Former Congressman Frank Wolf warned that freedom of conscience is endangered in the United States. Wolf, a religious liberty champion, gave his speech to a Harvard audience and suggested that Christians may have to engage in civil disobedience.
“When tolerance is demanded, when orthodox Christianity is deemed intolerant and when government and even society fails to extend tolerance to people of faith, we are headed down a perilous path,” he said.
Wolf’s main point in his speech “was that freedom of conscience has long been understood as important for religious freedom, but recently there has been a trend of violating the conscience protections of conservative Christians, particularly over the issues of abortion and marriage.”
“Our conscience is not ultimately allegiant to the state, but to something, and for many people, Someone, higher,” he said, “because if our conscience belongs to the state, the state can choose to violate it or compromise it at will.”
Calling it a “subtle insidious trend,” Wolf said the government has expanded in areas that are more likely to infringe upon conscience rights. This trend was at the heart of the recent Hobby Lobby U.S. Supreme Court case, he said. Hobby Lobby, a Christian-owned craft supply chain, objected to the Obama administration’s attempt to require them to pay for health insurance coverage for contraceptive pills that would cause an abortion.
Wolf argued that “we are witnessing the imposition of a new state religion” called “progressive liberalism.” He also pointed to recent opposition to Religious Freedom Restoration Acts as part of this trend.
“Freedom of conscience is good for all,” he said, and added, that if “companies want to protect their own rights, they ought also to protect those of others.”
Wolf hopes that in the face of these religious freedom infringements, Christians will not “retreat form the public square” but “boldly stay, regardless of the cost.”
He also cited Bible and historical heroes who were imprisoned for their faith and asked, “Is prison the fate of people today who dare to stand up for what their conscience, informed by their faith, dictates?”
Wolf also quoted the famous Manhattan declaration’s implied promise of civil disobedience in the face of religious conscience violations: “I will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will I render to Caesar what is God’s.”
Wolf retired last year from the U.S. Congress after serving 34 years. His speech was delivered May 7, 2015.
“If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” Daniel 3:17, 18
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