Accountability of Religious Freedom

History tells us that the earlier European settlers in America were Christian sects persecuted by the mainstream Christianity way back in 17th century. It seems now that the descendants of the persecuted are now discriminating against the non co-religionist.

The story we have today from CNN was this American atheist soldier who sued Army for discrimination whilst serving for this country in Iraq. (see http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/08/atheist.soldier/index.html?iref=mpstoryview).

Though the Founder separates the church from the state at the time of establishing the Union, the modern history of USA, however, has shown significant religious inroad onto the administration of the state especially when the GOP is in power. This is mainly attributed to the religious base that GOP depends upon.

Whereas there are enactment almost everywhere for the freedom of religion or conscience, there are often too little protection for the minority who profess a non-mainstream faith. Thank goodness it is the USA, had the same occurred in many other countries, there is no legal recourse.

The point here is not about seeking a legal recourse. Rather, it is to ask some basic questions: whether the religion polarizes or unifies the peoples; whether religion is tolerant to accommodate rival faiths.

We often hear a lot of political correct answers. This piece is not one of them.

Almost all the monotheistic religions, from Judaism, Christianity to Islam, there is always a single God. Naturally as repeatedly proven by history, these faiths and their believers are competiting for converts and influence in society and government. They seek to entrench their religious interest at the expense of the minority or competing faiths. If they are in the minority or outside the establishment, they attempt to encroach upon and to wrest power from the established religion power base. These competition and rivalry is often intense and sometimes bloody.

Missionaries of any religions, however charitable and selfless their service, their ultimate, if not, unspoken goal is to bring the non-religionist to worship the God whom they pray. Admitedly there are moments of peace and harmony but the larger part of the history and the present remain chronically infected by the polarization by competing faiths and their followers. The Israel and Palestine conflict is one of the inter-religious polarization. Iraq is an example of intra-religious polarization.

Even the arguably the most peaceful religion, Buddhism, has spurred, some religious group of right wing militant organization in Sri Lanka. This is not to mention the less intense religious discrimination in the world today.

It is actually not inappropriate to view inter-faith competition, by almost natural extension, religious discrimination and/or persercution, in the same vein as the nation states rivalry, corporate competition and indeed individual dispute.

We have sophisticated public international law and institutions to regulate nation states as well as international bodies' conduct. We also have rich body of corporate laws and large number of agencies to enforce and regulate corporate behaviour. Equally, we have civil and criminal law to maintain a proper civil community.

Yet there is no law regulating religions. It is perhaps the freedom of religion that
everyone subscribe now that polarize the world and the people. Freedom without responsibility and accountability is like the freedom of one's fist that doesn't stop even at the other's nose. The responsibility and accountability are not owing to the God one worship alone.

Answering to one's God cannot be a passport to preach hatred against; to instill intolerance and contempt against; to advocate violence and sanction against the non co-religionist. There are different Gods and maybe no God to different persons and hence a common value system has to be in place.

To make sure that religion is not the cause of or pretext for polarization, children ought to be brought up in a system of common values of respecting and tolerating different practice of faiths. Only if the children of today and tommorrow are brought up this way, will we stop the vicious religion-inspired and sometime sanctioned polarization from setting in just like what the history have all along shown us.

Further regulation or least a code of conduct on preaching and missionary activities need to be propagated. Even as open a society as America, we have seen from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's episode, which helped to spur so intense a debate of what is acceptable of preaching in the America. Without responsibility, who knows even the churches of the free world today may become the religious fundamentalist in the Middle East.

We must recognize the constant threat of religious polarization is as critical and as pressing as environmental or humanitarian issues. Avoiding this topic is sure to see many more years of human suffering and casualty.

The world today can do something about this. As much as how an international charter has given the modern world the concept of the freedom of religion, there ought to be now another international charter regulating the conduct and behaviour of religious activities of faith-based organizations and governments.

We call it the Accountability of Religious Freedom!