Religious Freedom Day
January 17th, 2008By Presidential proclamation, January 16 was Religious Freedom Day.
Religious Freedom Day
Each year, the President declares January 16th to be Religious Freedom Day, and calls upon Americans to “observe this day through appropriate events and activities in homes, schools, and places of worship.” The day is the anniversary of the passage, in 1786, of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.The goal of ReligiousFreedomDay.com is to promote and protect students’ religious expression rights by informing educators, parents, and students about these liberties.
The Religious Freedom Day Organization offers a downloadable guidebook for students, educators, and administrators. According to the guidebook, “Religious Freedom Day is not ‘celebrate-our-diversity day.’ Freedom means the freedom to respectfully disagree. Freedom Day is first and foremost a time to acknowledge one of our most important civil liberties. Schools that promote students freedom of religious expression are not promoting religion but are promoting civil liberties. The main message students need to hear is that they should not feel inhibited to express their beliefs at school.”
http://religiousfreedomday.com/images/RFD_Guidebook.pdf
That sounds fair enough. But it ignores a fundamental difference between Christianity and Paganism. Jesus send his disciples out into the world to spread “the Good News.” For too many Christians it is their mission statement. Pagans eschew proselytizing So Christians feel free to inundate Christians and non-Christians alike with religious messages. There is never an inappropriate time to spam us with “Good News.” Ironically yesterday morning when I was doing the most prosaic data entry, I opened the warranty card for a television manufacturer, and out popped one of those little tracts. This one was not one of the noxious ones. Entitled “Road Map to Heaven” it asks “Who has sinned?” What is the penalty for sin?” yada, yada… Nothing like the noxious one that was handed to me in the hospital many years ago when my mother was dying of cancer. That was one of the little comic book tracts about teenagers dying suddenly in a highway accident and finding their unprepared souls in Hell. Though it would be another decade before I found my path as a Pagan, that evil little book was probably the straw that broke my last, tentative link to Christianity.
I pitched “Road to Heaven” in the trash. And then I pulled it out. As so many members of the Christian Right have pointed out, freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from religion. Even in the privacy of my own little cubical, I am not free from unwanted Christian proselytizing. We are constantly bombarded with messages from the religious majority. Most we can ignore, but when non-Christians bark back, “Sit down, shut up, back off,” then Christians feel persecuted. After all they are just following their mission statement.
Then there is the other side of this mission run amok. Because Christians are–well, cursed–with this need to foist their religion upon the world, they are convinced that other religions are intent upon foisting THEIR beliefs upon Christians. Particularly upon innocent Christian children. So we have endless warnings about Harry Potter or The Golden Compass leading children to Witchcraft or Atheism. I have come to the conclusion that Christians are so anxious about their children because their mission statement compels them to steal the souls of OTHER PEOPLE’S Children.
Many years ago when my nieces and nephews were young, I was invited to go to church with them. One of them was participating in a religious program. Their little piece was just a side bar to the main attraction at that Sunday’s service. Two missionaries had just returned from a glorious mission in Africa. They had gone to an African village where–horror of horrors–the adult Christian congregation believed in adult baptism. This Central Illinois church applauded and praised their God as the missionaries told how they had thrown a party for the children of this little village, played games, and given them presents, and then baptized them all. When Christian denominations are willing to cannibalize the congregations of other denominations, it’s no wonder that they are convinced that non-Christians are eager to gobble up little Christian boys and girls.
These evangelists can’t believe that Pagans, as a rule, are NOT interested in proselytizing. That most flavors of Paganism are only open to adults. That children of Pagans may or may not be trained in Pagan beliefs. That children of Pagans are free to seek other paths. That children of non-Pagans are NOT recruited. That children of non-Christians are NOT considered for religious training until they are sixteen or eighteen years old. That younger children are NOT accepted unless they have permission from their parents. Evangelists can’t believe that Pagans do not have mixed emotions about the commercialization of their beliefs by toy companies, book publishers, and film and television producers. Like any minority we like to see ourselves represented in popular culture, but we do NOT have a MESSAGE to broadcast to a non-believing world.
So, on Religious Freedom Day let’s put the “civil” in civil rights. And let’s remember another of Jesus’s commandments: Do unto others as you would have others do onto you.”
