Part III | Expanded Analysis
Category B | Principles
Topic 9 | Religious identity
For many people, their religious identity is as foundational and constitutive of their personal identity as other components of identity—such as race, nationality, sexual orientation, or gender—can be to an individual’s sense of identity. Religious identity should be recognized and respected along with other identities.
Human dignity and identity
Human dignity, the foundation of all human rights including the right to freedom of religion, encompasses human agency and the right to choose aspects of one’s identity. Identity can, therefore, be complex, comprised of predetermined identities like race and chosen identities like religion. Respect for the complexity of identity, and for others’ identities that differ from our own, is a key component of respecting human dignity.
Identity-centric worldviews: Positive and negative outcomes
We live in an era when many people view themselves primarily through an identity-centric worldview—that is, through the lens of dimensions of identity that make them distinctive and different. Distinct identities based on race, sex, gender, and sexual orientation have received particularly intense attention in more recent decades.
On the one hand, this attention has led to positive outcomes. For example, since the mid-1900s in the United States, societal events, legislation, and judicial decisions have aligned to encourage nondiscrimination, tolerance, and respect for the human dignity of others, relative to distinct identities. High-profile events and cases involving discrimination based on race, sex, gender, or sexual orientation have prompted the creation and enforcement of antidiscrimination laws and policies272 that recognize and help uphold human dignity for all.
On the other hand, a primary focus on distinct identities can foster societies in which we divide and separate ourselves from each other. It can also lead to the creation of hierarchies of value or deservedness, or even victim class status, on the basis of distinct identities. “Identity politics,” whether employed by those on the political right or left, invoke a worldview and language of discrimination and victimization by “the other”—often defined sweepingly, as all those who do not share a particular identity.
Religious identity: A dimension of religious freedom
While identity-centric worldviews can have undesirable, divisive consequences, framing religious freedom in terms of identity can be productive when engaging with those who have such worldviews. In such contexts, it may be helpful to define religious freedom in terms of three interrelated dimensions: religious belief, religious practice, and religious identity.
The first dimension of religious freedom—the right to belief—is absolute, meaning it is not subject to limitation.273 Some opponents of religious freedom falsely treat belief as the only dimension of religious freedom, erroneously reducing it to a privately exercised right.
Such a view ignores the critical second dimension of religious freedom: the right to “manifest [one’s] religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”—“either alone or in community with others and in public or private.”274 Unlike the right to belief or religious identity, the right to manifest, practice, or act on belief is subject to some limitations.275
The third dimension of religious freedom is the right to a religious identity, which may be shaped by an inherited faith, a personal choice to adopt a faith, or both. The other dimensions of religious freedom—the right to belief and practice—give contour and substance to one’s religious identity. The right to have and maintain a religious identity is a concomitant right that flows naturally from these two other rights.
Secular misconceptions of faith and religious identity
In framing religious freedom in terms of belief, practice, and identity, it is important to recognize and address the divide between religious and secular views of these elements. Some secular misconceptions may lead individuals and groups to devalue religious freedom.
Religious identity as a mere preference. The secular world may see religious belief, practice, and identity as an ordinary choice, a personal preference, an intractable obstacle, or a pastime—“something that can be adopted and discarded at will.”276 This view in turn leads to “discounting the importance of the religious freedom that allows people of faith to live out their core identity in dignity and peace.”277
Certainly, people’s beliefs, practices, and identities can evolve and change. However, this fact does not negate that “faith and religious conviction are the most powerful and defining sources of personal and family identity” in the lives of millions of people.278 Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, recounts that Latter-day Saint pioneers made tremendous sacrifices “because the faith of the gospel of Jesus Christ was in their soul, it was in the marrow of their bones.”279 Educating others about the depth and profundity of religious identity in people’s lives helps them understand that religious identity cannot simply be “put on or remove[d] like a favorite T-shirt.”280 It cannot “be compartmentalized and stuffed into a box labeled ‘private.’”281 Nor can it be checked “at the church or synagogue exit or at the door of one’s home.”282
As Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Church of Jesus Christ explains,
"[Faith] defines who and what we are, how we understand our purpose for being, how we relate to others, and how we deal with pain, suffering, and death. Through our faith, we comprehend more deeply the meanings of marriage and family, gender and sexuality.
"In nearly all religions, personal faith brings us into communities of faith, where individual belief and practice combine with communal worship, sacred ceremonies, shared traditions, and holy celebrations. Indeed, for many, faith is experienced primarily in community. We become part of something larger than ourselves, bound in beautiful and complex relationships with those of similar conviction. Religious faith often entails duty and personal sacrifice, where obligation to a higher truth and the good of others is placed before the demands of self. Religious authority—whether in the form of sacred writ, revered teachers, priestly intermediaries, vows and covenantal obligations, or simply a conscience powerfully informed by faith—shapes our hearts, minds, and actions in profound ways."
