Why Christians must fight for Muslims!

“Protection of religious freedom means considering the faiths and beliefs of everyone involved.”   Mike Quigley

  Summer officially ends this coming Thursday. There was an important summer story that, perhaps with all the other news stories, was overlooked. Worse, it didn’t garner the needed attention of the Christian community. Yet, it was very important and has far reaching implications for the Church in America, our 1^st Amendment rights and the future of religious freedom. Let me ask some “religious rights” questions. (Answer Yes or No.)

1. Should the Amish be allowed to drive buggies on public roads? 2. Should Muslims be allowed to have a public call for prayer? 3. Should we allow a mosque to be built in our community? 4. Should Jehovah’s Witnesses be allowed to proselyte door to door? 5. Should a teacher be allowed to have a Koran on her desk?

  How did you do? The answer to all of them are all “yes.” Please understand, and this is very important, it’s not the Bible that gives us these rights, it’s our United States Constitution. Most people, even most Christians, aren’t familiar with our 1^st Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Most are more familiar with Thomas Jefferson’s often misinterpreted statement, “a wall of separation between church and state.” Many ignorantly believe that it’s part of the Constitution. It’s not!

  Unlike the United States, which historically has protected religious freedom, France does not. This religious freedom war is being waged on French beaches. Local police officers are storming French beaches to free women of their clothes. You’ll find pictures of armed cops standing over Muslim women until they take off enough clothes to make a secular French society happy. A mother of two was informed she’d been fined because she was wearing leggings, a tunic and a headscarf on the beach. Her ticket said she was not wearing “an outfit respecting good morals and secularism.”

  So we freed the French from the Nazis so they can violate Muslim women, forcing them to take off clothes so that they feel immodest according to Islam and violate their religious convictions. Sadly, because Muslims aren’t overly popular in the West, most media and worse and much more serious, most Christians have ignored this violation of religious rights! Why?

  Very few people want to stand up for Muslims, particularly in France…or in much of the world right now. Even as we’re told we have nothing to fear, it appears fear is exactly what keeps us silent. More importantly, France has a policy of secularization. France bans outward religious symbols in public, including burkas and Muslim swimwear, burkinis. Somehow, so far, nuns wearing habits have escaped punishment.

  In a country obsessed with the liberalization of women from oppression, burkinis are, to a secular French mind, a blatant symbol of marginalization, put in place to protect men from seeing the bodies of women. A culture committed to empowering women finds itself in a dilemma. Where is the oppression? Is the religion that states they must wear it in the wrong, or is it the government that forces them to remove it in the wrong?

  But it’s not about clothes, it’s really about the right to religious liberty. I’m so glad I’m an American, not French. That right is the very first one in our Constitution — in the 1^st Amendment — for a reason. Our histories and revolutions had very different outcomes which produced very different approaches to religion in our founding documents. Religious tolerance qualified by secularism is not religious tolerance. It’s religious tolerance as long as it conforms to the ideals of the secular state.

  Do we really want to strip Muslim women of their religious rights by making them remove their clothes? The pretext that burkini bans were put in place to prevent violent reactions from those offended by the modest bathing attire is idiotic. It’s based on the ludicrous premise that if you’re living according to your faith, and ignorant people who don’t like it act inappropriately, the person of faith is to blame. That’s the idiocy of the new French “religious police.” And religious liberty hangs in the balance.

  If you and I do not speak out for religious freedom, Muslims in France will not be the only ones stripped of their religious liberty. We can’t stand idly by today because it’s not “our” religious liberty. As secularism continues marching across the West, it will soon be us.

  Tragically, our own President doesn’t get it, though he swore to uphold the Constitution. Recently, President Obama said (and rightly so) that San Francisco 49er’s quarterback Colin Kaepernick is “exercising his constitutional right” not to stand for the national anthem. While I disagree with Kaepernick, our Constitution gives him that right. Yet, unbelievably, the President opposes those who want their Constitutionally protected religious liberty like Hobby Lobby or the Little Sisters. One can’t be selective in who has religious rights and who doesn’t, as long as it fits our values and worldview. Limited religious liberty soon means religious liberty for none.

  Do we really want Muslim women forced to strip off some of their clothes under the watchful eye of the police? Or, Catholic adoption agencies stripped of their participation in Massachusetts’ adoption system because of their views of marriage? Or, a baker stripped of her business because she did not want to participate in a wedding with which she disagrees? 

  This act on the shores of France is a beachhead of the new intolerance threatening the liberty of all who don’t march to the beat of the secularist drum. As Christians, we must speak up, even for those we disagree with in their religious beliefs, whether it’s a burkini or a mosque or an addition to the local Kingom Hall. Let them know they have your support. Let your local government officials know religious individuals/groups have your support. It may mean attending a government meeting or zoning hearing on their behalf. Because first they came for the Muslims in the burkinis…

Update: I learned from a missionary friend in France that the courts there have now struck this attack on religious liberty down. 

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