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Religious Freedom Toolkit

Part III | Expanded Analysis

Category G | Extrinsic Benefits

Topic 38 | Religious freedom as a tool for peacemaking

While peace and peacemaking are central concepts in most religions, religion and religious freedom are often viewed as a major source of contention, conflict, and even violence. However, studies belie that perception, showing that high levels of religious freedom actually defuse religious violence and foster peaceful societies. Moreover, religious individuals and organizations are uniquely positioned to contribute to peacemaking and peacebuilding processes.

Religious freedom and social stability  

Authoritarian regimes often severely restrict religious freedom based on assertions that religious pluralism undermines national security, destabilizes society, and jeopardizes peace.1036 Even many people in democracies perceive manifestations of religious pluralism as a hindrance to national unity and community harmony, at best.

However, in A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) John Locke famously argued that religious “oppression” or coercion by the state results only in outward hypocrisy and social unrest. Conversely, religious pluralism born of religious “toleration” or freedom fosters social stability. Locke observed that a ruler who provides equal civil privileges to adherents of majority and minority religions alike promotes social stability:

"Just and moderate governments are everywhere quiet, everywhere safe; but oppression raises ferments and makes men struggle to cast off an uneasy and tyrannical yoke.
. . . [H]ow much greater will be the security of government where all good subjects, of whatsoever Church they be, without any distinction upon account of religion, enjoying the same favor of the prince and the same benefit of the laws, shall become the common support and guard of it . . . ."1037

Recent studies have confirmed Locke’s seventeenth-century theory that religious tolerance, freedom, and pluralism are catalysts for peace.

In their study of 143 countries, sociologists Brian Grim and Roger Finke found evidence of a religious-violence cycle: social hostility toward religion leads to government restrictions on religious freedom, which leads to increased religion-related violence, which leads to increased social hostility toward religion—thus perpetuating the cycle.1038 Religious historian Philip Jenkins explains that social hostility and government persecution force religious organizations underground—into a sphere with less “light” and more “heat.”1039 This secret underground environment is conducive to the cultivation of anti-government, anti-social, and even violent ideologies that can threaten social peace and stability.1040 A 2005 study, for example, showed that 68% of identified “religious terrorist” groups operated in “partly free” or “not free” countries.1041

Studies convincingly demonstrate that an opposite, virtuous cycle occurs when government restrictions on religion are reduced. Less government restriction “remov[es] grievances religious groups have toward[] governments and their fellow citizens.”1042 This, in turn, reduces religion-related violence, leading to reduced social hostilities and greater social stability and peace.1043

Religious Freedom and the Work of Peacemaking and Peacebuilding  

Religious freedom not only creates peace through social stability; it also fosters an environment where religious individuals and groups can contribute to the work of peacemaking (i.e., resolving conflicts) and peacebuilding (i.e., implementing measures to sustain peace). Below is a summarized sampling of research compiled by law and religion scholar Elizabeth A. Clark and others on just some of the roles religious actors have played, and can play, in peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts:

  • Facilitating and leading nonviolent political movements. “Of more than 180 nonviolent campaigns for major political change since World War II, a majority have involved religion in some way.”1044
  • Promoting democracy. “In a study of seventy-eight democratic movements, forty-eight involved religious leaders and organizations exercising important influence. In thirty of these, religious actors played a leading role, while in eighteen, religious actors played a supporting role.”1045
  • Mediating ends to conflicts, including violent conflicts. In a study of the mediation of peace agreements to civil wars (with mediations taking place between 1989 and 2005), 11 were identified as involving “strong” mediation by religious actors.1046 One notable example is the 1992 Mozambique peace agreement negotiated by the Community of Sant’Egidio (a lay community of the Catholic Church), which ended a 16-year civil war that had cost more than 1.6 million lives.1047
  • Contributing to transitional justice processes. “In a study of nineteen cases of transitional regimes over thirty years, eight cases involved religious influence on the transitional regime, such as helping establish truth and reconciliation commissions. One study, specifically looking at ten truth commissions, has shown that religious actors were involved in eight out of ten of these truth commissions.”1048
  • Providing social services that contribute to social stability and peace. For example, religious individuals and institutions provide religion-based programs for U.S. prison inmates that significantly reduce recidivism.1049
  • Encouraging racial tolerance. “Religious engagement in the [United States] and elsewhere has been generally correlated with greater racial tolerance.”1050
  • Encouraging political moderation: Similarly, religious engagement in the United States has been shown to encourage political moderation (as opposed to political extremism),1051 thus helping establish a moderate base where compromise on seemingly intransigent political issues is more likely.

Law professor Daniel Philpott and his colleagues1052 have identified three key qualities possessed by religious institutions and leaders that facilitate such peacemaking and peacebuilding work. All are, to some degree, outgrowths of religious freedom:

First, is institutional independence—that is, “freedom of religious authority from the state [and other political entities] in its activities, leadership, finances, and other matters.”1053 For example, in the study of religious mediation cited above, strong religious mediators enjoyed “a position of independence from the state that allowed them to earn the trust of both sides of the negotiation.”

