Michael F. Bird, Religious freedom in a secular age: A Christian case for liberty, equality and secular government. Zondervan, 2022.
I don’t usually read books about the politics of being a Christian, as I haven’t found those I’ve read in the past particularly helpful. I do believe, though, with the author of this book, that Christians can’t avoid being political, and I read it for two reasons.
First, I like Michael Bird’s blog posts and podcasts. He tackles issues, whether contemporary, theological or biblical, clearheadedly and incisively. He is an Australian Anglican priest and lecturer in theology at Ridley College in Melbourne, and a prolific blog-poster and writer. Among his books is the huge and beautiful The New Testament in Its World, (2019) co-written with N.T. (Tom ) Wright. Bird says he grew up in a disfunctional family and became a Christian during his time in the Australian army.
Second, I live in an Australian jurisdiction where a secularist government is seeking to increase legislative powers against discrimination, in ways which may (or, in the view of some Christians, will) impinge on religious liberty, and I wanted to read something which would help me better think through this complex issue.
Bird’s book did not disappoint. It is clearly written, very readable, and its author has read widely on his topic, lets the reader know whom he is citing, has thought through the issues thoroughly, is eminently reasonable, and passionate about his faith. Given that the book is published in the USA, it is not surprising that Bird clearly has American readers in mind, but he is also careful not to forget the situation in Australia, and, to a lesser degree, the UK and Europe.
The contents
The book has three parts. Part 1 concerns the history of secularism and the way things are now in the USA and Australia.
Secularism, Bird writes, is the separation of the state from religion. It arose after the Reformation, when several varieties of Protestantism came to exist side by side. It permits and protects indivdual freedom of faith and conscience. It also prevents theocracy, which is almost always tyrannical. Secularism is vital to the existence of multicultural societies like Australia and the USA. However, the early Protestant campaign against idolatry removed the sacred from public life, pushing faith into the private domain, and unintentionally laying the groundwork for the Enlightenment, which has resulted in varying degrees of secularisation in Western nations. This history means, incidentally, that secularism has no roots in non-Western countries.
Secularisation denotes the process of becoming more secular. In some ways this can be a good thing, but its more militant activist proponents attempt to use state power to move people away from religion (which they consider harmful) towards atheism. For them, the goal of secularisation is the total removal of religion. Bird thinks that radical secularisation will probably increase, but that religion will never be stamped out. He doubts that a post-Christian society will retain Christian ethics, as some authors suggest. Neither the French revolution nor the Soviet Union brought us a glorious post-religious age. Instead they brought a new and nasty form of religion.
Bird discusses the history of the ‘new atheism’, which subjects religion to a moral critique. He sees four current areas that evoke digust with religion: terrorism, sex-abuse scandals, opposition to LGBTQI+ rights, and belief in male supremacy. State-driven secularism manifests itself in the removal of religion from the public square and the regulation of religion by the sate (as proposed, for example, by President Macron, targeting French Muslims). In Australia religious schools may soon be regulated in ways that trample on their beliefs.
Part 2 is entitled “Defending religious freedom against its critics”. The epicentre of conflict, Bird writes, is between religious liberty and sexual minorities. He writes at some length about the history of this conflict in the USA, and also mentions the law passed by the legislature of the Australian state of Victoria that makes it illegal to try to change or suppress someone’s sexual identity. The trouble, he says, is that the law is too broad. It is fine to prevent the harmful use of ‘conversion therapy’ or excorcism on adolescents, but foolish to legislate against prayer (!), even when it is requested, or against a psychologist or psychiatrist counselling against the use of puberty blockers for a child.
Exemptions from antidiscrimination laws exist so that bona fide organisations are able to appoint people who adhere to their values and beliefs, but not those who don’t. However, the argument runs that religious schools supported by public funds should not be given the right to discriminate. This harms those who suffer discrimination, who then demand complete equality of inclusion. One proposed compromise is the “inherent requirements” approach, which allows a religious school to discriminate in its appointments if it can show that this is in line with its stated beliefs. But this forces a representative of government or the judiciary to decide what is in line with the institution’s beliefs and who is or is not an adherent of those beliefs. This introduces a conundrum, as a secular government or court must disqualify itself from making decisions about citizens’ beliefs, otherwise it is no longer truly secular.
The purpose of exemptions from antidiscrimination laws is not to discriminate against anyone, but to allow the association of likeminded people around a set of beliefs. Hence political parties and cultural associations also enjoy exemptions. Removing religious exemptions will not make for a more tolerant and open society. It will make religious groups feel they are the victims of discrimination. Bird writes:
Pluralism is, after all, the right to be different without fear of reprisal. But how far can differences go before they unfairly burden others? That is the question we are wrestling with about religion and anti-discrimination laws.