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has written about the uniqueness and persistence of Jewish identity, born of faith-based covenant (“A covenant is about identity”283) and endurance in the face of persecution.284
And two Muslim young women have shared, “If your brother or sister is not Muslim, but a stranger is, you’re closer to that stranger than your own brother or sister . . . . What you believe is how you behave. . . . It’s your way of life. Being Muslim is a way of life. That’s what it is.”285 In other words, Muslims’ shared beliefs—and possibly even shared experiences of discrimination and persecution—help create a core religious identity for followers of Islam that may surpass even familial identity.
Explaining and exemplifying the marrow-deep, life-defining significance of religious identity can help secularists and those with identity-centric worldviews understand the importance of protecting religious freedom.
Religious identity as a threat. Secularists may also consider religious belief, practice, and identity to be ill-informed, uneducated, superstitious, dangerous, and directly opposed to reason and reality.286 This view may prompt the conclusion that people and communities of faith interfere “with achieving [secular] ideals of a just and modern society,” including ideals of nondiscrimination.287 This view, however, overlooks or discounts the positive influence of religious faith and identity in the lives of millions of people throughout the world. Religious freedom allows them “to live out their core identity in dignity and peace” and positively influence and contribute to their communities.288 For example, religious individuals and organizations, acting on their religious beliefs, have played a central, critical role in U.S. nondiscrimination movements, such as the nineteenth-century abolitionist and the twentieth-century civil rights movements.289
Religious identity and nondiscrimination
Nondiscrimination is a major concern for those with identity-centric worldviews at both ends of the political spectrum. Employing religious identity as a framing device can help them understand that laws and other efforts to prohibit discrimination include, or should include, a prohibition on religious discrimination. It may also help to point out that many antidiscrimination laws are historically rooted, at least in part, in the concept of nondiscrimination on the basis of religion.290
Conclusion and cautions
Because of its fundamental, defining nature, religion is a primary source of identity worthy of protection and accommodation, like race, sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Framing religious freedom as an issue of religious identity and nondiscrimination may be a productive entry point in discussions with those who have identity-centric worldviews, helping them understand that religious identity must be protected alongside other identities. Two final notes of caution, however: Engaging in discussions based on identities may lead to, or at least not help overcome, some of the negative consequences of identity politics. In addition, this approach may be less effective with those who acknowledge identity claims of religious minorities but discount claims from adherents of religions that aren’t considered disadvantaged.
References
272. See, e.g., Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000a to 2000h-6 (2024) (prohibiting discrimination based on color, religion, sex, and national origin in employment, voting, public schools, federal programs, and public accommodations, with narrow exceptions); Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020) (holding that the Civil Right Act’s prohibition on employment discrimination based on sex, under Title VII, encompasses sexual orientation and gender identity); Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) (holding that the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to same-sex marriage).
273. See, e.g., G.A. Res. 217 A (III), Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 18 (10 Dec. 1948) [hereinafter UDHR]; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 18, 999 U.N.T.S. 171 (16 Dec. 1966) [hereinafter ICCPR]. Almost all national constitutions worldwide also contain provisions protecting the right to freedom of religion or belief, although government protections in practice obviously vary.
274. UDHR, supra, art. 18 (emphasis added).
275. See, e.g., ICCPR, supra, at art. 18 (“Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.”)
276. L. Whitney Clayton, “In the Marrow of Their Bones”: The Latter-day Saint Experience of Religion as Identity, ICLRS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM LIBRARY (June 20, 2018) (Keynote Address, 2018 ICLRS Religious Freedom Annual Review, Brigham Young University), https://www.religiousfreedomlibrary.org/documents/in-the-marrow-of-their-bones- the-latter-day-saint-experience-of-religion-as-identity.
277. Id.
278. Id.
279. Roundtable Discussion, WORLDWIDE LEADERSHIP TRAINING MEETING 10, 28 (Feb. 9, 2008), https://broadcast.lds.org/WWLT/2008/WWLT_2008_02_00_RighteousPosterity_Complete_00383_eng_.pdf.
280. Clayton, supra.
281. Id.
282. Id.
283. Jonathan Sacks, MORALITY: RESTORING THE COMMON GOOD IN DIVIDED TIMES 63 (2020).
284. See, e.g., Jonathan Sacks, Love, Hate, and Jewish Identity, FIRST THINGS (Nov. 1997), https://www.firstthings.com/article/1997/11/love-hate-and-jewish-identity.
285. Lori Peek, Becoming Muslim: The Development of a Religious Identity, 66 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION 215, 230 (2005).
286. Clayton, supra.
287. Id.
288. Id.; see also Elizabeth A. Clark, The Impact of Religion and Religious Organizations, 49(1) BYU LAW REVIEW 1 (2023), https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview/vol49/iss1/6.
289. See generally, e.g., HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., THE BLACK CHURCH: THIS IS OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR SONG (2021).
290. See, e.g., Maryland Toleration Act of 1649; Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) (codified at VA. CODE ANN. § 57-1 (2024)); U.S. Constitution amend. I; Civil Rights Act of 1964 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000a–2000h-6 (2024)).