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Freedom of religion is the individual's right or freedom to hold whatever religious beliefs he or she wishes, or none at all. This freedom extends mere freedom of thought by adding the freedom of worship and the freedom of religious congregation, and became regarded in the 20th century as one of the basic human rights. Most importantly, the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) affirms the freedom to change religions.
Worship versus religionMany differences exist between freedom of religion and freedom of worship. The former does not allow all forms of worship; for example, human sacrifices are illegal in most countries with freedom of religion. Freedom of worship, on the other hand, involves matters of action; freedom of worship is usually present alongside that of worship, except when a significant conflict arises between people. Such conflicts are, unfortunately, quite common. In Northern Ireland (and Ireland, to a lesser extent), there are several conflicts, chiefly a Catholic/Protestant fight. The Middle East has been in flux for decades, with Jews, Muslims, and a relative minority of Christians conflicting over land and power. Finally, many terrorist groups invoke religion as a rationale for their attacks – Al-Qaeda, for example, has made attacks "in the name of Allah" (a chief religious figure in Islam). From syncretism through Christianity to toleranceThe struggle to reach that point in the aftermath of World War II was a Christian struggle, more specifically a non-Christian ethical and philosophical struggle within a largely Christian society. Conversely, freedom of religion was the normal rule in Antiquity, where a syncretic point-of-view identified strange deities as foreigners' acceptable conceptions of more familiar gods. A community of traders could expect to be autonomous in a city under their own laws, with freedom to worship their own gods. When the street mobs of separate quarters clashed in a Hellenistic or Roman city, the issue was generally a perceived infringement of some community's rights. The Greek-Jewish clashes at Cyrene provide a disastrous example, but all the cosmopolitan cities were the scene of tumults. Some of the historical exceptions have been in regions where one of the revealed religions has been in a position of power: Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam. Others have been where the established order has felt threatened, as shown in the trial of Socrates or where the ruler has been deified, as in Rome or the Persian empire, and refusal to offer token sacrifice was similar to refusing to take an oath of allegiance. This was the core for resentment and the persecution of early Christian communities. Freedom of religion in India was encapsulated in an inscription of Asoka:
During history some countries have accepted some form of freedom of religion, though in actual practice that theoretical freedom was delimited through punitive taxation, repressive social legislation and political disenfranchisement. Compare examples of individual freedom in Poland or the Muslim tradition of dhimmis, literally "protected individuals" professing an officially tolerated non-Muslim religion. In Islam the proscribed punishment for apostasy is death. These protections, being highly selective and advanced to communities rather than individual, could also be withdrawn. They were examples of the ruler's beneficence, not inalienable rights. In most parts of European society there was no individual freedom of religion from the suppression of non-Christian worship with the Theodosian decrees of 391 AD, under the influence of Ambrose of Milan until the Enlightenment of the 18th century. Even 16th century edicts of toleration (Augsburg, Nantes) left little room for individual freedom of conscience, under the principle of cuius regio eius religio ("Whose the region is, his religion"), and did not extend toleration to small powerless minorities, like Anabaptists. Some times and placesEarlier, the ideas of religious tolerance on the political level were invented in the Khazar Khaganate, the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan, and parts of Central Europe. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Hungary and Austria, religious tolerance of one form or another were practised since the 16th century. With the expulsion of Polish brethren accused of high treason during the Deluge, the Central European ideas of tolerance were propagated to the Netherlands. Until the Enlightenment it was widely accepted, however not always fully implemented:
On the other side of the ledger,
In 1944 a joint committee of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America and the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, formulated a “Statement on Religious Liberty”
The Separation of Church and State and laïcité are related, but different concepts. There are several current annually-revised assessments of freedom of religion in the world's nations. For example, the United States Department of State maintains a list of "countries of particular concern" (CPCs) that engage in "particularly severe violations" of religious freedom. The list released September 15, 2004, included, for the first time Saudi Arabia: the report stated that freedom of religion does not exist in that officially Islamic kingdom. A designation as a CPC requires the State Department to take whatever steps are necessary — up to the level of sanctions — to increase religious tolerance in the designated country. Also joining the list of CPCs for the first time in 2004 were Eritrea and Vietnam; countries redesignated as CPCs include the People's Republic of China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, and Sudan [1] (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/09/15/). The following day, September 16, prominent Saudis rejected the declaration as politically motivated. One Saudi, Abdulaziz al-Fayez, a member of the country's Shura Council, states that "all Saudis are Muslims and this is a Muslim state." (Reuters) (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6255999) Controversies in freedom of religionEven within nation-states that recognize freedom of religion as a right, there are a variety of contemporary controversies over the implementation of that principle.
Can the affirmation or denial of specific religious beliefs be made a qualification for public office? In the U.S., the Constitution allows that the inauguration of a President may include an "affirmation" of the faithful execution of his duties rather than an "oath" to that effect -- this provision was included in order to respect the religious prerogatives of the Quakers, a Protestant Christian denomination that declines the swearing of oaths. The U.S. Constitution also provides that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification of any Office or public Trust under the United States." These two provisions of course preceded the bill of rights with its First Amendment protection for free exercise of religion and the establishment clause.
If a private employer discharges an employee for failure to report to work on what the employee considers a holy day or a day of rest, does this act violate freedom of worship? One school of thought restricts one's rights in general to rights against a sovereign and its agents. Does it follow that a public agency must make hiring and decisions regardless of a potential employee's availability on given days, but a private employer can take them into account? If a government provides unemployment insurance, and the availability of that insurance is tied to the reason for an individual's discharge from his most recent place of employment, then the question of freedom of worship, and choice of a sabbath, acquires a new context.... In the United States, the view that has generally prevailed is that firing for any cause in general renders a former employee ineligible for unemployment compensation, but that this is no longer the case if the 'cause' is religious in nature, especially an employee's unwillingness to work on his/her sabbath.
If there are to be public schools, paid for out of the public fisc, then it seems inevitable these schools will teach something that will infringe upon somebody's religious conceptions. ...
<--Discussion of recent debates in France would fit nicely here.--> Other sourcesSee also
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