Religious Freedom Applies to All Religious Beliefs

Reading Geoff Thompson’s article ‘Israel Folau and his crowdfunding campaign is dividing opinion among Christians’ in The Conversation on 26 June 2019, motivated me to reply.

Diversity of Beliefs Among Christians

The author fails to grasp reality. All Christian denominations are never going to agree on which passages of the Bible should be interpreted literally, and which should be explained away as being irrelevant to the contemporary Christian.

Theology Behind Beliefs is Irrelevant

Criticising Folau’s reasoning may be fascinating for an ethicist or theologian (and entertaining for others of us). It is, however, irrelevant to the question of religious freedom. Our law simply cannot only recognise religious beliefs and interpretations which pass the scrutiny of mainstream theologians. The law has to treat ALL religious beliefs with the same respect.

The Law Respects ALL Beliefs Equally

Folau may believe that his religion requires him to warn homosexuals that they are going to hell. Another person’s beliefs may require them to follow other Biblical (Old Testament) commands. These may include commands to stone adulterers, take slaves etc. Most Christians apply logic and context to explain away the need to obey God’s more drastic Old Testament commands. This, however, does not mean that those who still believe that such edicts need to be obeyed, should not be accorded the same respect.

Extreme Literalism is Explicable

The extremely literal interpretations of some religious groups should not come as a surprise. Arguably they are consistent  with main stream Christian messages that emphasise the unchanging nature of God, and that the Bible (Old and New Testament) is the infallible word of God.

Focus on Effect of Beliefs

Any legal delineation of the limits of religious freedom needs to focus, not on the beliefs themselves. Instead it needs to concern itself with the extent to which our society is willing to permit the exercise of religious beliefs to affect others, or interfere with their rights.

Different, Rather Than Right or Wrong

We need to remind ourselves that when we deride someone’s beliefs as being a misinterpretation, we are somewhat arrogantly only pointing out that their beliefs are different to ours.