Religious and economic freedom are connected

27/12/2024

Religious and economic freedom are connected. Daniel Hinšt from the Centre for Public Policy and Economic Analysis (CEA) provides an overview of key messages from the book One and Indivisible: The Relationship between Religious and Economic Freedom, published by the Acton Institute.

The Soul of Liberty can be properly from the Christian philosophy. This philosophy of liberty is essential to classical liberalism (of Adam Smith and John Locke). It has been (almost) the same as conservatism. Therefore, classical liberalism cannot be mixed with modern liberalism. In the same way, Western and especially Anglo-Saxon conservatism cannot be confused with traditional political cultures, such as Russian or Iranian.

Considering that context, CEA’s fundamental statutory principles are natural rights to individual freedom, especially religious and economic freedom. Moreover, CEA strives for the rule of law, free market, and limited government.

Such values are completely contrary to the legacy of communist Yugoslavia. Also, modern socialist and progressive attempts to redefine the meaning of human dignity and freedom significantly move away from the classical moral virtues.

CEA’s project Croatia 2025 strives for more economic freedom and opportunity to create value.

Key messages from the book

Note: All bullets represent paraphrased messages from the book. Subtitles and brackets represent the author’s complementary views.

Limited government

  • Some political opinions are empty of any meaningful content of religious liberty, often in the name of tolerance.
  • If a government nullifies or suppresses religious liberty, it can repress any other political and civil freedom.
  • Limited government means a limited number of tasks and a range of responsibilities with a clear distinction between society and the state.
  • Limited government is strong and minimal. The state power does not attribute itself to a religious function of promising redemption. That means a separation of religion and politics. Accordingly, Christianity recognized that temporal things of politics are independent of religion (for example, in Martin Luther’s teaching on Two Kingdoms).
  • The political culture of limited government brought the rule of law, civil rights, and the political framework for a free economy.
  • Limited government is the classical liberal idea of state power subject to the rule of law.

Charity instead of welfare

  • The modern welfare state significantly limits economic freedom (since tax-based compulsory welfare reduces freedom of choice to help people voluntarily).
  • Many Americans generously give to charitable causes.
  • Evangelical love is essential to American culture.
  • America has been committed to religious freedom based on charitable institutions.
  • Religious freedom includes providing (church-based) education and health services.

Religious freedom

  • Religious freedom means immunity from the coercion of any human power, without forcing contrary to his or her belief.
  • The human person is endowed with inalienable God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The (basic) purpose of the government is limited to helping secure these basic rights.
  • James Madison described conscience as the most sacred of all property.
  • The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion.
  • In America, church and state are separated to guarantee free worship without government interference.
  • The natural right to liberty of conscience is based on Christian philosophy.
  • Such a right is inalienable, prior to civil society, government, friends, and parents. Therefore, it is pre-political and endowed by the Creator (only).
  • Almighty God created the human person free. Jefferson added that God created the mind free. In addition, Madison pointed out that religion means conviction and reason, not force.
  • No one else can interfere with fulfilling the right to worship the Creator or step between creatures and the Creator.
  • In the Virginia Bill of Rights, George Mason stated that religion, or the duty we owe to the Creator, is about conscience and a mutual duty to Christian love.
  • The American Founders did not invoke parochial custom from their European heritage. Instead, they claimed universal and self-evident rights seen by reason.
  • Although the Founders were diverse theologically, they believed in the Creator and the moral law to inform political lives.
  • The Founders affirmed free public expression of faith and public morality while refusing to establish a national religion.
  • Atheistic regimes of the twentieth century denied religious liberty.
  • Most economically free regions also have the most religious freedom.
  • While pluralism of reasons for liberty of conscience is good, systematic relativism is fatal.
  • Rational and free creatures should not be forced to violate their conscience to obey the moral law. God wants us to come to faith freely.
  • The theology can decisively affect culture and economics; an example is Max Weber‘s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
  • The philosophical basis for religious and economic freedom rests in limited government and individual rights.
  • The ideas and institutions of economic freedom (predominantly) emerged in the Christian West.
  • Due to Spanish absolutism (and religious persecution), entrepreneurs, bankers, and merchants moved to Amsterdam since the Netherlands turned to Calvinism and became independent.
  • During the (Chinese) Cultural Revolution, even those who accepted government control went to prison or labor camps. Churches became warehouses and factories or closed.

Private property

  • Economic liberty respects three human rights: property, association, and fruits of inventors.
  • Now a new form of wealth is the property of ideas—insights, inventions, and brainpower. Human capital brings knowledge, discovery, and creative skills.
  • Economic freedom has moral effects since it accustoms people to think creatively, show initiative, and take responsibility. It encourages inward self-accounting and improvement and allows us to fulfill the creative impulse.
  • Systems that respect economic liberty are self-improving and far more creative.
  • Attending mostly to material needs represents false anthropology and mere materialism in the name of humanitarianism.
  • True humanism is about conscience, liberty, responsibility, and creativity.
  • True human happiness lies in creativity, overcoming obstacles, and achievement.

Judeo-Christian heritage of private property

  • The Jewish and Christian concept of time is linear.
  • Western ideas of the rule of law have origins in forbidding partiality—in Exodus 6 and 23:3 and Leviticus 19:15.
  • Man should cultivate the garden and be fruitful (by hard work).
  • The positive (Biblical) view of commerce differs from most cultures where work is servile and beneath dignity. This prevents development and creates hostility toward productive segments of society, including Jews (which has led to antisemitism and anti-capitalism).
  • Private property, specifically land, has a connection with social cohesion, family, and worship.
  • Private property is presupposed in the Decalogue; Exodus 20:15 and 20:17 provide commandments against stealing and coveting a neighbor’s house (or any property).
  • In Exodus 22, we find restitution laws for stolen or damaged property.
  • According to Deuteronomy 15:11, people have (moral) obligations to be generous with the poor (not a mandate to government welfare).
  • In 1 Samuel 8 and 12, just leadership is to respect property and not to defraud others.
  • In 1 Kings 21, we see punishment for abusing power and stealing.
  • In Ephesians 4:28, the thief should no longer steal but labor, doing honest work with his hands and giving to those in need.
  • In Summa Theologica, Aquinas affirms private property from man’s dominion over the earth.
  • Private property limits by creating civil society and different intermediary institutions, including associations, churches, synagogues, mutual aid societies, and schools, creating a buffer between the individual and the state.
  • However, when religious communities and families are weak or do not exist, there are few layers between the individual and the state, and the state begins to absorb more, leading to soft despotism.
  • While private property is an economic issue, its effects go beyond economics.

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