Second, is leadership—that is, religious leaders who have a “deeply rooted conviction for peace and justice,” are positioned “to set a course,” and “possess[] the abilities to gain followership for it.”1054 Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for example, played this type of leadership role as chair of South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission.1055

Third, are the religious ideals that religious actors hold regarding human relationships, peace, and justice.1056 These ideals generally include a doctrinally informed view of human beings as part of an interrelated whole. They also include a commitment to human rights, to relationship- building at various levels of society, and to reconciliation.1057 This latter ideal is rooted in the religious concepts of acknowledgment of wrongdoing, restitution/reparation, and forgiveness.1058

Other resources possessed by religious actors that aid peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts include their “transcendent motivation,” “organizational resources,” “social and geographic positioning,” and “privileged legitimacy, including political legitimacy in public opinion.”1059 Religious freedom helps religious actors develop and maintain these resources, while also giving religious actors the social and political latitude to utilize them in fostering peaceful societies.

Conclusion  

Though popular opinion often relates religion and religious pluralism with disharmony, conflict, violence, and war, studies show that religion and religious freedom actually contribute to peaceful, more stable societies. Indeed, religious freedom allows religious individuals and actors with unique resources to contribute to effective peacemaking and peacekeeping efforts. Thus, if societies are to enjoy broad, long-lasting peace and stability, what is needed is more religion rather than less.1060

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References

1036. See generally, e.g., UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, 2024 ANNUAL REPORT (May 2024), https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/USCIRF%202024%20Annual%20Report.pdf (citing reasons for religious freedom restrictions offered by governments in countries recommended as Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs)).

1037. JOHN LOCKE, A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION 41–42 (William Popple trans., 1689), https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Letter_Concerning_Toleration_Written_b/L9jYMVtd7vsC?hl=en&gbpv=0 (spellings and capitalization modernized).

1038. BRIAN J. BRIM & ROGER FINKE, THE PRICE OF FREEDOM DENIED: RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION AND CONFLICT IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 9, 70–72, 79–80, 86 (2011).

1039. See Philip Jenkins, The Politics of Persecuted Religious Minorities, in RELIGION AND SECURITY: THE NEW NEXUS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 25, 25–36 (Robert A. Seiple & Dennis R. Hoover eds., 2004).

1040. Id.

1041. Daniel Philpott, Religious Freedom and Peacebuilding: May I Introduce You Two?, 11(1) THE REVIEW OF FAITH & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 31, 35 (2013).

1042. Elizabeth A. Clark, The Impact of Religion and Religious Organizations, 49(1) BYU LAW REVIEW 1, 39 (2023), https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3463&context=lawreview (citing GRIM & FINKE, supra, at 199).

1043. See GRIM & FINKE, supra, at 210.

1044. Clark, supra, at 33 (quoting Jason Klocek, Miranda Rivers & Sandra Tomb, New Evidence: How Religion Aids Peaceful Change: Nonviolent Movements Are Effective in Building Peace. Religion May Help Them More than We Think, U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE (Sept. 30, 2021), https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/09/new-evidence-how-religion-aids-peaceful-change).

1045. Id. (citing Philpott, Religious Freedom and Peacebuilding, supra, at 33).

1046. Id. at 39 (quoting Philpott, Religious Freedom and Peacebuilding, supra, at 34 (internal quotation marks omitted)).

1047. Daniel Philpott, Religion and Peace, ICLRS, TALK ABOUT: LAW AND RELIGION (Dec. 9, 2022), https://talkabout.iclrs.org/2022/12/09/religion-and-peace (discussing research published in GOD’S CENTURY, supra).

1048. Clark, supra, at 34 (citing Philpott, Religious Freedom and Peacebuilding, supra, at 34; THOMAS BRUDHOLM & THOMAS CUSHMAN, THE RELIGIOUS IN RESPONSES TO MASS ATROCITIES (2009)).

1049. Id. at 13 (citing, among other sources, Byron R. Johnson, Religious Programs and Recidivism Among Former Inmates in Prison Fellowship Programs: A Long-Term Follow-up Study, 21 JUSTICE QUARTERLY, 329, 352 (2004)).

1050. Id. at 34 (citing Geofrey Layman, Where Is Trump’s Evangelical Base? Not in Church, THE WASHINGTON POST (Mar. 29, 2016), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/29/where-is-trumps-evangelical-base-not-in-church; Peter Beinart, Breaking Faith, THE ATLANTIC (Apr. 2017), https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/breaking-faith/517785).

1051. See id. at 34–35 (citing Beinart, supra; Shadi Hamid, America Without God, THE ATLANTIC (Apr. 2021), https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/america-politics-religion/618072).

1052. MONICA DUFFY TOFT, DANIEL PHILPOTT & TIMOTHY SAMUEL SHAH, GOD'S CENTURY: RESURGENT RELIGION AND GLOBAL POLITICS (2011) [hereinafter GOD’S CENTURY].

1053. Philpott, Religion and Peace, supra.

1054. Id.

1055. Id.

1056. Id. Philpott and his colleagues call this set of religious ideals “political theology.”

1057. Id.

1058. Id.

1059. Clark, supra, at 34 (citing Christian Smith, Introduction: Correcting a Curious Neglect, or Bringing Religion Back in, in DISRUPTIVE RELIGION: THE FORCE OF FAITH IN SOCIAL-MOVEMENT ACTIVISM 1, 9–22 (Christan Smith ed., 1996)).

1060. See id. at 37.