In my last post, I discussed the issue of vaccine hesitancy and the appeal to religious liberty made by many who oppose vaccination.  Now that the federal government, corporations, school boards and a variety of other American institutions are finding it necessary to impose vaccine and/or mask mandates, opponents of such policies are, more than ever, expressing their anger about what they see as violations of their religious liberty.

In my previous article, I focused on the fact that established Christian authorities did not see any credible religious justification for opposition to vaccines.  But in addition, many Christians who value their religious freedoms are now afraid that frivolous appeals to religious liberty and insincere requests for religious exemptions will, in the long term, be damaging to more legitimate claims.  This concern is expressed by people with respectable credentials as defenders of religious liberty.

Early in 2020, when some churches were refusing to comply with bans on large gatherings, experts were already warning that such defiance could hurt the cause of religious liberty.  The case was made in an article published on April 9, 2020 by Daniel Silliman in Christianity Today, titled A Few Churches Are Defying Bans on Large Gatherings.  That Could be Bad for Religious Liberty.  The article had a subtitle: Experts warn that grandstanding will make it harder to defend against real threats.

Silliman started his article by noting that 93% of churches were compliant with the bans.  He then related the concerns expressed by an expert, Luke Goodrich, who is a senior counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty:

“We have to be able to distinguish between real threats and mere shadows. Stoking conflict and grandstanding about things that aren’t real threats isn’t helpful. It’s like crying wolf. It deadens society to the real religious conflicts that are at hand.”

Goodrich, who has solid religious liberty credentials, added:

“Legally, the issues are not that complex.  Every constitutional right has limits, and the right of religious freedom doesn’t mean you can harm your neighbors.”

Silliman then proceeded to explain the basic issue at hand:

“The law varies from state to state, but even the strongest protections of religious practice allow for some restrictions. If the government isn’t targeting religious groups, has a legitimate reason for the law, and doesn’t impose a heavier burden than it has to, then it can restrict people’s right to practice their faith.

Stopping a pandemic is a clear government interest, and public officials around the globe have warned that churches can be hot spots for the spread of COVID-19. Major outbreaks in South Korea and France have been traced back to church meetings. And in the United States, they’ve been linked to a choir practice in Washington state, a Pentecostal church in California, and church funerals in Georgia.”

Opponents of the bans, on the other hand, questioned their constitutionality.  They argued that governments were setting a “dangerous precedent” that could easily lead to more restrictions.  Silliman quotes an attorney who represented three churches in Texas that filed a lawsuit: “If the government can shut down churches because of the coronavirus, what’s to say it won’t shut down churches during flu season?”

Another objection they raised is that the bans usually allowed for exemptions for essential services, and they questioned government authority in defining what is essential.  Here, Silliman quotes an attorney representing a pastor of a charismatic church in Florida, who had been arrested for holding services that allegedly violated a county stay-at-home order:

“They shut the churches and leave open the hardware store, where people can buy potted plants and hoses.  Those are essential, but a church that functions beyond its walls and can’t be contained in an online service isn’t essential? That’s a problem. When literally one person, a governor or a county commissioner, can shut down a church by just using the word ‘essential,’ that’s a problem.”

According to Silliman, experts who have dedicated themselves to the cause of religious liberty were unpersuaded by such arguments.   They felt that stay-at home orders were generally honest attempts to control the pandemic and they had no concerns about the long-term impact of the orders.  Instead, they were concerned that a few outliers might tarnish the image of Christian churches.  Silliman quotes Travis Wussow, vice president for public policy at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, who says:

“As a Christian, I am concerned when people of faith are seen as being more about power and publicity than loving their neighbors. It can harden people against the gospel.”

This concern was expressed more forcefully recently by Daniel Bennett who published an article on October 8, 2021, in Christianity Today.  The article is titled Don’t Let Religious Liberty Claims Mask Bad Faith Arguments.  Bennett addresses the issue of religious exemptions and has the following subtitle to his article: Inconsistent and insincere appeals for exemptions to public health rules are undermining important freedoms.

