Formation for Religious Freedom
In this year of 2026, celebrations of the 250th anniversary of American independence are underway in Washington, D.C., and across the country. Those commemorations kicked off on New Year’s Eve, when the Washington Monument in our capital was illuminated by a light show with images and scenes narrating U.S. history. The light show narrative rightly traced the history of the foundations of the United States to well before 1776. The American experiment in ordered liberty reaches back at least another 150 years before the Declaration of Independence, and the quest for religious freedom plays an important part in the story.
This 400-year history spans four of the five centuries since the Reformation. In 1521, Martin Luther took his stand on Scripture and dissented from Rome at the Diet of Worms. One hundred years later, religious dissenters from the Church of England reached America. In 1620, these Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact with others who did not share their religious views and who had embarked on the voyage with economic motives. Yet together they established a political arrangement that accommodated their differences.[1]
As the years passed, the American colonies established charters and constitutions that allowed for some measure of religious freedom. Catholics in Maryland; Quaker William Penn in Pennsylvania; Roger Williams in Connecticut and Rhode Island. These and others contributed to the development of religious freedom. Progress toward religious freedom was imperfect, to be sure. But the American colonies had a richer vision of religious freedom than their European forebears. Beyond that, the First Great Awakening (1730s to 1740s) contributed to a religious vibrancy that became a part of the American consciousness as the new nation gained independence.
Many of the founders commented on this religious character and how essential they deemed it to be for their efforts to establish a new political order. George Washington called religion and morality “indispensable supports” of the political success of the new nation.[2] Thomas Jefferson wrote that religious people and their institutions should be protected from government interference.[3] John Adams, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin each commented on the importance of religion to American public life and the value of religious freedom.[4]
Fifty years later, a young Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville came to America and made similar observations in his book Democracy in America (1834). He noticed that there was no official national church (and by the time of his visit no states had established churches any longer). At the same time, America had a high level of religious faithfulness and multiple denominations, so citizens could affiliate according to their convictions. Tocqueville saw the importance of religious freedom for education, literacy, public morality, and citizens’ respect for the rule of law. In his view, religion was the guardrail that kept freedom directed toward fruitful ends.
This culture of religious liberty was codified early in the history of the United States. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 created a framework for the fledgling republic remarkably different from those in Europe. This framework assumed a highly religious public with a diversity of religious institutions and practices. It assumed a shared moral worldview and said very little about religion as a result, with the important exception of stating that there would be no religious discrimination for those seeking to serve in public office. At the very top of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights is the guarantee of religious freedom, our “first freedom” as it has been called. The First Amendment ensures that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”[5]
More recent laws have further applied these constitutional guarantees in specific ways. For example, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) spelled out protections for cases in which government action conflicts with individual or corporate free exercise. At its passage, RFRA enjoyed the support of a broad coalition of religious and civil liberties groups, from the Southern Baptists to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Both houses of Congress voted for the legislation nearly unanimously, and President Bill Clinton signed it into law.
From Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan, U.S. presidents have continually reinforced respect for religious freedom and for religious observance among the American people. In 1993, President George H.W. Bush issued a proclamation establishing January 16 as Religious Freedom Day.[6] The date was chosen to commemorate the anniversary of the 1786 enactment of the Virginia Statutes of Religious Freedom, written by Thomas Jefferson. Each president since 1993 has marked Religious Freedom Day on that anniversary with a proclamation.
These presidential proclamations have not only reaffirmed our national commitment to religious liberty. They have also noted how religious faith has been a force for good in our history, from the abolitionist movement to faith-based humanitarian responses to crises. The common assumption of these statements is that religion pervades American society and that expressions of living faith have always shaped America’s civic character.
A Religious Freedom Consensus
These presidential proclamations help us recognize elements of what we can call a religious freedom consensus running through American history.[7] That consensus began to emerge in American culture four centuries ago and came to be reflected in the Constitution and laws of the United States. We can identify three major ideas in this religious freedom consensus. First, humans are innately religious beings. Second, religion contributes to the good of society. Third, government has a duty to protect freedom in this fundamental aspect of human life.
The existence of this enduring consensus suggests the presence of underlying beliefs that have encouraged a culture of religious freedom. This religious freedom consensus has drawn strength from widespread beliefs about the human person and about humanity’s accountability to God and responsibility toward fellow human beings. Broadly held assumptions in culture have historically reinforced religious freedom protections in law.
