Proselytism

The October issue of First Things includes, among other things, an interesting and provocative essay, "Don't Call It Proselytism," by Lawrence Uzzell, President of International Religious Freedom Watch and an expert on religious liberty abroad, particularly in Russia.

This topic -- i.e., "proselytism" -- if of great interest to me. Often, in the Supreme Court's Religion Clause cases, Justices will assume the existence of, and accord constitutional significance to, a distinction between "proselytizing" expression (which is thought to be troubling) and other forms of religious expression. In cases involving the government's obligation not to discriminate in "public forums" against private religious speech, several Justices appear to be of the view that for government to fail to regulate "proselytism" is to (unconstitutionally) endorse, advance, or coerce religion.

This is, in my judgment, a misguided view. "Proselytism" (assuming it can meaningfully be distinguished from 'evangelization') by non-government actors should be, under our First Amendment, entirely protected, and no less valued than any other forms of protected expression. That is, the purported distinction between "non-proselytizing" and "proselytizing" religious speech is, I think, one that should largely be invisible to courts. That expression -- even religious expression -- is intended to "change the hearer's mind" does nothing to reduce the constitutional protections such expression enjoys.

As believers, of course, we might well believe that respect for religious freedom and human dignity, properly understood, requires us to propose religious claims, and declare religious truths, and issue calls to religious conversion, in some ways but not others. There are, many Catholic writers have recognized, some ways of evangelizing which seem unworthy.

Still, it is a religiously informed view of religious freedom that supplies the best arguments against "proselytism" (understood here as coercive and unworthy tactics), and not liberal political theory or jurisprudence. As I see it, the law's thin understanding of religious freedom -- i.e., religion is a matter of personal preference and individual choice, nothing more -- provides no basis for authorizing the government to "protect" citizens from (non-tortious) proselytization by private persons.

Rick