Some impositions by the state on religious groups are reasonable. For example, it could require a religious school to have a fair policy for treatment of LGBTQI+ students; training of staff on inclusion and equality according to current law and best practices; transparent advertising of the school’s religious position and its code of conduct for all staff and students; and mandatory reporting of abuse, harassment, or mistreatment. For their part, school staff should be concerned for the pastoral care of all their students.
Bird holds that religious freedom is not absolute, because other freedoms need to be protected too. For a government to require the wearing of masks at a religious service during a pandemic is legitimate in the interests of public safety. Sometimes, however, religious freedom is claimed to conflict with pseudo-freedoms like the alleged right not to be offended. Public discourse would be impoverished, not enriched, by the removal of religion. Religion is part of a free and open society, and an essential part of a multicultural society.
It is important, Bird reminds his Christian readers, that they treat everyone lovingly. LGBTQI+ rights and liberty of conscience and religion should both to be protected in a diverse and pluralistic society, and we need evenhanded ways of dealing with them when they clash. For Christians, loving others includes allowing them to be different.
Bird calls out both authoritarian ‘progressivism’ on the political left and American “Christian nationalism” on the right as enemies of a tolerant and pluralistic secular democracy. He has strong words to say about both. In contrast to ‘the civil religion of conservatives and the civic totalism of progressives’ Bird commends “confident pluralism.”1 Under this model politics is not the all-powerful instrument of progressivism. Instead, it is the the arena in which the inevitable differences among groups in a pluralistic society can be worked out. Pluralism inevitably leads to differences, and politics is where diversity, tolerance and mutual respect are valued. Every group, however small, has the capacity to contribute to the common good. ‘Democracy cannot thrive by extinguishing unpopular or unfashionable views,’ says Bird.
For me Part 3 is the most riveting chunk of the book. Here Bird asks what response Christians should give when militant secularism attains political power. The response of the American religious right is to take back political power— but this undermines democracy and results in a shallow theocracy.
Parts of the church argue, taking the metaphor of 1 Peter 1:1; 2:11–12, that Christians should see themselves as exiles in an alien culture, but John Goldingay sees this as a refusal to take responsibility for the culture in which we live.2
Conservative journalist Rod Dreher purposes the ‘Benedict option’, reminiscent of monastic withdrawal:3 Christians would live in distinct settlements in their own counterculture, no longer fighting the culture war, but still somehow inhabiting a place in the broader society—but Bird fears that the church would then lose its redemptive and missional dimension.
Another option is known as ’faithful presence’: Christians live “a life of apolitical, quiet piety.” American sociologist James Davison Hunter writes,
He writes, “A theology of faithful presence means a recognition that the vocation of the church is to bear witness to and to be the embodiment of the coming Kingdom of God. To paraphrase St. Paul at the end of his letter to the Galatians, ‘what matters is the new creation’ (Gal. 6:14).”4
The church practices quiet resistance, engaging in
“constructive subversion of all frameworks of social life that are incompatible with the shalom for which we were made and to which we are called.
Bird finds this view admirable, but has lingering doubts. It presupposes a relatively neutral public square—unlikely in a secular state—leaving scant room for prophetic utterance.
Bird’s own proposal is the Thessalonian strategy, named after the events narrated in Acts 17:1–9, when Paul and Silas were accused of “turning the world upside down”.
. . . it involves the subversive project of the church to create a society within a society, resisting secular crusades against peoples of faith and establishing a cathedral of civilization within the existing edifices of public life.
Paul and Silas, in Bird’s metaphor, rock the boat of social cohesion. They do so because Paul sees himself as ambassador for Jesus, the man whom the Romans had crucified for insurrection and God had raised from the dead, and who, Paul declared, brought forgiveness and peace to all people. Paul was creating a network of people who worshipped Jesus as the “Son of God” without the trappings of religion and in assemblies that “ integrated a diverse cast of Jews and Gentiles, men and women, the noble and the common, the slaves and the free, in a way that undermined the stratified tiers of society.”
Further, because Paul preached that Jesus was Lord, his message was incompatible with loyalty to the Emperor. The church did not overturn the Empire by confrontation but by presenting a more compelling worldview, a more attractive lifestyle, and a better reward. In Bird’s words, “The church became an invisible society that soon eclipsed the visible echelons of power.”5
Bird thus advocates a “Christian-sponsored cultural pluralism . . . in which we love our neighbors by allowing them to be other than us.” He writes that the Thessalonian strategy has a two prongs.
“. . . positively, we must champion confident pluralism as a sociopolitical philosophy, demonstrate community in action, love our neighbors, and live in such a way that those who hate us cannot give a reason for their hatred.6 Second, negatively, we must challenge the new legal structures being erected around us, expose the hypocrisies and prejudices of those who claim to be committed to tolerance, confront incursions into religious liberty, and disrupt the secular narrative that religion is bad for social fabric. All in all, we must turn the secularizing world upside down.
