Democracy and Secularism go hand in hand and freedom of religion is part of that equation - by RM

Secularism - the only way Democracy can work

The word democracy means only that the people rule. Other than, perhaps, requiring freedom of speech and equal access to the ballot, indispensable requirements of self-rule, the notion of democracy sets no limits on what the people may do in their sovereign capacity.

All liberal constitutional democracies in the world impose restrictions on what private activity government may and should regulate, including, of course, religious behavior, and what values it may assimilate, and enforce, as its own.

There are several broad generalizations that can be made about the role and place of religion in liberal democracies. First, in a liberal democracy, citizenship is not dependent on adherence to an official religion or even a state approved religion. Religion, therefore, should never be the constitutive element of citizenship.

This principle is today accepted universally in the Western world. Equally well accepted is that in a liberal democracy the government may not penalize citizens because they profess a faith that is not shared by a majority of their fellow citizens. It is also settled that in a liberal democracy citizens enjoy the freedom to express their religious views, and to form institutions consistent with those views, without fear of punishment or civic disability.

Liberal democracies also assume that citizens should not be prevented from practicing their faith and that the government ought not to interfere with the religious decisions of citizens or their institutions.

This last principle is not always observed, at least as a matter of enforceable legal principle. In the United States the principle means only that the government may not single out religious practices for regulation. In the name of equal treatment of religious and nonreligious citizens, the courts have increasingly refused to recognize a special right to exemption from ostensibly neutral government regulation for religious practice, even though the constitutional text surely sounds as if one were intended. 

It is likewise universally accepted that liberal democracies cannot compel the doing of religious acts or attendance at worship services, although there is less than full agreement over the extent of this principle as it applies to children in state-run schools. Whether the state can compel participation in some form of prayer services, and, even if not, what constitutes coercion to participate in religious activities, are unfortunately still sharply disputed questions.

It should, in our opinion, however, be widely recognized that Secular Democracies can not and must never allow for any kind of worship in public schools financed by taxpayers monies. On the other hand, it should not deny that right to private schools financed by private funds.

The United States is the most religiously diverse country in the world. In no other nation can you find as many varied religious groups, beliefs and practices as there are there. The Founding Fathers recognized in their own times the great theological differences among not only different religions, but also among the many Protestant sects.

They saw the tyranny that government-sponsored religion wrought. That is why the US has a secular constitution – and Bill of Rights—that provide strict protections for religious practice and safeguards against government-endorsed religion. The US  secular government and protections of religion are what have allowed religion to flourish and grow there.

However, there has been a constant stream of legislation and executive action to impose religious ideas into law with the mistaken belief that what is good for one group of religious people should be good for everyone.This is absolutely not permissible in a Secular Democracy.

The truest test of religious freedom within a Secular Democratic State is not the ability of every religious group to do as it pleases, but for every individual to be able to freely choose his or her own religious or nonreligious path without recrimination or consequence.

Bottom-line - religious freedom should be an equal part within every Secular Democracy but nothing more or less than that. 

EU-Digest  

Human Rights including freedom of religion under siege in Turkey - Latest Scapegoats: Christians -- by Aykan Erdemir

Pastor Brunson and wife Norine arrested in Izmir 
for "activities against national security"

The Globalist recently reported that Turkish police on October 7 detained the American pastor Andrew Brunson and his wife Norine – residents of Turkey for the last twenty years – for “activities against national security.” Authorities held the couple in isolation for twelve days, with no access to an attorney or U.S. consular officials.

Pastor Andrew Brunson had been leading the Izmir Resurrection Church, 

Although Turkey’s Directorate of Migration Management ultimately released the pastor’s wife, Brunson has been held in solitary confinement with no access to legal counsel for over 40 days.

As appalling as the couple’s treatment is, it is best understood as part of a wider campaign by the ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) to intimidate and scapegoat Turkey’s Christians.

In the aftermath of the July 15 failed coup, government-held rallies and pro-government media have incited violence against Turkey’s religious
minorities.

Pro-government dailies slandered the Greek-Orthodox ecumenical patriarch for “plotting” the coup with the CIA, and published a fabricated Vatican passport to show that the coup’s alleged mastermind was a Catholic cardinal.

In the ensuing wave of violence, vigilantes targeted Protestant and Catholic churches and Armenian schools.

The AKP government’s involvement in the crackdown is disconcerting. On October 8, authorities banned the Protestant church in Antioch – an ancient cradle of Christianity – for conducting Bible study “without a permit.”

