‘We Cannot Be Passive’: Religious Liberty Expert’s Warnings, Positive Signs for American Freedom
Nathan Berkeley, communications director and research coordinator for the Religious Freedom Institute, believes the religious liberty situation right now in America is a “mixed picture.” But, while there are positives and negatives surrounding the trajectory, Berkeley said he’s currently most alarmed by the way cultural elites see — and frame — faithful Americans.
“What alarms me right now is the fact that there are so many cultural elites who view religious people, people of faith, Christians, and others not only as wrong on kind of core cultural issues, but as dangerous and even bigoted,” he said. “And when you think about it like that, you can see why it’s almost like … throw the restraints off and attack these people because they’re dangerous to society.” Seeing people of faith as “pernicious,” he said, is “extremely dangerous” and creates a misunderstanding of what religious liberty is supposed to mean.
“It makes religious freedom seem like a license to harm as opposed to a fundamental human right that should be protected and upheld,” Berkeley said. Part of the problem is this narrative becomes pervasive across multiple communication realms, mainly academia, entertainment, and media. “We’ve seen these ideas in so many sectors … in such a way that it pitches them in an adversarial way against people of faith,” Berkeley said. “There’s no way that elites across these many sectors could embrace these harmful ideologies without them eventually taking expression in law and being used in various political ways to the detriment of Christians and others.”
Berkeley, who made his comments before the Supreme Court’s most recent rulings affirming religious liberty, said he has been encouraged of late by the high court’s decisions vindicating and upholding religious liberty. In a more general sense, he said there seems to be a recognition among Christians and people are faith more broadly that public faith dimensions are important and helpful to society. “They’re understanding that we cannot be passive … in the face of things that are happening around us,” Berkeley said. “And we need to bring to bear our convictions in the public square. This is a good thing.”
Watch to see him detail the complex situation surrounding religious liberty.
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