Giving Up Our Freedom One Word At A Time
Some reflections on religion and free speech during the rise of fascism
Lately I've had reason to think more intentionally about free speech and its connection to Christian faith. I’m often surprised how frequently I’ve had to be engaged in direct, sometimes even litigious, work protecting free speech.
I will admit up front I’m somewhat constitutionally pre-disposed towards speaking. I do it for a living. I don’t like to be silenced.
I believe many systems of control rely on the tacit silence of witnesses and participants. It takes considerable fortitude to stand up for free speech in some contexts, because those in power have forceful means of removing dissenting voices.
But there is also a strange pre-compliance in religious circles I find especially alarming. It goes like this:
“Yes, but if we speak up for [this or that political issue], will we have our tax exemption revoked?”
I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard this in both non-profit and church spaces.
People are gesturing at the Johnson Amendment, which specifically bars churches (and non-profits) from endorsing specific political candidates. But of note, the ban by Congress is on political campaign activity regarding a candidate; churches and other 501(c)(3) organizations can engage in a limited amount of lobbying (including ballot measures) and advocate for or against issues that are in the political arena.
In other words, churches and even non-profits are entirely free to speak out on all sorts of political issues. In fact they likely have a mandate to do so based on their mission and values as an organization.
The question “will this harm our tax exempt status” arises out of a confusion generalizing all political speech as “candidate” speech (which is worrisome).
Additionally, and notably, even when churches endorse candidates publicly (and they often do) the IRS rarely acts. It has for the most part abdicated its role in this. That is to say, churches are radically free in their speech.
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There is another kind of control of free speech at work in our communities. This has to do with the silencing pressure of donors.
This happens in individual churches, where pastors and church leaders worry that certain forms of political speech might alienate donors if the advocacy diverges from their personal political perspective. Especially in big tent churches with members who cross the divide on political matters, the worries about the weaponization of giving are real.
Donations from large corporations and grant-givers can also have a dampening effect on the free speech of those who receive funds. I suspect at least one reason for corporate giving (and foundation making) is literally to attempt to head off criticism. It makes it much harder to speak out against a poultry company’s abusive labor practices if, for example, they simultaneously donate some of their chicken to your church.
The pressure to not speak comes in many ways, and is generally also related to money: university faculty theoretically have free speech but admin pressures silence them for fear of losing state funds, executives remain silent while witnessing ethics violations because they’ve grown to depend on their large pay checks.
Truly free speech is difficult to come by, tested in each moment, and signifies not just free speech, but free-dom.
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There’s a reason the first amendment weaves together freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of the people to assemble and petition. There’s just something about “speech.” Although it would be an entire other essay (I’m sure they’ve been written) to ask the extent to which specific locutionary acts “enact” the freedom of religion, I think we can say quite simply that “speaking freely” is profoundly connected to actual freedom (whatever that is).
Even in the era of “secularity” the centering energy for free speech is, then, in this sense, about belief. Not necessarily religious belief (although religious belief historically has always been one of the most contested and constrained parts of believing), but belief.
Consider: those who live in totalitarian regimes may believe any number of things internally. In this sense they are free interiorially. But the risks related to freedom of speech stating those beliefs is what is the first amendment attempts to protect against. That is to say, there’s something about the first amendment that focuses properly on speech because it is speech that sets freedom free.
I guess this is why, as a Christian, I persist in speaking freely. I do recognize there are proper limits to speech outlined both in Scripture and Christian faith and even in a democracy whose first amendment is free speech: fraudulent speech, threats, defamation, etc. and there are also examples of Christian communities intentionally being circumspect in their speech for the safety of themselves and others (the indirect apocalyptic imagery of the book of Revelation, for example).
But the maintenance of actual faith, and living faithfully, will always, as much as possible, patrol the outer edges of free speech and maintain them carefully precisely because the space created by that speech is the place for freedom in Christ itself.
Christ is the “Word,” after all. Free speech is Christ speech, and the curtailment of free speech is the curtailment of Christ’s free movement in the world as the word.
That’s the theological argument or rationale that can make sense even in, as I have pointed out, secularity, precisely because the rise of secularity itself has occurred in creative interplay the pre-secular religiosity that preceded it.
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I outline all of this because, as many prominent thinkers are pointing out, we are now living in a moment when free speech is being eroded at an alarming pace.
But the maintenance of freedoms will occur mostly not in the play of national politics, but rather the daily and micro-practices of all of us. If you allow the erosion of your freedom of speech at a city council meeting, or with friends on the golf course, or the work of your non-profit, all those chip away at our collective fortitude in resisting the larger things we identify as “fascism.”
Practice never taking risk in speaking freely, and eventually you get rather good at it.