January/February 2005

Can it really be so long since the U.S. presidential elections? What, all of two months! The attack rhetoric is all gone now and, uninterrupted by paid political ads, television programming is back to the usual numbing flicker. It’s jingle bells and Auld Lang Syne and elections in Iraq for us.

A new report from the U.S. State Department reveals that religious persecution around the world is alive and well. The report says Christians routinely are kidnapped, imprisoned, raped, tortured, and even murdered in such nations as China, Cuba, and North Korea.

As articles in the February 15-21, 2004, National Catholic Register pointed out, government officials and agents in Vietnam persecute, jail, and murder Christians. The same kind of religious persecution happens in China, Cuba, and North Korea, as well as in Middle Eastern countries such as Iran.

A remarkable conflict is under way between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church over the issue of proselytism. It is remarkable because both are branches of Christianity, and therefore, both adhere to the injunction of Christ to spread the gospel into all the world. Indeed, not only have both adhered to the injunction, but, as evidenced by the number of adherents, both have been very successful in the process. So why all the fuss now?

Jerusalem. It is refreshing – yet unsettling – to be a Sabbathkeeper in the capital of Israel, clearly one of the most Sabbath-observant nations on earth. As these words are written, I’m wrapping up a week in the land that is sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Although my main assignment was to see and write about religious tourism possibilities, of which there are many, I also picked up on several contrasting and interesting religious liberty tensions in this still-young country, just 57 years old.

I know of no form of government that can guarantee my freedom to practice my religious faith (“freedom of religion”) except a government that recognizes and honors “transcendent moral truths” These truths must come from a source other than “the people,” but must not incorporate any particular religion into the government nor favor or be drawn from any particular religion. A government that does not recognize and honor any transcendent truths cannot be expected to secure or protect the “rights” of individuals, which rights are based upon transcendent moral truths. Nor can a government into which a particular religion has been injected be expected to secure or protect the individual freedom of religion.

Liberty is not offered on the bargain counters—even in the United States, where too many people take it for granted.

Too often we give lip service to the saying “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” and then turn our backs and give attention to our own private affairs, falsely believing some imaginary police officer is standing guard over those principles for us.

But the police officer is not there.

Liberty will be preserved only by that eternal vigilance.