We turn it upside down by being a community of loving freedom which by its difference in behaviour exposes the militant secularist ethos and also stands against right-wing civil religion. We must refuse expulsion from the public square. We should treat everyday work as a holy vocation that gives glory to God. We must be “pro-life from womb to tomb” (i.e. not just on abortion), not demonise any minority, and remain dissatisfied with chronic injustices. We need to preach the common core of the Christian message, as set forth, for example, by C.S. Lewis,7 and stop publicising internal differences. We should be clear that religious freedom is for all, not just for Christians, and if necessary we should work with people of other faiths. This is not a denial of Jesus’ statement in John 14:6: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. It is simply part of doing good to others.
Christians need to live by what Scot McKnight calls the ‘Jesus Creed’: love of God and love of neighbour (Matthew 22:37-50; Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:27). First, we need to have a clear position and speak out about the
pressing social concerns of our day pertaining to poverty, racial injustices, affordable health care, justice for the immigrant, compassion for the refugee, defense of dignity of the disabled, and appropriate care for those with serious illnesses.
Second,
following Jesus’ commands, we must treat our adversaries far better than they treat us. We must bless them when they curse us, speak well of them when they spread rumors about us, befriend them when they insult us, compliment them when they get it right, and do all that you can do to help them where possible.
. . . so that even the most militant atheist finds it difficult to hate us. People need to see that Jesus’ way of love is a more humane worldview to live by. Only then can we turn the world upside down.
We should colonise the spaces where government has failed (as all governments do). As far as it can, the church should be an image of the kingdom of God, “called to radiate God’s love into dark places, bringing hope, joy, and peace to those who have none.”
We believe the impossible: the dead shall be raised immortal, God is on the side of the poor rather than the prosperous, God helps those who cannot help themselves, evil doesn’t get the last laugh, and mercy is better than might. We must also live impossible lives, things that don’t make sense, that seem counterintuitive, a reversal of the norms, and even costly. We must therefore live as if God has made the impossible possible—has called us from darkness to light—by resisting the trinkets and temptations around us, and acting as if we really are a kingdom of priests, demonstrating the love of God in Christ to all without question. We must be, as the King James Bible puts it: a peculiar people. If we are going to turn the world upside down, then we must be different to make a difference.
Comment
I agree with almost everything Bird writes and I am drawn to his Thessalonian strategy. The comments that follow briefly here should be read in this context.
Bird writes that we should speak “truth to power that does not want to hear it”. I agree wholeheartedly. But in Australia there seems to be only one man who does this publicly, namely Tim Costello, a Baptist minister whose leadership roles with the charity World Vision Australia from 2003 to 2019 have earned him a wide reputation for his wise outspokenness on behalf of the underprivileged. In England the head of the Anglican Church and his colleagues have spoken truth to power in recent months over the proposed deportation to Rwanda of asylum seekers who had crossed the English Channel by boat,8 about the misbehaviour of members of the UK government during the covid10 pandemic, and about housing policy for the underprivileged. Not having a national church, Australia has no corresponding institution, and it seems that no church has assumed this role—at least, not publicly. This is sad.
Bird finishes the book with a chapter in which he suggests that all western Christians need training in apologetics so that they are prepared to give an account of themselves when the opportunity arises (1 Peter 3:15–16).9 There is at least a strong implication that apologetics equals reasoning, yet Bird himself admits that he was not reasoned into faith. Of course a Christian should be prepared to give an account of her- or himself, but I am not convinced that apologetics is the best basis for this, as I live in a society where so many people abhor the churches and accept the charges brought against Christianity as final that few will listen to a reasoned exposition. Bird’s Thessalonian strategy does not need conventional apologetics. But like Bird, I am with C. S. Lewis, who wrote, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”10 And I resonate with Bird himself when he writes,
I am singularly captivated by Jesus of Nazareth, his story, his teachings, the good news of his death and resurrection, and the promise of salvation through him. It should go without saying that the best thing about Christianity really is Jesus.
- John D. Inazu, Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving through Deep Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016),
- John Goldingay, Four Reflections on Isaiah and Imperial Context, in Isaiahand Imperial Context: The Book of Isaiah in the Times of Empire, ed. Andrew T. Abernethy, Mark G. Brett, Tim Bulkeley, and Tim Meadowcroft (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2013), 211.
- Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (New York: Sentinel, 2017).
- James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 95. See also David Fitch, Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape the Church for Mission (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2016).
- Rodney Stark (The triumph of Christianity, HarperOne 2011) writes that the attraction of early Christianity was that its community members genuinely cared for each other.
- See the anonymous Epistle to Diognetus 5.17 (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/diognetus.html)
- In Mere Christianity (1952).
- Following the Australian example of sending ‘boat people’ to Nauru and to PNG’s Manus Island, a policy of which an Australian can only be ashamed.
- Bird gives an excellent potted history of Christian apologists.
- C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 92.