Soon after, two officials of Turkey’s Association of Protestant Churches reported that they had been questioned by the police concerning their pastoral work.

On October 17, airport officials denied entry to an American Protestant who headed the Ankara Refugee Ministry, insisting that – like the accusations against the Brunsons – he was a “national security threat.”

Earlier this month, authorities handed control of the Syriac church in the city of Urfa to a nearby university’s Faculty of Islamic Theology.

Turkey’s Christians are no strangers to intimidation. Brunson himself was the target of an armed attack in 2011. Assailants killed a Roman Catholic priest and bishop in 2006 and 2010 respectively.

A German Protestant and two Turkish converts were tortured and brutally massacred in a Bible publishing house in 2007, three months after the assassination of the editor of Turkey’s main Armenian weekly.

Authorities have also been lenient towards assailants who target Christians. The five culprits of the publishing-house massacre were released in 2014, and the murderer of the priest walked free last year.

The Armenian editor’s assassin received a hero’s welcome when brought into the police station, where officers praised his courage and asked him to pose with the Turkish flag.

Unless the AKP government introduces safeguards against hate crimes, tackles the culture of impunity, and stops incitement against Christians, Turkey risks joining the long list of Middle Eastern states where ancient Christian communities are disappearing.

Religious minorities are historically canaries in a country’s coal mine. Once Turkey’s religious pluralism disappears, it likely will not take long for its political pluralism to evaporate alongside it, if it is not already happening at a very fast pace.

EU-Digest

EU Rule of Law Crises: Europe’s Rule-of-Law "obstructed by Hungary and Poland "- by Guy Verhofstadt

Rule of Law - one of the basic princiles of Democracy

From the rubble of two world wars, European countries came together to launch what would become the world’s largest experiment in unification and cooperative, shared sovereignty. But, despite its impressive achievements over the decades, the European project now risks disintegration.

An unresolved financial crisis, a refugee crisis, a deteriorating security environment, and a stalled integration process have created throughout Europe a toxic, unstable political environment in which populism and nationalism thrive. Perhaps the clearest manifestation of this is the erosion of the rule of law in the European Union.

Two EU members in particular, Hungary and Poland, are now jeopardizing hard-won European democratic norms – and thus undermining the very purpose of European integration.

In Hungary, liberal-democratic values have come under systematic attack from Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government. Since his return to the premiership in 2010, Orbán has committed Hungary to an authoritarian nationalist path, and he has exploited the refugee crisis to cement a “siege mentality” that helps him sustain popular support.

In the process, fundamental rights have been ignored, media freed refugees have been demonized, and Orbán is doing everything in his power to weaken the EU. Attempts by EU institutions to convince Orbán to change course have only emboldened him to commit further outrages against democratic norms.

Meanwhile, a democratic crisis has emerged in Poland as well, starting last October, when the Law and Justice (PiS), a Euroskeptic party that also opposes immigration, secured an outright parliamentary majority by promising to implement populist economic policies and “put Poland first.” Yet, since the election, PiS has launched a series of attacks on the Polish constitution itself.

Government legislation aimed at reforming Poland’s Constitutional Court has been condemned by the Court itself and the European democracy watchdog, the Venice Commission. The government has effectively precluded the Court from ruling on the constitutionality of legislation. This weakens a key pillar of the democratic rule of law – and thus is highly problematic for Poland and Europe alike.

Hungary and Poland are the leading edge of a far-right agenda that has taken hold throughout Europe, pursued by parties that are exploiting the political vacuum created by the EU’s failure to address the financial and refugee crises. So how can the tables be turned?

In democratic countries, it is vital that democracy’s enemies be fought with democratic means. It is vital that the outside world impress on the Hungarian and Polish people themselves that in a globalized world, nationalism offers only false security and economic irrelevance. Both countries, at the heart of Europe, have profited enormously in every sense from EU membership; they must not throw away their opportunity to make further progress.

Hungarians and Poles rejected international isolation in 1989. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, both countries became staunch NATO allies even before they joined the EU. The geopolitical and security arguments for European unity are overwhelming, and there can be no united Europe without Hungary and Poland.

