And the wisdom to know the difference? Freedom, control and the sociology of religion - 2002 Presidential Address

Sociology of Religion, Fall, 2003 by Eileen Barker

There are, of course, many other kinds of tensions and balances with which freedom can present us in the religious sphere. To some extent we have already been discussing choices between competing freedoms (a dilemma dissolved by those who believe in total freedom or total absence of freedom). At its most stark we are faced with the choice between this freedom and that freedom: if we wish to lead a life of devotion in an enclosed monastery, for example, we might have to give up several freedoms we would otherwise enjoy. More usually we have to prioritise our choices, and it can be argued that we have greater overall freedom insofar as we allow ourselves to be inconsistent in our choices, rather than sticking rigidly to the same hierarchy in every situation. (20)

Our Freedoms and Their Freedoms

Moving from the individual to the group level, one of the fiercest tensions throughout the history of religion has been that between our freedom and their freedom. This can take a number of forms, some of which do not involve violence, but strong and genuine beliefs that one person or group knows better than another group what is in the best interest of that other, the former forcing the latter to make a choice--but the option of democracy may not be what a theocratically minded nation wants.

Another example concerns the freedom of parents to bring up their children according to their beliefs. This can give rise to the potentially opposing freedom of children to make up their own minds. It has also led well-intentioned courts, acting they believe in the best interests of the child, to grant custody to one parent, rather than the other, who belongs to an unpopular religion but who, according to a number of other generally accepted criteria, would appear to be the more appropriate parent to bring up the child. There have also been cases (in Australia, Canada and elsewhere) when children have been removed by the state from indigenous groups to residential schools and/or adopted for rearing by "more civilised" guardians. Still on the subject of children, there is the dilemma faced by some liberally minded parents of whether taking their children to a place of worship on a regular basis gives them more or less choice to accept or reject that (or any other) religion in the future than not taking them to the services would.

Brief mention has already been made of how, when the Berlin Wall came down, the concept of freedom was on everyone's lips, and that of freedom of religion was one of the more frequently heard catch phrases in the rhetoric of the time. The countries of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union had been living under atheistic regimes that had, to a greater or lesser extent, imposed severe restrictions on religious institutions and practices. Priests had been imprisoned and murdered; churches and mosques destroyed or used for secular purposes; those who were known to be religious were denied advancement in their careers and their children were denied university education. Once the state-imposed secularism was removed, the traditional religions not unnaturally wanted to reclaim their property--and their flock.