(Editor’s Note: Thomas Farr, the president emeritus of the Religious Freedom Institute, received the 2024 Defender of Religious Freedom Award presented at the RFI’s annual dinner Nov. 13 in Washington. His address upon receiving the award follows.) 

I am both honored and humbled to accept this award. 

Honored by RFI’s decision to put me in the same company as the remarkable people who have received it. 

Humbled by the debt I owe to so many men and women who have been my teachers, many of whom are here tonight. As I looked over the list of attendees, I noticed that many of my teachers are less than half my age! Frankly, the fact that so many young people are here gives me great hope for the future of religious freedom. 

Now, for those of you here tonight who are not Christian, or are not believers in the Christian God, let me say first that you are most welcome. Second, I want to tell you in particular why I have emphasized the Christian faith of the RFI founders. 

We believe that God creates every one of us in his image and likeness. For that reason, each of us has a dignity that no one, and no government, may violate.  

God wants us to follow him, but he endows each of us with free will. He does not coerce. He beckons. For us, that means that no just government may coerce anyone in matters of religion.  

That is why we four Christians established RFI’s mission as defending religious freedom for everyone, everywhere.  

Fortunately, the Founders of America were on the same page. They believed in a God who not only creates us equal, but endows all of us with certain natural rights that must be protected by government. And for them, the first of those rights was religious freedom.  

They guaranteed this right for every one of us in the First Amendment and called it the “free exercise of religion.” For two centuries it was known as America’s “first freedom.” 

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the first freedom for our nation and for the world. The Founders’ way of dealing with religion and religious freedom was not only unprecedented, but a turning point in the recognition of human dignity for all mankind. 

Think about that. No other nation, before or since, has ever protected the right of religious liberty for all of its citizens. No other nation has justified its commitment to religious freedom in a way that applies to every human being — an inalienable right given by God, not the state. No other society has ever revered religious freedom as the first freedom, the one on whose shoulders all other freedoms stand. 

Unfortunately, in today’s America, religious freedom is no longer taught in our schools or valued in our cultural institutions. It is too often scorned and repudiated. The vile scourge of antisemitism is rampant on American campuses. We are in trouble. 

 

4 Great Fruits of Religious Freedom 

Of course, protection of religious freedom in America has never been perfect. But it has yielded extraordinary benefits for every American and for our nation. I’m going to give you four brief examples, each of which was welcomed by most Americans as a major contribution to our nation … until recently. 

First example: Until recently, religious freedom was understood as having produced the most compassionate faith-based civil society in history, in which thousands of religious organizations provide loving care for people in need, such as abandoned children, the poor, the sick, the aged, the dying and the victims of natural disasters like hurricanes.  

Think of Samaritan’s Purse, or the Little Sisters of the Poor, or countless other religious organizations that work tirelessly to care for others. Today such groups are increasingly reviled. And they are sued over and over again. Why? Because they are morally traditional. And their love of God inspires them to obey him, rather than Caesar. 

Second example: Until recently, religious freedom has protected the rights of traditional believers who refuse to abandon the truth about human nature — the truth that males and females are beautifully different and complementary, that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, that the unborn child is a human being, and that parents, not the state, have natural authority over their children.  

Today, such views are excoriated in politics, schools and businesses. Pro-lifers are imprisoned. Parents are denied by law knowledge of their child’s intent to have an abortion or change their sex. Those who believe in traditional marriage and human sexuality must remain silent or risk losing their careers.  

Third example: Until recently, religious freedom included what the great jurist Michael McConnell calls “religious arguing” for public policy. Religious arguments have produced the most consequential reform movements in American history, including the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement and the right to life. Today, unpopular religious arguments are rejected as unconstitutional and hateful. 

Fourth example: Until recently, religious freedom has helped Americans reject the lie that we are merely material beings who should live for ourselves, seeking personal gratification because that is all there is.  

No one who truly believes in God can believe that lie. Unfortunately, too many younger Americans do, and the result is increasing loneliness, hopelessness, drug addiction and “suicides of despair.” 

What has happened to our first freedom, especially the rights of the morally traditional believers who have given so much to our nation? The answer is that their religious beliefs are portrayed as hateful, and their religious freedom as a front for bigots, racists and theocrats. This slander has been embedded in all our institutions — our schools, the media, Big Tech, the sports and entertainment industry, the medical profession, our foreign policy and even our military. 

This is a threat not only to the religious, but to the Constitution, and to America’s singular role in the world. Last week’s election results may defer the impact of this threat, but no political change alone can defeat it. It is too deeply rooted in our cultural institutions, and politics follows culture.  

So I ask you: What will America be if our institutions continue to defame morally traditional religion and coerce its believers into silence? What will it mean if America abandons its position as the only true defender of religious freedom for itself and for the world? 

The answer is that America will no longer be America. But we are witnessing that ruinous transformation taking place now, in our time. We must not be silent. 

 

Icons of Religious Freedom 

I’m going to end by retelling a story familiar to most of you, but with a different twist.  

On Sept. 11, 2001, a man named Todd Beamer was a passenger on Flight 93 when terrorists took over the plane.  

Todd learned from a telephone operator named Lisa that the Twin Towers and Pentagon had been attacked, and that the terrorists were taking his aircraft to Washington to destroy either the White House or the Capitol Building. 

Todd told Lisa that he and others were going to rush the terrorists and try to regain control of the aircraft.  

Then Lisa heard Todd exhort his fellow passengers: “Get ready. … Let’s roll.” Flight 93 went down in a Pennsylvania field, killing all aboard, and saving countless lives in Washington.  

But there was another dimension of this heroic sacrifice. 

Todd had asked Lisa to call his wife and tell her that he loved her, and to tell their children that he was proud of them. Then Todd asked Lisa to pray with him. Together they prayed the 23rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer.  

As he prayed the 23rd Psalm, Todd was comforted by the psalmist’s assurance that as he entered “the valley of the shadow of death,” he need fear no evil. God was by his side.  

In the Lord’s Prayer, Todd asked God to forgive his sins, and to help him to forgive. He asked God to deliver from evil his family, his neighbors and his country. He ended his prayer by affirming, as he had so often, that all power and all glory belong to God alone.  

Todd Beamer’s courage in the face of death was forged by his faith. His actions were an icon of the free exercise of religion. They displayed sacrifice in the face of danger, self-giving in the face of desperate need, forgiveness of those who intended him harm, and unity with all Americans of goodwill, whether they are Christians, Jews or Muslims, whether they are believers or nonbelievers, whether they are Democrats or Republicans. 

 

Fight to Defend America’s ‘First Freedom’ 

These are the sources of American greatness. They are nourished and protected by the religious freedom given to all Americans. And that precious freedom is in grave danger. 

The Religious Freedom Institute will not permit this gift of our Founders, and of God, to be lost.  

This is our time. And this is your time. Please join us in restoring religious freedom to its rightful place as the first freedom of this great land:  

— the freedom that has made America truly exceptional. 

— the freedom without which no man and no woman can truly be free. 

As Todd Beamer would put it to you if he were here:  

“Are you ready? … Well then, let’s roll.”  

Thank you. 

Thomas Farr is the president emeritus of the Religious Freedom Institute.