoming the sewer of the world. But for many other Americans, hopefully the majority, America is, or aspires to be, a haven for the cause of conscience. Our task in the 21st century is not only to sustain but also to expand this experiment in religious liberty and to build a nation that is for people of all faiths and none. A haven for the cause of conscience.”