Bennett is an associate professor of political science at John Brown University, where he is an assistant director of the Center for Faith and Flourishing. He is also president of Christians in Political Science.  He declares his deep commitment to the cause of religious liberty at the very beginning of his article:

“If you believe in religious liberty only when it’s good for society, then you really don’t believe in it. A sincere commitment to religious liberty requires support for exemptions that allow people to do things you might disagree with, whether that’s Mennonites refusing to serve in the military, Catholics declining to work with same-sex foster parents, or Native Americans doing drugs.”

His commitment to religious liberty is precisely the reason why he is concerned about unjustified pursuits of exemptions:

“Religious liberty is too important to let it get misused. It’s not a waiver to avoid all inconveniences in life or, worse, a tool to make political statements. For religious liberty to survive political and legal scrutiny in the future, we must safeguard exemptions against abuse. We can’t let appeals to shared faith or shared ‘enemies’ mask bad faith arguments that undermine our religious liberty.”

Bennett has no fundamental objection to the use of mandates to fight a pandemic, as long as they are applied consistently:

“In the earliest days of the pandemic, state and local governments scrambled to find ways to slow the spread of COVID-19 and limit its impact on society. They enacted various regulations, including mask mandates and limitations on group gatherings. These usually applied to both public and private spaces, including government buildings, concert halls, businesses, and, yes, churches.”

However, he recognizes that churches, in some cases, were not treated fairly and were justified in pushing back:

“Some of these rules violated constitutional protections of religious liberty because they were not applied consistently across different contexts. Officials in the nation’s capital ignored limits on outdoor gatherings for protests but not for church services, and Nevada’s policies treated churches and casinos markedly differently in setting indoor attendance limits.

In these instances, some churches pushed back—and rightly so. They took their cases to court and won. But they were not asking for a special accommodation because the public health mandates were inconvenient. They demanded the policies be consistently applied.”

In the above cases, the public health mandates were applied inconsistently.  Bennett’s concern is about cases in which the plaintiffs are the ones acting inconsistently.  For that he provides the following examples:

• During the summer, in Colorado, Resurrection Christian School refused to comply with mandates regarding wearing masks and social distancing and decided to defer to parental authority. Last year, the school required students to wear masks according to health rules.  What changed?
• In Pennsylvania, some Christian parents whose children attended a public school claimed that covering their children’s faces was a violation of their deeply held convictions. However, as pointed out by the court, the parents had no objection to their children wearing masks during sports activities and other activities such as Halloween.

Bennett clearly thinks many plaintiffs are driven by politics rather than religious convictions.  He says:

“Being fed up with government policies, while certainly common, is not the same thing as sincere religious opposition. It’s not too much to ask for consistency. Those who want exemptions to do things that the majority of the country think are bad need to be able to demonstrate their sincerity.”

As an example of fraudulent behavior, he provides an example from the state of Vermont, where children are required to be vaccinated before attending public schools:

“Before 2016, just one out of every 200 kindergartners received a religious exemption. That year, the state decided that exemptions for personal, nonreligious reasons would no longer be allowed. Then one out of every 25 students’ parents claimed a religious objection to vaccinations.

It’s possible that Vermonters suddenly found religion, but the more likely explanation is that some parents’ religious opposition to vaccines was not entirely sincere. There’s no way to know what role Christians played in this instance, of course. Nevertheless, we must guard against the temptation to use our faith as a kind of hall pass to avoid the burdens of dealing with new and emerging cultural challenges.”

Bennett has also, apparently, observed that some opponents of mandates seek exemptions as a “knee-jerk reaction” to “own” their opponents.  As a defender of religious liberty, he advocates for a balanced approach and reminds his Christian audience of scriptures that urge believers to respect authorities:

“As the first freedom listed in the First Amendment, religion is a privileged concept in America. Government must tread carefully when its actions burden people’s sincerely held beliefs. At the same time, Christians should be judicious about claiming religious exemptions to generally applicable rules. Romans 13:1 tells Christians to ‘be subject to the governing authorities,’ and 1 Peter commands, ‘Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority’ (2:13). And while this does not require blind obedience in the face of clear injustices, it’s surely not license to make an exception for ourselves every time we disagree with something the government does.”