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Losing Our Religion -- By: Kathryn Jean Lopez

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Even with its centuries-old roots throughout the continent, is Christianity history in the West?

In a speech at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., the visiting archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, warned that ?trends questioning the Christian foundation of Europe, and aggressively opposing it, are becoming stronger in several countries and in the European political arena in general.?

He explained that ?Christianity is for many a foreign element in a world determined by reason, Enlightenment and democratic principles.? He contends that ?this Europe, and the Western world as a whole, will not survive without the foreignness Christianity brings. In other words: Europe can only play its role in the concert of world cultures when it retains Christianity, this foreign body, as a part of its identity.?

Almost simultaneously across the pond, the British seemed to get the message, putting aside negotiations that would have placed unprecedented restrictions on religious freedom in the name of a faux freedom. Mandates proposed by the so-called ?equality bill? would have removed existing exemptions for religious organizations regarding whom they can employ and to whom they must provide services. Catholic officials in Britain believed that the legislation would force them to ordain women to the priesthood -- both an untenable position for the Church and one that the government certainly had no business forcing them into.

The bill was referred to as ?an existential threat? to Christian churches in Europe. Sir Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi in England, said: ?When Christians, Jews, and others feel that the ideology of human rights is threatening their freedoms of association and religious practice, a tension is set in motion that is not healthy for society, freedom, or Britain.?

Britain appears to have put a stop to this -- for now. It probably helped that lawmakers were shepherded by the pope himself: During a gathering of bishops from England and Wales in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI heralded Britain?s ?firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society.? But he had critical words for the pending legislation. ?The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs,? he said. ?In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed.?

Demonstrating his familiarity with the tyranny of not-so-tolerant tolerance, the Holy Father proclaims that ?fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others -- on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth.? He reminded the bishops there that their participation in the debate is in the best ?traditions? of Britain -- ?freedom of expression and honest exchange of opinion? while ?giving voice to the convictions of many people who lack the means to express them: when so many of the population claim to be Christian, how could anyone dispute the Gospel?s right to be heard??

The attitudes expressed in the bill are not foreign to us here in America. Pres. Barack Obama?s nominee for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a Georgetown University professor named Chai Feldblum, wrote in 2006 that ?just as we do not tolerate private racial beliefs that adversely affect African-Americans in the commercial arena, even if such beliefs are based on religious views, we should similarly not tolerate private beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity that adversely affect LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] people.? Feldblum believes that there is a ?zero-sum game? being played between religious freedom and the homosexual activists, in which ?a gain for one side necessarily entails a corresponding loss for the other side.? Religious liberty, in Feldblum?s estimation, must give.

This conversation about religious liberty, homosexuality, and rights will be a prominent one this term as the U.S. Supreme Court takes up Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, in which it will decide whether religious groups on college campuses must be open to members and leaders who do not share their beliefs. The Court will decide, in other words, whether we?re still free to associate or not.

Religious liberty and LGBT activists simply shouldn?t be at odds. Christian churches don?t seek to eliminate LGBT groups, and LGBT groups needn?t threaten the existence of religious congregations that can?t in their moral consciences do as that British equality law -- and some laws we?ve seen proposed in the United States (and even passed by the U.S. Senate!) -- would have them do.

As David French, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, which specializes in religious-liberty litigation, recently put it: ?If your idea of law is that it is an instrument of domination and exclusion, then, yes, legal disputes between ideological opposites are ?zero-sum games.? But if your idea of the Constitution is that it protects the fundamental liberties of all citizens (which happens to be the way the document is written), then -- quite literally -- everyone wins when those liberties are vindicated.?

Christianity will be history if we cut ourselves off from our roots -- moral, yes, but legal, ethical, and political, too. And while more of us need to have a heightened awareness that this threat exists throughout the West -- mercifully, it?s not only a pope and a cardinal and even a rabbi who get that.

-- Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com. Copyright 2010, Kathryn Jean Lopez. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on February 08, 2010 (boomark / email).