If robust agreement is to be maintained and meaningfully applied in law and policy, it will need to continue drawing strength from citizens’ religious convictions about human nature and accountability to God. Yet religious beliefs undergirding this liberty have often been more assumed than expressed. Theological accounts of religious freedom are not well known today.
Moreover, policy changes risk hollowing out the consensus in practice. In recent years, challenges to religious liberty have multiplied. For example, officials have issued health care mandates conflicting with religious organizations’ convictions concerning human life and policies undermining faith-based groups’ freedom to operate according to their religious beliefs.
The religious freedom consensus in culture can no longer be taken for granted. Legal scholars and policy groups have recognized the need to revive understanding of fundamental constitutional principles concerning religious freedom in the legal profession and through civic education. For Christians, this situation warrants deeper reflection on religious freedom from a theological perspective.
Christians should take the opportunity to consider such accounts as a matter of stewardship. The French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain helped shape the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that was inspired in part by our founding documents, and which strongly affirms religious freedom. The declaration had to overcome many disputes on its way to adoption due to the conflicting views of those on the drafting committee. After the declaration was completed, Maritain said that “we agree about the rights, but on condition that no one asks us why.”[8]
The same might be said of the current state of the religious freedom consensus. But as Christians, we should be able to say why our convictions affirm religious freedom in culture and law. We should be able to explain how this principle of civil life reflects fundamental truths about human nature and accountability to God. Theological resources can help equip churches, Christian schools, and seminaries to form believers who have that kind of understanding.
A Theological Resource on Religious Freedom
Faith & Freedom: Six Theological Reflections on Religious Liberty is a new collection of essays from respected evangelical theologians who articulate theological accounts of religious freedom from their own distinctive traditions in the American context[1] [2] [3] . The project emerged as religious freedom became more embattled and less understood—even among Christians—in recent years. This became evident in challenges against religious schools seeking to hire employees who shared their faith convictions about belief and conduct, in health care mandates compelling religious non-profits to cover abortifacient contraceptives, and in policies requiring Christian professionals in the creative arts, counseling, and medicine to disregard their convictions with respect to life, sexuality, or marriage.
The contributors to Faith & Freedom are evangelical theologians who regard Scripture as the authoritative Word of God, and the normative source above all others. They represent different traditions: Baptist, Reformed, Lutheran, Wesleyan, and Pentecostal perspectives. One author also writes on religious freedom from the perspective of the black church, given the incongruity of affirming religious freedom while denying basic freedom to black Americans in our nation’s history. These backgrounds shape a range of approaches that the contributors take in articulating a theology of religious freedom.
As each theologian reads Scripture, they also appeal to confessions, doctrine, tradition, reason, prudence and experience—and often combine several of these in their approaches. Writing from the Reformed theological tradition, Scott Redd notes that God requires true and sincere faith that cannot be compelled but can be hindered by compulsion.[9] Jonathan Leeman’s chapter on the Baptist tradition emphasizes believers’ baptism and a conception of the church as constituted by believers as a basis of religious freedom and a critical safeguard against church establishment.[10] In the Pentecostal account, written by Dale Coulter, religious liberty preserves freedom of conscience to pursue one’s own faith convictions and calling, and it protects the church’s role of contributing to the renewal of organizations and institutions in society.[11]
The Lutheran account, written by Joel Biermann and Rick Serina, affirms support for religious liberty on a practical basis as service to one’s neighbor.[12] Brian Ebel offers a Wesleyan perspective on religious freedom, centering it on the idea of human freedom for the purpose of holiness, both inner holiness in relation to God and “social holiness” expressed in neighbor love as protection from coercion.[13] Finally, Vincent Bacote explores the complex intersection of religious freedom and the black church.[14] Basic human freedom itself was the challenge for nearly two centuries of U.S. history under slavery and Jim Crow, which were even supported at times with appeals to Christian beliefs. With this complexity in mind, Bacote focuses on the idea of “enacted religious freedom,” that is, acting in accord with religious faith, with the tacit presumption of the freedom to do so.
These authors have different accents in their accounts of religious freedom. All of them can edify any of us, no matter our own denomination or church background. They also offer us important insights when taken together.
