Religious freedom abroad

Christian Century, Dec 11, 1996

THE U.S. State Department on November 12 announced the formation of a special advisory committee to study religious persecution around the world and recommend U.S. foreign-policy responses. The Advisory Panel on Religious Freedom Abroad is made up of 20 members from across the religious spectrum and is chaired by John Shattuck, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. The committee will officially report to the U.S. secretary of state.

At a State Department briefing Shattuck said the committee "demonstrates the State Department's expanding outreach to the nongovernmental community and its recognition of the positive role religious communities can play in promoting human rights." Shattuck added that the committee is part of the Clinton administration's commitment to finding "new and creative means" to deal with human rights crises around the world. "Religious freedom is a right we hold sacred in America. It is a right we would look to see exercised in every corner of the globe," Shattuck said. "The creation of the advisory committee is a step in that direction."

Among the panel members are Don Argue, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches; James Henry, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention; Rabbi Irving Greenberg of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership; Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, leader of Al-Islam; and Archbishop Spyridon of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

Primary goals of the panel, according to Shattuck, are to foster dialogue between religious communities and the U.S. government; increase the flow of information about the persecution of religious minorities; and inform interested groups and individuals about U.S. efforts to address religious persecution. But he said the committee would set its own agenda.

While some religious leaders are praising the effort, others are expressing cautious concerns and still others are openly critical. All seem to agree that the committee's mission will prove to be an extremely difficult undertalking.

Formation of the panel comes after more than a year of discussions between Clinton administration officials, religious leaders and human rights advocates. In January the NAE called on the U.S. government to take stronger measures on behalf of persecuted Christians around the world, including the appointment of a special presidential adviser for religious liberty. In September both the Senate and the House adopted resolutions urging the administration to deal with the issue of global religious persecution, particularly against Christians.

But the Clinton administration decided in favor of a broad-based committee approach. The NCC's Joan Brown Campbell praised the establishment of the diverse committee as a "positive step" for religious freedom. But to Michael Horowitz, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, the panel is "the classic bureaucratic gambit: when you want to duck a problem, you appoint a committee."

Horowitz said that while he believes the committee has "some wonderful members," he is concerned that it will be staffed by State Department employees "whose careers are based on pleasing the State Department" and chaired by Shattuck, who Horowitz alleges is "out of the [administration's] policy-making loop." Over the past year Horowitz, a Jew, has been one of the key leaders in a new movement to mobilize response to the persecution against Christians in places such as China, Vietnam, North Korea, Sudan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Horowitz believes a campaign on behalf of persecuted Christians should be modeled after American efforts to aid persecuted Soviet Jews.

Horowitz charged that a broadbased committee with a "fuzzy focus" is "patronizing" to the Christian community. "Nobody at the State Department would have even dreamed of trying to pull this off with the Jewish community in the comparable situation of Soviet anti-Semitism," he said. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, noted the irony that the committee will operate out of the State Department, which he says "has been part of the problem, rather than the solution." The problem, as Land sees it, is the government's longstanding reluctance to address religious persecution of Christians and its downright hostility to claims of religious bias. Land has testified before congressional hearings that the Immigration and Naturalization Service, for instance, shows indifference to refugee claims of religious persecution in countries such as Iran and Sudan.

Such criticisms highlight the complex dynamics facing the committee. One committee member is Land's former boss, Jim Henry, immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention. In May eight evangelical leaders, including Land, Henry and NAE President Don Argue, expressed concerns to President Clinton that "a large, diffuse advisory committee" would be "manifestly inadequate" to deal with the problems. However, both Henry and Argue are now committee members. In a November 21 interview, Argue said that the administration had addressed most of his specific concerns: "We wrote to the president asking trim to do something, end he has responded. If it doesn't go the way we feel it should, there are ways to protest. But we trust we won't have to."