Christians Should Defend Religious Freedom for All — Yes, Even for Muslims

By George Yancey Published on September 6, 2016

I am an evangelical Christian. I believe that Jesus Christ is the sole way to God. Consequently, I believe Islam to be wrong. Theologically I believe it to be a false religion. But people have the right to believe in Islam and live their lives as peaceful Muslims. I have spent considerable time documenting Christianophobia and fighting against it. But as well as opposing Christianophobia I also oppose Islamophobia. It is a real problem that all Christians should fight.

Let me be clear that I am not defining Islamophobia as criticism of Islam or as concern for the role Islam may play in terrorism. Some defenders of Muslim go overboard and detract from real Islamophobia by painting virtually every criticism of Islam as Islamophobia. It’s not even Islamophobic to want to vet potential immigrants — Muslim, Christian and otherwise — in order to try to screen out individuals who may be bent on undermining American principles of representative government and religious freedom (though such an effort could easily be used as a cover for Islamophobia, and we should be on our guard against any such attempts).

No, when I speak of Islamophobia I am talking about rules such as in France, which led the French policemen forcing a Muslim woman to disrobe on a beach. I am talking about calls for bans on Muslims by a presidential candidate. I am talking about those who have to be convinced that Muslims should be allowed to build mosques. The word for such actions is Islamophobia.

There are at least two reasons why Christians should oppose Islamophobia. First, and to me the most important reason, it is wrong. Islamophobia is about taking away the rights of individuals to live out their religious beliefs. I did not argue for freedom of conscience for Christians in my last article to then just deny it to Muslims. God honors our free will even if it means that we choose a path away from him. Only by allowing us to make that choice can we also make the choice to love Him. So as Christians we must honor the ability of others to make choices with which we disagree.

From the fall of Adam to the decision of Pilate to crucify Jesus, our faith encompasses the reality of God allowing humans to reject him. To be fully human is to be granted free will. We should mirror God’s priority to allow us free choice. If we want to reach Muslims then we give them the freedom to choose not to be a Christian without being relegated to second-class citizenship. Trying to unfairly pressure them to move out of Islam attacks their humanity. Christians who engage in Islamophobia are violating a basic principle within Christianity.

For those who remain unconvinced about the moral basis for making a concerted effort to fight Islamophobia, there is also a practical reason. As I have documented in my previous work, there are powerful individuals who do not like Christians. I showed last week that these individuals impose rules on Christians that they do not impose on others. Many of them believe that Christians intend to set up a theocracy. They view Christianity as a political faith that is about power and not religion. We dare not confirm their suspicions or give them the ammunition they are looking for in their efforts to make Christians second-class citizens and remove us from the public square.

Some Christians have argued that Islam is not a real religion. They argue that it is a political system intent on implementing sharia law in our country. I am not worried about sharia law. There are too few Muslims for that to be a real problem. Even if we assume that every Muslim coming into our country wants sharia law (a dubious assumption indeed) the number of immigrants it would take to vote down democracy is far short of the most outlandish projections of Muslim immigration. I am much more concerned about Christian losing freedoms due to secularism. The latter is a real and present danger, not some distant possibility.

What about Muslims who are here legally and do desire legal reforms that conflict with our commitments to freedom of expression and such? As long as a Muslim does not engage in violence, he or she has the right to advocate for legal changes just as I do. And I will oppose legal changes that move us towards sharia law.

Are there Muslims with overly ambiguous political desires, and can they point to verses in their scriptures to justify those desires? Yes, but let’s not use broad negative stereotypes to unfairly malign all of them. That gives us the right to demand others to not use the worst of those who say they are Christians (i.e. Westboro Baptist) to malign us.

There are those who champion religious freedom but not for Christians. We Christians shouldn’t engage in the same type of hypocrisy. It is morally wrong to condemn religious discrimination against us and then engage in religious discrimination against Muslims. But it is also tactically wrong in a society that is becoming less Christian. As powerful people find ways to act out their Christianophobic prejudices, Christians have to be wise in our dealings with all religious groups. And we, more than others, should fight against religious bigotry whenever we see it. Even when it is directed against our Muslim neighbors.

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