Christian Freedom

Today's column in the Grand Haven Tribune. 

For quite a while now I have been concerned about what some Christians seem to think religious freedom entails in our country. Over the past few years increasingly people seem to think religious freedom is the freedom to force others to follow your own personal religious beliefs, or those of your organization or company. This is people claiming, for instance, that they shouldn't have to bake cakes for same-sex couples if they object to that sort of marriage—even though I've yet to see a baker refuse to bake cakes for an opposite-sex couple whose marriage might not meet their same moral qualifications. We see businesses and corporations insisting that they should be able to make decisions about what sort of medical needs are and are not covered under insurance, not given the religious conscience of their employees but given the religious conscience of the owners of the organization or the Board of Directors.

And, as I've said over and over again, religious freedom isn't about telling other people how they should live, religious freedom is about the choices you make in your own life.

But during this coronavirus pandemic the claims of religious freedom have taken a truly insidious and dangerous turn, with people insisting that it infringes upon their religious freedom to require them to wear a mask or maintain social distance or not hold in person worship services… Even when doing all of those things would literally kill people.

And so, this week I want to break the myth of religious freedom in our country, particularly for the follower of Christ.

There is a group in Ottawa County right now calling itself “Ottawa Values,” they claim to exist to uphold the values of Ottawa County residents and to protect families from government overreach. They are encouraging people in our county to write letters to the Ottawa County Commissioners and helpfully provide a sample of what they suggest you should say to our Commissioners.

They insist that the Ottawa County Health Department is inflicting harm upon them and upon parents and children in our county by not allowing parents, businesses, and Christian schools to exercise their “constitutional rights.” They say that this is not reflective of Ottawa County's traditional values and urge the commissioners to direct the health department to stop interfering with their God-given rights. They claim the citizen simply want to exercise their God-given rights to raise their families in the manner they deem best.

And I don't know if I've ever read a message from a group of Christians that has made me more angry and more embarrassed to be associated with these sorts of people. Nearly 300,000 people have died in our country. Just last week, I donned full protective gear so that I could enter the ICU and hold the hand of the priest associate at my church while he died from COVID-19. 

Health officials around our country are trying to stop a deadly and dangerous disease and some Christians are upset because they think this is an intrusion upon the rights.

So, let's be clear. Religious freedom is not your freedom to live life the way you want to when the choices you want to make will result in the death of other people. That has nothing to do with the message of Jesus. Religious freedom is not lying to the government about whether or not your school is following proper health guidelines. Religious freedom is not putting people into an enclosed space so that a deadly virus can easily infect and murder people who were trying to worship God. And shame on those Christians who would claim this is what religious freedom looks like.

One of the best descriptions of religious freedom in the Bible comes from Philippians chapter 2, where St. Paul urges Christians, “In humility, regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” He goes on to urge those who would follow Jesus to put on the mind of Christ, to empty themselves, to be willing to take the form of a slave, to give up everything that is supposedly rightfully yours so that other people might find life.

Religious freedom for the Christian is a commitment to be a servant of the love of God and love of neighbor. And in the middle of this vicious and dangerous pandemic the best way to love your neighbor is by wearing a mask and staying 6 feet away from your neighbor, by not being in an enclosed space with your neighbor. To put it simply, the best way to love your neighbor is to ensure you don't do anything that might kill your neighbor.

So, if you are a follower of Jesus who believes that religious freedom as a Christian compels you to forgo your own rights in service to the oppressed and the vulnerable, maybe write a different letter this week. Maybe write a letter to the health department thanking them for using the best of science and medicine to save lives. Maybe write a letter to your pastor, thanking her or him for trying to be careful and keep people safe when others are encouraging reckless behavior. 

Or maybe, if you're one of those Christians who signed onto this so-called letter from Ottawa Values before you truly thought it through, write another letter rescinding what you wrote. Otherwise, you're going to have to write a few letters of apology to families who died because you thought religious freedom was getting your own way. And for the Christian, that's never what religious freedom means.