Dec 12
25
Ottawa’s religion “experts” – Not! – on freedom of religion and freedom of expression
From ChristianGovernance eletter – December 11, 2012
The Ottawa Citizen likes to publish a weekly “Ask the Religion Experts” column. The most recent one is: Ask the Religion Experts: Does freedom of expression trump freedom of religion? (The Ottawa Citizen, December 8, 2012). Excerpts below our commentary.
Often only some of the slate of “experts” respond but it looks like the full slate answered this question: Rabbi REUVEN BULKA, head of Congregation Machzikei Hadas in Ottawa, hosts Sunday Night with Rabbi Bulka on 580 CFRA; KEVIN SMITH is on the board of directors for the Centre for Inquiry, Canada’s premier venue for humanists, skeptics and freethinkers; JACK MCLEAN is a Bahá’í scholar, teacher, essayist and poet published in the fields of spirituality, Bahá’í theology and poetry; ABDUL RASHID is a member of the Ottawa Muslim community, the Christian-Muslim Dialogue and the Capital Region Interfaith Council; Rev. RAY INNEN PARCHELO is a novice Tendai priest and founder of Red Maple Sangha, the first lay Buddhist community in Eastern Ontario; BALPREET SINGH is legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization of Canada; Rev. KEVIN FLYNN is an Anglican priest and director of the Anglican studies program at Saint Paul University; Rev. GEOFFREY KERSLAKE is a priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Ottawa; Rev. RICK REED is senior pastor at the Metropolitan Bible Church in Ottawa; and RADHIKA SEKAR holds a PhD in religious studies and taught Hinduism courses at Carleton and University of Ottawa. An aspiring Vedantin, she is a devotee of the Sri Ramakrishna Mission.
The vacuous nature of the answers to this question provides useful insight into the intellectual inadequacy of beliefs outside of Scripture. Even those with the Christian orbit failed because they didn’t appeal to the Bible and God’s law as the source of direction for how to balance these rights, which is the conclusion to which most of the respondents arrived. The question was framed as a broadly ethical question, not whether or not either of these 2 freedoms should trump each other in Canada or in public policy, so Rick Reed’s response, taken at face value, puts the Charter of Rights and Freedoms over the Bible as the final authority for how to address this question. He also seems to embrace the fantasyland absurdity that the freedoms of religion and expression are of equal standing simply because the Charter of Rights says so. This notion is incompatible with Biblical teaching (at least by virtue of the fact that the premise of the question is nonsense) and with operating in the real world. This is made clear by actual cases in Canada, some of which were references by the respondents.
All respondents assumed multiculturalism – the moral and theological equivalency of all religions – because they accepted the premise of the question regarding the freedom of religion without making any distinctions for the particular religion they represented. The Evangelical – Rick Reed – and the Catholic respondents at least should have known better. Essentially they were all humanistic responses, assuming humanistic premises as given, rather than attempting to defend them. You saw that in their claims that the freedoms of religion and expression were not absolute; they needed to be tempered and balanced. OK, but on what theological and moral basis? Whose ethics determine where the limits should be and how the freedoms should be integrated? The Jewis respondent, Rabbi Bulka was perhaps the most explicit in this respect. He said that if a religion advocates something that is “plainly illegal,” then freedom of religion should not be extended to permit such behavior. OK, but what is the theological and ethical basis of the law which has ruled such behavior illegal? In Canada, it’s a law code and law order that flowed largely from Christianity, but which is now substantially humanistic. But Rabbi Bulka did not seem to want to affirm the superiority of Humanism or Christianity as the preferred theological basis for civilization by virtue of their impact on law to ban the barbaric practices of other religions. It seemed that he wanted to preserve the mythology of a realm of moral neutrality that governs the public square. When most people do this, they are accepting Humanism as the philosophical foundation for this supposedly neutral public square. They, therefore, also refuse to recognize the religious nature of Humanism itself.
At least Rick Reed got the core Gospel message into his response. Otherwise the only value of this column was to demonstrate the theological barrenness and ethical bankruptcy of non-Christian religion and non-Biblical theology and ethics.
Excerpts from the article:
From Rabbi Bulka’s response: This is quite an intriguing question. Generally, it would be difficult to set any limitations to freedom of religion. People are, and should be, free to choose the religion of their choice. The issue becomes a bit more complicated if the religion in question contains planks that are plainly illegal. Take as a real extreme a cultlike “religion” that advocates child sacrifice. Or a less violent variation, namely child beating for disobedience. And what about a faith which has totally non-violent expressions, such as bigamy? We have freedom of religion, but we do not, as a result of that freedom, allow everything within all religions. The rule of law usually trumps freedom of religion. Any religion that is worth its salt will concede that societal rules in a democracy, with its built-in checks and balances, are highly valuable as a way to protect people from evil that is disguised as religion, or given sanction by a religion.
From Rick Reed’s response: The Charter of Rights and Freedoms assures Canadians of the “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression.” In Canada, both the freedom of religion (belief) and the freedom of expression are protected as fundamental human rights. So neither the freedom of expression nor the freedom of religion trumps the other – they are tied. More precisely, they are tied together. For example, this column would be impossible without both freedoms. Each week, representatives from various faith groups express their views on a wide range of questions. Freedom of religion allows us to differ in our beliefs. Freedom of expression allows us to publicly discuss our differences. The Christian faith affirms these core freedoms, believing they were gifts from God before they were granted by the government. Christians follow the lead of our Creator, affirming the right and responsibility of each individual to choose and express his or her deepest beliefs. At the same time, Christians use our freedom of expression to freely communicate the gospel of Christ. We announce the good news of what God has done to reconcile us to Himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). We hope that people everywhere will choose to place their trust in Jesus as their Lord and Leader.