But all of us, and in particular the peoples of Hungary and Poland, must remember that NATO, like the EU, was founded on the fundamental principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law. A government that flouts those principles jeopardizes the coherence and solidarity of the alliance. It is therefore vital that the United States and other NATO allies speak out now and insist that functioning democratic checks and balances are safeguarded. It would be unimaginable for NATO heads of state to go ahead with their planned leadership summit in Warsaw in June if Poland remains in its constitutional crisis, with the government disregarding the rule of law and the opinion of a respected international body.

Hungarians and Poles must be reminded that Russian President Vladimir Putin is actively attempting to divide and weaken the EU and NATO. If Europe is to face down aggression from the Kremlin, it is essential that Poland and Hungary adhere to these groups’ fundamental values and principles.

But it is also necessary that the EU itself develop a more comprehensive mechanism for safeguarding the rule of law within the Union. The EU has mechanisms to regulate economic policies, safeguard the environment, and police the Single Market. But Europe has always been much more than an economic project; it is also a union of values, which no member can be allowed to repudiate without consequence.

Governments are created and fall apart, and politicians come and go; but democratic institutions should be spared from political interference. The sad reality is that, were they to apply for EU membership today, neither Hungary nor Poland would be admitted. Their people should weigh carefully what that means. 

Their current leaders claim to be defending national interests. But is it really in their countries’ interest to be sidelined by the US, NATO, and the rest of Europe?

Note EU-Digest: Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister, is President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group (ALDE) in the European Parliament. 

NATO's Planned June Leadership in June should be cancelled if Hungary and Poland  both continue to obstruct  the fundamental principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law on which not only the EU was founded but also the NATO. 

EU-Digest

Christianity: Freedom for Religion, Not From It

The U.S. Supreme Court once again affirmed that the so-called “wall of separation” that exists between church and state is not quite the edifice that liberals would like it to be. In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the court ruled today that a village in upstate New York did not violate the First Amendment in allowing members of clergy to begin town board meetings with prayers, some of which were explicitly sectarian (and usually Christian) rather than ecumenical. The narrow vote along the usual 5-4 conservative/liberal lines is bound to incite many on the left to express fears about the court trying to turn the U.S. into a “Christian nation.”

But in upholding the rights of Greece, N.Y. to have meetings begin with a religious invocation, the court has done no such thing. Rather, it has simply affirmed a long American tradition of beginning public meetings with prayer. Even more to the point, by refusing to be drawn into the question of regulating the content of such prayers, the court has preserved religious liberty rather than constricting it. The decision also provides a timely reminder that for all the talk about separation walls, the main point of the First Amendment is to preserve freedom of religion, not freedom from any mention or contact with faith.

In recent decades, the “separationist” position on church/state interaction has grown more, rather than less, aggressive. In its 1962 Engel v. Vitale decision that banned public school prayers, the court rightly ruled that school districts had no business imposing what were often sectarian prayers on children. Given that students were not free agents who could accept or reject these prayers with impunity, it was clear that the practice could easily be considered an “establishment” of a state religion that is prohibited by the First Amendment.

But purely ceremonial affairs such as invocations before legislative proceedings cannot be reasonably interpreted in the same light. Since, as Justice Anthony Kennedy noted in the majority opinion, such prayers go back to the First Congress and have been repeatedly upheld since then, any attempt to overturn these precedents was unwarranted.

Read more: Freedom for Religion, Not From It « Commentary Magazine

Christian Tragedy in the Muslim World

Few people realize that we are today living through the largest persecution of Christians in history, worse even than the famous attacks under ancient Roman emperors like Diocletian and Nero. Estimates of the numbers of Christians under assault range from 100-200 million. According to one estimate, a Christian is martyred every five minutes. And most of this persecution is taking place at the hands of Muslims. Of the top fifty countries persecuting Christians, forty-two have either a Muslim majority or have sizeable Muslim populations.

The extent of this disaster, its origins, and the reasons why it has been met with a shrug by most of the Western media are the topics of Raymond Ibrahim’s Crucified Again. Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an associate fellow of the Middle East Forum. Fluent in Arabic, he has been tracking what he calls “one of the most dramatic stories” of our time in the reports and witnesses that appear in Arabic newspapers, news shows, and websites, but that rarely get translated into English or picked up by the Western press. What he documents in this meticulously researched and clearly argued book is a human rights disaster of monumental proportions.

In Crucified Again, Ibrahim performs two invaluable functions for educating people about the new “Great Persecution,” to use the label of the Roman war against Christians. First, he documents hundreds of specific examples from across the Muslim world. By doing so, he shows the extent of the persecution, and forestalls any claims that it is a marginal problem. Additionally, Ibrahim commemorates the forgotten victims, refusing to allow their suffering to be lost because of the indifference or inattention of the media and government officials.

