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The ability to seek the truth about God and live according to our beliefs has been an essential part of American order from the beginning. No other nation has such robust protection of religious freedom. It didn’t start perfectly, nor is it perfect today, but James Madison described it as an inalienable right. The Declaration of Independence recognizes these rights as endowed by the Creator. The Constitution and other legal protections reflect the importance of religious freedom to America.
This freedom to live according to vastly different religious beliefs has allowed men and women of different faiths to live, work, learn, and worship peacefully side by side. This is the way that we see it now. But in class, we have been talking about the reformers and how things were early on because this concept of religious freedom is not something that came without blood, sweat, and tears.
If Martin Luther or the other reformers were among us today with their sixteenth-century viewpoint intact, they would be shocked that many look to them as a force that helped to create a society that gives freedom to all manner of religions, sects, heretics, and “nones.”
Like other leaders of the Reformation, he wasn’t concerned with religious liberty, he was attempting to get his own version of Christianity accepted as the “true” religion. He wouldn’t have thought of tolerating heretics and infidels. As we’ve seen in England and all over Europe, there was a terrible conflict between these new Protestant sects and Catholicism.
For over a century after Luther launched the Reformation, there was open warfare between different versions of Christianity. Even after the fighting stopped people continued to be imprisoned, tortured and sometimes executed over their religious beliefs and practices. It would be nearly two centuries before any kind of established religious freedom would be recognized in the American colonies.
Here’s the question: “If the result of the Reformation was more oppression, then how did religious freedom come about?
This is a big question, and there are a lot of opinions out there. I’d love to hear what you think. But I’ll give a reason that seem obvious to me.
Tolerance and Freedom Worked
Consider having spent your whole life looking over your shoulder due to your religious beliefs, and then finding yourself in one of the early hopes of freedom and tolerance such as the Netherlands or the colonies of Pennsylvania or Rhode Island. Imagine the sense of relief that the new arrivals must have felt.
Those that advocated religious persecution claimed that they were protecting society from the chaos that would happen if people could follow their own consciences. The kind of chaos that we see at the end of the book of Judges when “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” But as the early outposts of religious freedom proved to be at least as politically stable as anywhere else, people had to ask themselves what was to be gained by imprisoning, torturing or executing people just for having different opinions?
Finally, while people such as Luther and other early reformers demonstrated the courage to stand up for their ideas, other people also demonstrated the quiet courage that is necessary to allow people to go unmolested while promoting radically different views. This form of courage was exemplified by such people as Roger Williams and William Penn, the founders of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania respectively, who intended their colonies to be sanctuaries for the liberty of conscience. Upholding the rights of others is as vital to a free society as Luther’s determination to stand up for his own beliefs.
For this and many other reasons, religious freedom became increasingly popular, part of the Constitution of the United States, enshrined in the basic laws of many other nations and a part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by most countries.
Let me know what religious freedom means to you. What other reasons can you think of that religious tolerance and freedom began to spread?
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1) to me religious freedom is the ability to practice whatever religion i chose and not be persecuted because of it. 2) i think that religous tolerence began to spread because there became more “nones”. i think that the “nones” wold say you can practice whatever religion you want. the more nones you have the more tolerance the governmant will have.
I didn’t know that Martin Luther and the other Reformers just wanted their beliefs to be a real religion.
Also religious freedom to me means you can believe whatever you want and not be put down. When America and Britain became different countries, it probably helped the religious freedom spread.
To me, religious freedom means, “the ability to choose your religion.” I think that everyone should have this ability and that no one should be allowed to prevent them from making that choice. Everyone should be free to choose their religion.
1) Religious Freedom, to me, means that everyone can practice their own religion without any judgment or persecution.
2) I think that after the reformation, people wanted to believe what the reformers had taught without anyone persecuting them for it and they wanted to have freedom to believe what they wanted and they understood that to believe without persecution means that you need to tolerate what others believe as well.
1) To me, religious freedom means you can pick your own religion without the pressure or persecution saying you made the wrong choice.
2) I think people finally learned that when they persecuted people the religion just grew stronger.
for your question i believe that the oppression would show what their really like and will prove that they deserve to have religious freedom.
religious freedom means you can pick your own religion. so i think they should have been able to pick their religion
I think it is you can pick your own religion
I didnt know you could pick your religion back then, i thought depending where you were born you were forced to be a certain religion
It’s so messed up how they got tortured and killed over their religion people should be able to choose their own religion and what they believe in
To me religious freedom is the ability to believe what you want to believe and act on it. even if a religion is enforced some people will still believe in their religion even though specific actions are prohibited
And I believe America did set a great example of religious freedom when it was formed and that could have rubbed off on the outside world