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As religious persecution continues to increase, the U.S. must reiterate the principles of religious freedom and tolerance — not just for the world’s sake but also for its own.
Last week, 113 religious freedom advocates and groups sent a letter to Senate leadership urging the adoption of Senate Resolution 569, which calls for a strong commitment to religious freedom worldwide.
The signatories, who include a wide range of international organizations and religions, addressed their concerns to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as well as the heads of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“S. Res. 569 paints an accurate and disturbing portrayal of the religious freedom situation in too many countries,” the letter states. “Because of that situation, the resolution’s policy recommendations are vital: promoting religious freedom as an ‘utmost priority’ in U.S. foreign policy, holding violators accountable using all available diplomatic and sanctions tools, working with global partners, and expanding support for leaders and activists working to protect religious freedom worldwide.”
Senate Resolution 569, sponsored by Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., James Lankford, R-Okla., Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., lays out numerous gross violations of religious liberty around the world. In light of these atrocities, the resolution resolves that the Senate:
The resolution, if passed, would urge the State Department to:
The religious freedom advocates noted that the proposed solutions would go a long way toward advancing religious freedom, saying,
“These recommendations, if followed, would continue and extend the U.S.’s leading role in promoting international religious freedom, expand the coalition of partners so that better outcomes can be achieved, and create a greater space for religious freedom to thrive and grow on the ground where severe violations are currently happening. We view these recommendations as absolutely essential for the protection and promotion of religious freedom worldwide.”
Sean Nelson, Legal Counsel for Global Religious Freedom for ADF International (one of the organizations that signed the letter), stated,
“There has never been a more critical time to protect religious freedom. Across the globe, we are seeing the rights of people of faith regularly and grievously violated. We are grateful to the members of the U.S. Congress who have proposed this vital legislation, and we are hopeful that U.S. influence on this important matter will encourage much needed change throughout the world. No person should be punished or persecuted for their faith, and we pray for the day when all can worship and live out their faith freely.”
Religious freedom is under attack around the globe. This resolution will help because it recognizes the horrific realities experienced by various people of a number of different religions worldwide. It also reaffirms the American ideal that religious freedom is a chief and fundamental right.
Importantly, the resolution notes that in numerous nations, people are persecuted simply for their beliefs.
It specifically acknowledges the horrors in Nigeria, the nation where 90 percent of the world’s martyrs were located in 2023, and India, which has codified religious persecution through such state actions as anti-conversion laws that target Christians and religious minorities. Despite all of this, the State Department has continually left both of these nations off of its Countries of Particular Concern watchlist of religious freedom violators.
These exclusions have shocked and baffled religious freedom advocates as Nigeria and India are two of the globe’s worst violators of religious freedom. The State Department has taken the position that the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria is due to land disputes resulting from climate change. It is exceedingly clear that the violence is not because of climate change but seems to be largely motivated by animus towards other religious beliefs.
The resolution quotes Founding Father and later President James Madison, who said that freedom of religion is “precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”
The violations of religious liberty in nations such as China, Nigeria, India, Azerbaijan, and more are appalling and far greater than what any person in the West can truly understand. Yet the decline in the veneration of religious freedom in the West is leading to a world in which people can’t even pray silently on public sidewalks in the U.K., pastors are jailed in Canada for opening their churches, and bakers in America spend over a decade in court because they don’t want to be forced to make a cake celebrating homosexual weddings or gender transitions.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice weaponizes laws against 87-year-old communist concentration camp survivors for praying in the hallway of an abortion clinic.
America must renew its commitment to religious liberty globally and in our own country. It is our duty and our charter, what our nation was founded on. As George Washington, our nation’s first President, wrote,
“no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution—For you, doubtless, remember that I have often expressed my sentiment, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.”
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