Second, he provides a cogent explanation for why these attacks are concentrated in Muslim nations. In doing so, he corrects the delusional wishful thinking and apologetic spin that mars much of the current discussion of Islamic-inspired violence.

Ibrahim’s copious reports of violence against Christians range across the whole Muslim world, including countries such as Indonesia, which is frequently characterized as “moderate” and “tolerant.” Such attacks are so frequent because they result not just from the jihadists that some Westerners dismiss as “extremists,” but from mobs of ordinary people, and from government policy and laws that discriminate against Christians. Rather than ad hoc reactions to local grievances, then, these attacks reveal a consistent ideology of hatred and contempt that transcends national, geographical, and ethnic differences.

Read more: Christian Tragedy in the Muslim World | FrontPage Magazine

Disappearing Christians in the Middle East - by Daniel Pipes

The transfer of power of Bethlehem from Israel to the Palestinian Authority just before Christmas 1995 inspired a spate of articles[1] on Bethlehem's diminishing Christian presence. They noted that a place not long ago 80 percent Christian is now but one-third Christian. For the first time in nearly two millennia, the most identifiably Christian town on earth has lost its Christian majority. The same changes have taken place in two other famously Christian towns, Nazareth and Jerusalem. In Nazareth, Christians went from 60 percent of the population in 1946 to 40 percent in 1983. Jerusalem Christians in 1922 slightly outnumbered Muslims (15,000 versus 13,000);[2] today, they number under 2 percent of the city's population.

The same applies in other parts of Israel. A report from the Galilee village of Turan quotes a Christian store owner: "Most Christians will leave as soon as we can sell our houses and shops. We can't live among these people [Muslims] anymore."[3] One journalist concludes that "The Christian community in the West Bank is close to extinction."[4]

Nor are Israeli-held territories unusual in this regard; Christians are fleeing from all over the Middle East. Emigration began in the aftermath of World War I and has greatly picked up in the last decade. In Turkey, Christians constituted a population of 2 million in 1920 but now only some thousands remain. So severe is the problem that the Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul is in danger of collapsing for lack of large enough pool of candidates. Christians earlier in this century represented about one-third of the Syrian population; now they account for less than 10 percent. In 1932, they composed 55 percent of the Lebanese population, now less than 30 percent. More than half the Christians of Iraq have left. Copts began leaving Egypt in significant numbers after the 1952 revolution.

The Christian population decline has two main causes: emigration and declining birth rates.
Emigration represents the end of a long process of exclusion and persecution. On the West Bank, a nearly-permanent Muslim boycott of Christian businesses is the problem. In Egypt, fundamentalist Muslims constantly target Christians. The Lebanese civil war of 1975-90, when reduced to its essentials, represented a successful effort by Muslims to reduce Christian power in the country. But by far the worst situation is in the Sudan, where the civil war that has been raging most of the time since 1956 has led to wholesale atrocities.
Declining birth rates can also be seen throughout the region. In Israel, for example, live births per thousand among Muslims comes to 37; among Christians, a mere 22 per thousand.[5] In addition, the small number of Christians leads some to marry Muslims, which effectively means they are lost to their community.
At the present rate, the Middle East's 12 million Christians will likely drop to 6 million in the year 2020. With time, Christians will effectively disappear from the region as a cultural and political force.
Read more: Disappearing Christians in the Middle East :: Daniel Pipes

Europe 'alarmed' by deadly Egypt Christian clashes

European leaders expressed alarm Monday at sectarian clashes overnight in Egypt that killed 24 people, mainly Coptic Christians, and urged post-revolution authorities to uphold religious freedom.

"I am very concerned, very alarmed about the clashes in Cairo", British Foreign Secretary William Hague said as he arrived in Luxembourg for talks with his 26 European Union counterparts, where the events in Cairo suddenly took centre-stage.

"It is very important that the Egyptian authorities reaffirm the freedom of worship," he said after the clashes that broke out during a Coptic protest against a recent attack on a church in the southern city of Aswan.

For more: Europe 'alarmed' by deadly Egypt Christian clashes

The ambiguity of Jesus - by JW Fisch

There’s no way around it – Jesus was ambiguous. He always seemed to send people away scratching their heads – even his disciples. He was not a man with easy answers. He never gave a three-point message. His sermons don’t outline very well.