These theologians’ overlapping accounts yield a deeper grounding for the religious freedom consensus. Three insights in particular emerge from this composite. First, human beings are inherently religious because they are created in the image of God to reflect him in fellowship with him. Second, religion contributes to the good of society because the worship of God leads to the love and service of our neighbors. Third, government has a duty to protect freedom in this fundamental aspect of human life because God’s call on us individually and corporately in the church transcends the temporal and beckons us to the ultimate horizon of our existence.
The religious freedom consensus in public life draws strength from Christians who believe and express these convictions in their daily lives. These convictions have been a source of that consensus. Similarly, they are needed as a sustainer for the future of this accord.
With this grounding, what does a robust understanding of religious freedom look like in practice? Religious freedom includes freedom for religious practice in private and in public, for individuals and for institutions like churches, religious schools, faith-based social services, and family-owned businesses. Religious freedom recognizes the religious character of human nature and safeguards it across all dimensions of common life. It limits human jurisdiction over other persons, implicitly deferring to a more fundamental human relation to ultimate divine authority. Positively stated, religious freedom acknowledges that the flourishing of temporal society is deeply related to an aspect of humanity that transcends the temporal.
In this way, the broad religious freedom consensus in our culture at large provides a point of contact to work toward deeper agreement about the character of human nature, the bonds of human community, and the limits of civil government. Christians testifying in word and deed to biblical truths about the image of God, neighbor love, and the fellowship of the church not only reinforce ideas that undergird religious liberty. They also express truths that have implications for much more that is at stake in public life today on issues like abortion, gender confusion, physician-assisted suicide, and poverty. Upholding the image of God, loving our neighbors, and exhibiting true community will commit us both to speak clearly and to act boldly and creatively to address these contemporary challenges. In doing so, we follow the example of a great heritage of Christians through the centuries who have acted with clarity and courage as they faced the challenges of their own generation.
Formation for Religious Freedom
Multiple confessional voices harmonizing around religious freedom reflects the character of the International Alliance for Christian Education (IACE). IACE is a coalition that includes a range of theological traditions and confessions.[15] Our doctrinal perspectives and church traditions are distinct. But they are also overlapping, and that allows us to work together in areas of convictional consensus, for the good of our schools, our communities at large, and our country as a whole.
This approach is certainly relevant to the issue of religious freedom. The theological accounts assembled in Faith & Freedom invite Christian educators to consider the articulation and formation around religious freedom in their own community. What resources are available to form community members in their understanding of religious freedom from a theological perspective? What more might need to be developed?
Religious freedom formation should be a particular priority for Christian education. Christian educators have a significant role in forming students who will sustain a culture of religious freedom. Teaching about religious liberty is important for the sake of Christian schools’ stewardship of their mission, their goal of faith-life integration, their confessional clarity, and the love of neighbor that they seek to exhibit and to instill in their students.
Religious freedom instruction is an element of Christian schools’ stewardship of their mission. Religious education has enjoyed great freedom in the United States. With freedom comes responsibility to maintain it well, and that responsibility requires knowledge. Christian schools should cultivate an understanding of religious liberty among board members, administration, faculty, and students. This effort is an investment that safeguards institutional freedom for Christian education in the future.
Educating students about religious freedom helps them deepen their understanding of what it means to integrate their faith in all of life. Students will encounter strong cultural currents that run counter to the idea of faith-life integration. Modern secularism defines human flourishing without reference to the transcendent and insists that religion is and ought to be private. By contrast, Christian education considers all reality in relation to God as he has made himself known in Scripture, creation, and in the person of Jesus Christ. Christian pedagogy inculcates faith-life integration not only in curriculum, but in students’ future callings. Recent religious liberty flashpoints have emerged at just this latter point. Christians seeking to pursue their vocations in creative or caring professions consistent with a biblical understanding of life and marriage have been challenged on the basis of a privatized view of religion. Robust religious freedom, on the other hand, is consistent with the conception of vocational faith-life integration that Christian education seeks to impart.
Religious freedom education can also hone confessional clarity that serves the common good. This begins with students growing in understanding of their confessional tradition and how it speaks to issues of public life. As they expand their capacity to articulate their theological presuppositions, they are better equipped to discuss these convictions with those who do not share their views. Public discourse is enhanced when we can speak clearly about our beliefs and reason well with those who hold other views.
