Archbishop Chaput on American religious liberty, shari’a

March 03, 2011

In an address delivered on March 1 at Georgetown University, Archbishop Charles Chaput reflected on the heritage of religious freedom in the United States, noting that “we’re not acting like we revere that legacy, or want to share it, or even really understand it.”

“The American model of religious liberty is rooted in the thought-world and idea-architecture of the Christian humanist tradition,” he said. “Whatever it becomes in the future, America was born Protestant.” The archbishop added that he was

not saying that our Protestant heritage is uniformly good. Some of the results clearly are good: America’s culture of personal opportunity; respect for the individual; a tradition of religious liberty and freedom of speech; and a reverence for the law. Other effects of Reformation theology have been less happy: radical individualism; revivalist politics; a Calvinist hunger for material success as proof of salvation; an ugly nativist and anti-Catholic streak; a tendency toward intellectual shallowness and disinterest in matters of creed; and a nearly religious, and sometimes dangerous, sense of national destiny and redemptive mission.

“The global situation is made worse by the inaction of our own national leadership in promoting to the world one of America's greatest qualities: religious freedom,” he said later in his address. “This is regrettable because we urgently need an honest discussion on the relationship between Islam and the assumptions of the modern democratic state. In diplomacy and in interreligious dialogue we need to encourage an Islamic public theology that is both faithful to Muslim traditions and also open to liberal norms. Shari'a law is not a solution. Christians living under shari'a uniformly experience it as offensive, discriminatory and a grave violation of their human dignity.”

 

---

For all current news, visit our News home page.

---

 
Further information:

• Archbishop Chaput: Subject to the governor of the universe: The American experience and global religious liberty (Archdiocese of Denver)