His favorite phrase when speaking a public message was “He who has an ear, let him hear.” Hear. He used it as an activity – something that some people do with their ears, but not necessarily everybody.

Jesus had a favorite method of speaking to people. He put it in a story – a parable. When his disciples asked him why he spoke to the people in parables, he replied: “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables” (Matthew 13:11-123).

God does not pull all the strings. He counts us as too important for that. To find without seeking, to hear without listening, to say yes without the possibility of saying no is to negate the value of my seeking, my hearing, and my participating. I am not a puppet.

For more: The ambiguity of Jesus

The Netherlands: "Jesus is not allowed to save you in the County of Giesenlande, Province of South Holland"

A local Dutch newspaper Almere Vandaag, recently reported  that a  Dutch farmer, Joop van Ooijen, who lives in the County of Giesenlande, Province of South Holland and owns a farm and home next to the A15 highway was in trouble with his local government council, because he had painted in white letters the text - Jesus Saves on his roof.

This Christian slogan apparently was not to the liking of the Giesenlande County Council, who fined Joop van Ooijen euro 15.000 and summoned him to remove the text based on what they said were local zoning regulations and make his farm more "compatible (blend in) with the surrounding environment".  Joop van Ooijen then changed the color of the text from white into red and orange. 

 

Following the change of color of the text  the Giesenlande County Council, at the instigation of councilman Jan de Groot of the council VVD  fraction (the party which won the June 2010 national Dutch elections) wrote Joop van Ooijen that the change of color of the text was still not acceptable and threatened him with further fines and prosecution. 

These kinds of actions by any Government or their local representatives, have very little to do with the "compatibility of the surrounding environment", but all about the freedom of expression and religion. This is not acceptable, especially not in the Netherlands or the EU, where secularism, freedom of expression and the freedom of religion is a basic right for every citizen. Regardless of what Mr. Wilders, the anti-Islam - anti-immigration Dutch politician says. The fact is that no individual is more equal than the another. ...And what makes this local government interference even more bizarre, is that the text in question was painted on a private property. Joop van Ooijen could just as well have painted the text "Long live the Dutch soccer team" or "My dog is the best dog in the world" on his roof. That is his right..

If you are concerned about what appears to be an erosion around the globe of human rights, including freedom of expression and freedom of religion, you can show your concern by taking action wherever you are and where it counts. In this particular case e-mail the County of Giesenlande at the following address: info@giessenlanden.nl :attention Mr. Jan de Groot - councilman with a copy to  the Province of South Holland - attn: Danielle Bolton at: secrveldhuijzen@pzh.nl and voice your concern. 

EU-Digest

smh.com.au: Irrational response to rational anxiety about Islam - by Julie Szego

For the complete report from Sydney Morning Herald click on this link

Switzerland this week revealed its dark side in voting for a ban on the construction of minarets. The campaign, initiated by right-wing populist parties, was hardly subtle. Posters featured minarets as missiles on a national flag, and a burqa-clad woman. How could the civilised Swiss succumb to this absurdity?

One theory has been advanced by Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University and one of the big names at Melbourne's Parliament of the World's Religions. The populists' strategy was to play up the idea that the Swiss were under siege from Muslims, he said. "Spread a sense of victimhood among the Swiss people," wrote Ramadan in The Guardian. A sound theory, but he then goes further. "Every European country has its specific symbols or topics through which European Muslims are targeted. In France it is the headscarf or burqa; in Germany, mosques; in Britain, violence, cartoons in Denmark; homosexuality in the Netherlands — and so on."

ABS-CBN News Online: Why does Europe tolerate that overseas workers are mistreated in Saudi Arabia

For the complete report from ABS-CBN News Online click on this link

Why does Europe tolerate that overseas workers are mistreated in Saudi Arabia

A group of Filipino overseas workers allegedly maltreated by their employers in Saudi Arabia have sought the help of ABS-CBN's The Filipino Channel and the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Riyadh for abuse and unfair employment practices. Group members said they were not paid salaries for four months. In addition, their driver’s licenses and residence permits were withheld for almost a year. Their employer also ordered their dormitory's air-conditioning units turned off from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., forcing them to endure the heat in Riyadh. They also complained about the poor condition of their mess hall. Note EU-Digest: the reason is simple - Europe and the rest of the world tolerates that there is no democracy in Saudi Arabia or freedom of religion - OIL