Do You Believe In Religious Tolerance?

More and more in the news, we hear about religious freedoms being under attack.

As we fight this figurative but real war, I'd like to invite you to take a quick inventory to see where you stand.  Do you believe in religious freedoms?  And what exactly does that mean?

Take for example, prayers at public meetings.  Most Mormons and Christians would agree with me.  If I'm on the city council making tough decisions that would affect thousands of constituents, I would like God's inspiration and guidance.  Thus, I believe a prayer offered by someone in the room would be more than appropriate.

Atheists don't like these prayers because it makes them uncomfortable.  They are also concerned about the appearance of establishing an official government religion.  If you say a Christian prayer at a city council meeting, it's like the city saying that Christianity is our religion.

I understand the atheists concerns, but I don't think a prayer establishes a religion.  I also believe that when the Constitution spells out the separation of church and state, it's talking about the independence of church and state, and not the removal of church from state.  If the government were to deny us the right to pray in public, I believe it would be infringing on my religious freedoms.

Let me switch gears here.  How would you feel if a Jew gave the prayer instead of a Christian?  Would you feel uncomfortable?  Jews make up about 2% of the US population, so if prayers are allowed, we should expect on average more than 1 out of 50 of these prayers to be Jewish.

But then again, would a Jewish prayer really be that bad?  Their perspective on life is different and beautiful, and their doctrines are so similar to what we Christians believe.

Okay, before I continue on, I'll come out and say that I expect that most of my readers would already be comfortable with a Jewish prayer.  I just wanted to give y'all a moment to pat yourselves on the back for believing in religious freedoms before we take this up a notch.

What if it were a Muslim giving the prayer?  Would that be okay with you?  Most Christians I know would pause here.  A lot of them would be uncomfortable.  But could we deny the Muslims their turn to pray?  They do make up 1% of the US population.

If we were to deny the Muslim, how would that make us any different than the atheist wanting to deny all prayers?  Then we would might as well be saying, "I believe in religious freedoms, but only for Christians (and sure, the Jews, too)."

And this is exactly what I hear when political candidates go around talking about how we need to preserve the "Judeo-Christian values" our Founding Fathers instilled into our nation, and even going so far as to propose or entertain the ideas of removing, tagging, or carpet-bombing Muslims.  It makes me want to yell, "No, we're not a Judeo-Christian nation!  We're an All Religions nation!"

It's very important to maintain that distinction, as it is the only way to ensure religious freedoms, not only for Jews and Christians, but also for Muslims, other religions, and even atheists and agnostics.  The Founding Fathers instilled into our Constitution certain protections that are meant to help each one of us be able to believe according to what we wish to believe.

It is true that practically all of the "Founding Fathers" had a Christian upbringing, but many of them were friendly to other non-Christian religions.  Some even clarified straight out that Muslims were meant to be included under the umbrella of religious freedoms.  I recommend this Washington Post article for an expose of several quotes from several of our early leaders.

In response to recent anti-Muslim sentiment, the LDS Church came out on 12/8/2015 and offered this official announcement clarifying their stance on religious freedoms, pointing out how Joseph Smith specifically mentioned Muslims as being equal to others.

Finally, this discussion would not be complete without a recitation of the eleventh Article of Faith.

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

Now at the end of this blog post, I ask once more.  Do you believe in religious freedoms?  Is it just for Christians?  Or will you fight to protect the freedoms of Muslims and other religions, and even atheists and agnostics?  Will you endeavor not to infringe on the freedoms of others?

I think that as we properly align ourselves in our understanding of religious freedoms, we will be much more prepared to fight the ongoing war.