{"id":20229,"date":"2020-06-26T08:34:05","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T13:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/?p=20229"},"modified":"2020-06-26T08:34:10","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T13:34:10","slug":"sweeping-restrictions-on-communal-worship-threaten-religious-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/sweeping-restrictions-on-communal-worship-threaten-religious-freedom","title":{"rendered":"Sweeping Restrictions on Communal Worship Threaten Religious Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cReligion\nin America takes no direct part in the government of society,\u201d observed the nineteenth-century\nFrench traveler and historian Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in\nAmerica<\/em>, \u201cbut it must be regarded as the first of their political\ninstitutions\u2026. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in\ntheir religion\u2014 for who can search the human heart?\u2014 but I am certain that they\nhold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Washington certainly did. He who was \u201cfirst in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen\u201d repeatedly emphasized the primacy of what would come to be known as our \u201cfirst freedom,\u201d as he did upon leading the American forces to victory: \u201cThe establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive which induced me to the Field.\u201d Years later in his farewell address to the nation, President Washington emphasized, \u201cOf all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports.\u201d John Adams was no less adamant: \u201cStatesmen\u2026 may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.\u201d And James Madison\u2019s conviction regarding the preeminent role of religion was enshrined as the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights: \u201cCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus\ndid the Founders perceive with prophetic-like vision what was true not only for\ntheir fledgling nation but for the America of all future generations. \u201cWhere a\nhealthy religious life flourishes,\u201d explains Princeton Professor Robert P.\nGeorge, \u201cfaith in God provides a grounding for the dignity and inviolability of\nthe human person\u201d\u2014 one of the pillars of \u201cany healthy society, any decent\nsociety.\u201d And \u201cwhere this pillar is in place, the formal and informal\ninstitutions of society, and the beliefs and practices of the people, will be\nsuch that every member of the human family, irrespective not only of race, sex,\nor ethnicity but also of age, size, stage of development, or condition of\ndependency, is treated as a person\u2014 that is, as a subject bearing profound,\ninherent, and equal worth and dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis with alarming irony, then, that our religious freedom\u2014the single most\nimportant factor in fostering respect for the inherent dignity and equal worth of\nevery individual\u2014is being marginalized and ignored at this critical time when the\nsick need ministering to in our pestilence-plagued land and when our society\nneeds healing from the ravages of racism. In stark contrast to George Washington\u2019s\nassessment of religion as \u201cindispensable,\u201d it is now being deemed \u201cnon-essential\u201d\nby far too many governmental authorities. It is viewed \u201cas a hobby,\u201d warns\nProfessor George, \u201clike football, or going to the ballet, or collecting stamps.\u201d\nThe mayor of New York City, for example, expressly allowed massive protests\nwhile disallowing religious gatherings, which governors around the country routinely\nexclude from their list of essential services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomething\nis terribly wrong,\u201d proclaimed a coalition of Catholic leaders, \u201cwith a culture\nthat allows abortion clinics and liquor stores to remain open but shuts down\nplaces of worship. While safety and cooperation with civil authorities is\nnecessary, we must do everything we can to have access to what is essential for\nour spiritual lives.\u201d According to Pope Francis, \u201cThis pandemic has forced\neveryone to communicate, even religiously,\u2026 through the communications media,\u201d but\n\u201cthis is not the church. This is the church in a difficult situation which the\nLord permits, but the ideal of the church is always with the people and the\nsacraments\u2026We must have familiarity with the Lord this way for now, but only so\nwe can come out of the tunnel, not stay there.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elder David A. Bednar of The Church of Jesus Christ\nof Latter-day Saints similarly observes that \u201cbecause gathering lies at the\nvery heart of religion, the right to gather lies at the very heart of religious\nfreedom\u2026 [T]he sweeping governmental restrictions that\nwere placed on religious gatherings at the outset of the COVID-19 crisis truly\nwere extraordinary. In what seemed like an instant, most Western governments\nand many others simply banned communal worship. These restrictions eliminated\npublic celebrations of Easter, Passover, Ramadan, and other holy days around\nthe world. No other event in our lifetime\u2014 and perhaps no\nother event since the founding of this nation\u2014 has caused quite this kind of\nwidespread disruption of religious gatherings and worship\u2026. [G]overnments have an affirmative duty to protect\npublic health and safety,\u201d but \u201cno freedom is more important than\nreligious freedom,\u201d which \u201cproperly has been called our first freedom\u2026. While believers and their religious\norganizations must be good citizens in a time of crisis, never again can we\nallow government officials to treat the exercise of religion as simply\nnonessential.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can we do? We must remember\nthat our government is, as Abraham Lincoln said, \u201cof the people, for the\npeople, by the people,\u201d and exists for the very purpose of protecting our\nCreator-endowed rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To\npreserve the religious freedom bequeathed by the Founders at the peril of their\nlives requires our eternal vigilance. It is urgent that we now speak up clearly\nand resolutely among family and friends, to elected representatives, and through\nsocial media as we boldly declare and defend the truth that in good times and bad,\nreligious freedom is always our first freedom, indispensable and essential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To preserve the religious freedom bequeathed by the Founders at the peril of their lives requires our eternal vigilance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":20372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"To preserve the religious freedom bequeathed by the Founders at the peril of their lives requires our eternal vigilance.","format":"standard","video":"","gallery":"","source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override":[{"single_blog_custom":"","sidebar":"","second_sidebar":"","share_position":"","share_float_style":"","post_date_format":"","post_date_format_custom":"","post_reading_time_wpm":"","zoom_button_out_step":"1","zoom_button_in_step":"1","number_popup_post":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"","single_post_gallery_size":""}],"trending_post_position":"","trending_post_label":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"511"},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[511],"tags":[1587,827],"class_list":["post-20229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-covid-19","tag-religious-freedom"],"yoast_head":"\nSweeping Restrictions on Communal Worship Threaten Religious Freedom - IFN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/sweeping-restrictions-on-communal-worship-threaten-religious-freedom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sweeping Restrictions on Communal Worship Threaten Religious Freedom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"To preserve the religious freedom bequeathed by the Founders at the peril of their lives requires our eternal vigilance.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/sweeping-restrictions-on-communal-worship-threaten-religious-freedom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"IFN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/iFamNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-06-26T13:34:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-06-26T13:34:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/COVID-19_NC_church_closure-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"E. 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Douglas Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f01991614cc9086457280e0279d7da9c1c6dd2774eca1bf16e9e24005c6feb0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f01991614cc9086457280e0279d7da9c1c6dd2774eca1bf16e9e24005c6feb0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"E. Douglas Clark"},"description":"E. Douglas Clark is an attorney and Director of UN and International Policy at the International Organization for the Family. For two decades Doug has been on the forefront of defending the family at the United Nations as a lobbyist and strategist, leading teams and consulting with policymakers in New York and around the world. His writings include the World Family Declaration and articles in The Natural Family: An International Journal of Research and Policy and Ave Maria International Law Journal. After earning MBA and JD degrees from Brigham Young University, he practiced banking law and served as director of content of the original Law.com.","url":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/author\/dclarkifamnews-com"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20229"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20379,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20229\/revisions\/20379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}