Religious Liberty or Religious Freedom?

It is July, a month in which I celebrate liberty three times: July 4th as our first Independence Day, which set forth the principles of Liberty in the Declaration of Independence; July 19th as our second Independence Day, in which those founding principles were finally established for former slaves; and July 24th as a day to celebrate religious liberty, honoring the memory of pioneer members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who entered the Salt Lake Valley and began to establish their new home.

Webster’s 1828 dictionary reads, “Religious liberty is the free right of adopting and enjoying opinions on religious subjects, and of worshiping the Supreme Being according to the dictates of conscience, without external control.” It defines ‘freedom’ as, “A state of exemption from the power or control of another; liberty; exemption from slavery, servitude or confinement. Freedom is personal, civil, political, and religious.”

In other words, Religious Liberty pre-exists Religious Freedom. Liberty is the pre-existent Right and Freedom is the ability to act upon that Liberty.

I like to say that “God gave us everything we need for a successful life in the Garden of Eden. He gave us life and family, he gave us private property to provide physical support for that life and family, and he established liberty when He gave Adam and Eve the right to choose their own path.”

Amendment I of the Bill of Rights states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The Alaska State Constitution declares in its Preamble, “We the people of Alaska, grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land, in order to secure and transmit to succeeding generations our heritage of political, civil, and religious liberty within the Union of States, do ordain and establish this constitution for the State of Alaska.” It is further stated in Article 1, Section 4, “No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

In more modern English: Humans are born with the inherent right to believe whatever they want to believe. It is recognized by both the federal Bill of Rights and the Alaska state constitution that the government has no authority to control that right.

Religious Liberty is a basic tenet of my chosen religion. Its Eleventh Article of Faith states, “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.”

But, you may say, some awfully bad things have happened in the history of the world in the name of religion. This is undeniably true, but you will find that those evildoers have either not understood or have ignored the basic tenets of the religions they claim to follow. The Founders of America understood the history of religious wars and wanted to create a nation free from such bloody conflicts.

Religious liberty and freedom have played important roles in my life, and I have always been fascinated by the choices my ancestors, my friends, and strangers have made in their lives. There are Mennonites, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, various Protestant sects, Mormons, Quakers, followers of Judaism, Buddhists, Bahaists, and probably many more, weaving threads through my life.

In high school, I took a Comparative Religions class taught by a Jewish man in a public high school. My term paper was a comparison/contrast examination of Buddhism and Christianity. I was surprised to find that when one digs down into the underlying core beliefs, there are more shared concepts than would at first seem obvious.

One of the most beautiful and profound experiences I ever had regarding religious liberty came out of that class. Two Jewish teachers from two different high schools led a mixed group of Jewish, Free Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic, and Buddhist students through a weekend field trip to a monastery in southern California. We sang religious songs together, spoke with the monks about their lives, and roamed the grounds, seeking knowledge and enlightenment each in his or her own way.

Everyone has been born into the world in unique circumstances, with their own perspective on the world based on unique experiences and histories of how they came to be born into such places and times. It is only by understanding this, and by allowing each person the Liberty and Freedom to think how and what they may, then opening a dialog based upon such respect, that we can even begin to hope for peace in our personal lives and the world around us. This is the path to a better world and I’m trying my best to follow it.

Karen Murray is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints experiencing life as a wife, mother, family historian, author, and political activist.