Reflecting on religious freedom also encourages the Christian love of neighbor. Commending religious freedom contributes to a culture that recognizes the transcendent longings in every human heart. It fosters the conditions in which that deepest hunger can be identified and the truth can be openly expressed in response. Moreover, ministries motivated by faith to serve their neighbors’ needs flourish in this environment.
Conclusion
Religious liberty is not the only contemporary cultural issue that calls for deeper theological reflection. We need similar scholarship on other issues, especially around what it means to be human. John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, highlights four questions that all Christians should ask in their own context to discern what God is calling them to do in this cultural moment. [16]
What is good that I can celebrate and protect?
What is missing that I can create and contribute to?
What is evil that I need to resist and oppose?
What is broken that I can help renew and restore?
Each of us needs to answer these questions in our own situation wherever God has placed us. But in order to do that well, we also need the help of other Christians to assist us in understanding our times in light of God’s Word and his work in the world. Among other things, we need the insights of Christian thinkers who can help us make sense of the changing cultural dynamics of our moment and how to live faithfully in the midst of them.
Christian education has an important role to play. We need Christian scholars to address gaps in our reflection on contemporary challenges and emerging issues so that believers can think more deeply and theologically about them. We need formation to be shaped more fully in conformity to Christ so that we can live well as Christians in our time and place. The challenges of this generation and beyond call for the contributions of Christian education to respond to these needs today.
This article has been adapted from a plenary address originally delivered at the 2026 IACE Annual Conference.
Notes:
{1] Some material in this article is adapted from the introduction to Eric Patterson and Jennifer Patterson, eds, Faith & Freedom: Six Theological Reflections on Religious Liberty (B&H Academic, 2026). The book is the fourth volume in the International Alliance for Christian Education series, published in partnership with B&H Academic.
[2] George Washington, “1796 Farewell Address,” The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp.
[3] For example, see Jefferson’s 1786 “Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom,” Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, https://www.monticello.org/encyclopedia/virginia-statute-religious-freedom, and his “Letter to the Danbury Baptists,” (January 1, 1802), Teaching American History, https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-to-the-danbury-baptist-association/.
[4] For an introduction to the Founding Fathers’ views of religious freedom and the value of religion in American public life, see Mark David Hall, Did America Have a Christian Founding? Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth (Thomas Nelson, 2020).
[5] The full text of the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” See U.S. Constitution, Amendment I, Constitution Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/.
[6] President George H.W. Bush, “Proclamation 6514—Religious Freedom Day, 1993,” (December 9, 1992), The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-6514-religious-freedom-day-1993.
[7] See Patterson and Patterson, Faith & Freedom, 2–3.
[8] Jacques Maritain, “Introduction,” in Human Rights Comments and Interpretations, ed. UNESCO (Allan Wingate, 1949), 9. Emphasis in original.
[9] John S. Redd Jr., “Religious Freedom in the Reformed Tradition,” in Faith & Freedom, 23–46.
[10] Jonathan Leeman, “Religious Freedom in the Baptist Tradition,” in Faith & Freedom, 47–73.
[11] Dale M. Coulter, “Religious Freedom in the Pentecostal Tradition,” in Faith & Freedom, 75–95.
[12] Joel Biermann and Richard J. Serina Jr., “Religious Freedom in the Lutheran Tradition,” in Faith & Freedom, 97–132.
[13] Bryan Ebel, “Religious Freedom in the Wesleyan-Methodist Tradition,” in Faith & Freedom, 133–60.
[14] Vincent Bacote, “‘Black Church’ and the Conundrum of Religious Freedom,” in Faith & Freedom, 161–74.
[15] According to the “Mission and Vision” webpage at the International Alliance for Christian Education’s website, “IACE’s mission is to unify, synergize, and strengthen collective conviction around biblical orthodoxy and orthopraxy, cultural witness, scholarship, professional excellence, and resourcing of Christian education at all levels.” See https://iace.education/mission.
[16] See John Stonestreet and Warren Cole Smith, Restoring All Things: God’s Audacious Plan to Change the World through Everyday People (Baker, 2015), 25–26.
Jennifer Patterson
Executive Director of the Institute for Christian Anthropology | Colson Center for Christian Worldview