U.S. conference elevates religious freedom globally, grows alliances

Participants at the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom held at the U.S. Department of State in Washington D.C. on July 16-18, 2019. Photo by State Department/Public Domain.

At the U.S. State Department’s second Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom last week, religious leaders and advocates from more than 100 countries convened for a conversation that moved religious liberty to the forefront of the pursuit of a healthy global democratic order.

On the event’s first day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced sanctions on four senior leaders in Myanmar’s military that are the strongest government response yet to the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in majority Buddhist Myanmar, also known as Burma. Rohingya representatives were in attendance.

Pompeo also announced plans to create a new international coalition to advocate for freedom of religion and to hold accountable those who deny it.

“I hope good people everywhere will see that our work is just beginning,” Pompeo said.

Critics of the first conference said it did not offer many specific goals or policy initiatives. But observers from different points on the ideological spectrum agree that the conference effectively elevated the issue of religious persecution. More than a thousand people from 100 countries, including many diplomats, attended the official events, with others joining for numerous side discussions.

Thomas F. Farr, president of The Religious Freedom Institute, said in an email that senior U.S. diplomats have long treated religious freedom as a “boutique human rights issue with little connection to American foreign policy interests.” 

He said the conference accomplished two main things: it continued the consolidation and advancement of international religious freedom policy within the State Department and drew attention to the issue from a growing number of governments.

According to Emilie Kao, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation, the connection between religious freedom and other foreign policy goals has long been understated. 

Government leaders often compartmentalize security and human rights interests, she said. Having worked in the State Department under the Bush and Obama administrations, Kao said she experienced that up close. She cited former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first trip to China, when Clinton said that discussions about human rights wouldn’t get in the way of negotiations on issues like denuclearization and trade. That’s a false dichotomy, Kao said. 

Vice President Mike Pence addresses delegates at the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on July 18, 2019. (Ralph Alswang/State Department/Public Domain).

Restrictions on religious expression increased from 2007 to 2017, according to a Pew Research Center report in July. It identified 52 governments as having a high level of restrictions. 

“[Religious freedom is] just a person’s ability to speak the truth and to live according to that truth,” Kao said. “It really kind of defines the boundaries between the individual and the state, and so it really should have a very primary role in human rights promotion and American foreign policy.”

For Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs and director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, the diversity of the participants and the wealth of information provided at the many break-out sessions should counter any critics who argue that the administration is favoring any religious ideology, like American Christianity, over others.

“To have the United States officially hosting and clearly prioritizing this issue on the world stage, it sends an incredible message to the world,” Weber said.

Inclusive representation and clashing views

The ministerial came a week after Pompeo announced the creation of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. Its stated mission is to “provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse.” Critics call it an attempt to redefine the concept of human rights in a way that emphasizes conservative political values.

Kao argued that there has been a liberalization of the global human rights conversation that diminishes the sanctity of the concept of fundamental rights. When the definition is expanded to include too many new concerns, she said, the original intent is undermined. Freedom of religion belongs among the fundamental rights, Kao said.

Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, an organization that advocates for nonreligious people, criticized Weber’s boss, Tony Perkins, president of the Evangelical public policy group Family Research Council, as the wrong choice to lead the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Perkins has often argued that Islam is not compatible with the U.S. Constitution, he opposes same-sex relationships, and he has opposed providing atheist chaplains for the military.

“So this is a person who doesn’t care about religious freedom for all, but rather cares that his particular beliefs are elevated above all others,” Fish said.

But it was good that his and other nonreligious groups were included, Fish said.

Peter Henne, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Vermont that specializes in religion, said that religious freedom advocates are excited to have such high-level access to the Trump administration. The problem, he said, is the administration’s own issues with religious freedom. He cited the president’s rhetoric about Muslims, the “Muslim ban” and what Henne described as Trump’s cozying up to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, considering their records on religious freedom.

A lack of pushback against Trump and those policies threatens the movement’s effectiveness and makes it appear partisan, he said. He was glad, though, to see a side event organized by New America that featured attorney Asma Uddin, who wrote the book When Islam Is Not a Religion, in which she addresses the argument that Islam is a political ideology. 

“That wasn’t part of the actual event, but it’s encouraging that her voice was there and was heard, and was circulated throughout the meeting,” Henne said. 

“I don’t want to go so far as to say they got it completely right because there are these bigger issues with their policies, but maybe at the least it can set a precedent for future administrations to take this issue seriously,” he added.

U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo hosted a day of meetings in February 2019 with 79-member Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in Washington, DC. Photo by Michael Gross/State Department/Public Domain.

Practicing what is preached

For Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, a professor of politics and religious studies at Northwestern University, entertaining the ministerial as a prospect for improving democratic principles “is a distraction from the serious and sustained threats to human well-being and coexistence posed by the Trump administration” due to foreign and immigration policies she called uninformed and bellicose.

“One need only look at the southern border to see how little ‘freedom’ actually matters to this administration,” she said in an email. “The idea that they care about anyone other than their white nationalist base and mafia-like political and corporate allies is preposterous.” 

For Hurd, the conference represented meaningless rhetoric that might serve to rally Trump’s voter base. That base can’t be reduced to Christians, she said, calling it more complex and encompassing, and driven by “a visceral and violent form of American nationalism that taps into people’s worst instincts and basest fears.”

Hurd said the administration’s policies are taking a toll on people in Chicago, where she lives. Fear is palpable among undocumented immigrants. Rumors swirled this week of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents going after employees at a California Pizza Kitchen at a local mall. Three American girls, ages 9, 10 and 13, were detained for several hours at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport after returning from Mexico with a guardian who had a valid visa but was deemed “inadmissible” by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. 

“The administration's actions and policies speak louder than words,” Hurd said. “No amount of freedom-talk can hide the cruelty and violence they are visiting on the vulnerable and less fortunate among us. This is what we should be talking about. This is how we have to live today.” 

Weber, of the Family Research Council, said that the ministerial’s mandate was international and did not include any policies within U.S. borders.

“People can have views on immigration policy, but that’s a different issue,” he said. “It’s a different discussion, different set of concerns, legal considerations, etcetera, and it’s not reasonable at all to conflate the two issues or to consider them as part of the same analysis or set of legal considerations or policy considerations.”

An intersection might occur, he said, with refugee and asylum law. 

“Protections for religious freedom include the right for people to settle elsewhere when being persecuted where they’re living,” Weber said.

The Trump administration decreased the refugee limit from 110,000 under Obama to 45,000 and then 30,000, a historic low. With the administration considering eliminating refugee intake next year, faith-based organizations that resettle refugees like persecuted Christians and Muslims are starting to downsize their operations.