When Faith Takes Away Our Freedom

It’s Sunday morning. Almost 20% of our nation will attend a church service today. As you worship, I invite to consider the reality that our nation is facing a threat from religion and religious believers…maybe even you. If you are convinced that your religious beliefs are truth and that the nation should be governed under God, then you’re probably part of the problem.

 

Throughout history, religion and democracy have shared a tense, often uneasy coexistence. At their best, religious institutions provide moral frameworks that inspire justice, compassion, and community. At their worst, they demand submission, silence dissent, and consecrate authority.

 

Today, as political systems across the world tilt toward authoritarianism, the resurgence of religion as a political force threatens the very foundation of democratic society. Despite the good that faith can inspire, organized religion, when fused with state power, inevitably undermines the principles of pluralism, individual liberty, and institutional accountability.

Religion, especially in its politicized forms, is not just incompatible with democracy; it is increasingly poised to dismantle it. Most religious believers are so deeply indoctrinated that they simply do not see the threat or even worse, they relish the idea of a government that reflects their specific religious beliefs.

 

Democracy is built on doubt, debate, and the consent of the governed. It thrives on diversity of thought, secular institutions, and the rule of law. Religion, by contrast, is rooted in certainty, divine authority, and unquestionable truths. Where democracy invites disagreement and evolution, religion often demands obedience and preservation. When religious ideology enters the halls of government, compromise becomes heresy. Elected leaders begin to legislate not based on the will of the people, but on what they claim is the will of God. This shift replaces civic discourse with dogma, and policy with prophecy.

 

We see this vividly in countries where democracy has eroded under religious pressure: Indonesia, India, and Afghanistan among them. Leaders use religion to consolidate power, delegitimize opponents, and justify repression. The result is not spiritual awakening, but a narrowing of civil liberties and the slow decay of democratic norms.

 

Ironically, the political weaponization of religion rarely reflects the spiritual convictions of most people. Rather, it empowers a radicalized minority to impose its beliefs on the majority. In the United States, for instance, a shrinking cohort of white Christian nationalists has gained disproportionate influence over legislation, education, and judicial appointments. They invoke religious liberty not to defend freedom of belief, but to privilege their own worldview while marginalizing others; Muslims, atheists, LGBTQ+ communities, and women among them.

 

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade is a case in point. The decision was not the result of democratic consensus. It was the culmination of a decades-long religious campaign to seize judicial power. And it won’t stop there. From banning books to controlling curricula to restricting voting rights, the religious right is executing a deliberate plan to remake the United States in its own image. This is not democracy. It is dominion.

 

For democracy to function, it must operate independently of any religious creed. Secular institutions are not anti-religious; they are safeguards that allow all beliefs to coexist without domination. When these institutions are captured by religious interests, they no longer serve the people: they serve a theology. Courts become altars, legislatures become pulpits, and constitutions are reinterpreted as scripture.

 

This erosion is not just theoretical; it is unfolding in real time. In Christian nationalist circles, there is open disdain for democratic principles like separation of church and state. Instead, they promote “biblical governance” and “Christ-centered leadership,” which reject pluralism in favor of an imagined moral absolutism. The implication is clear: democracy is expendable if it gets in the way of divine will. Be wary of those who claim to know the will of god. No god has ever spoken. It is only men who claim to speak on behalf of gods. (Please save your claims that God has spoken, because it says so in the Bible, for your church group.)

Perhaps the gravest danger religion poses to democracy is its capacity to silence dissent. A healthy democracy relies on protest, free speech, and the right to challenge authority. But when power is sanctified, it becomes immune to criticism. To question religious authority is not seen as a civic act; it is branded blasphemy.

 

History is filled with examples of heretics, reformers, and freethinkers burned, silenced, or exiled for daring to speak against religious power. Today, the mechanisms are subtler; social ostracization, digital censorship, and legal intimidation. But the goal is the same: obedience over dialogue. When citizens cannot question those in power without being labeled enemies of God, democracy dies.

 

This is not a call to abandon faith. I’ll save that for another essay. Millions draw comfort, purpose, and community from their spiritual lives. But democracy cannot survive if it is governed by the gods of any one religion. Theocracy and democracy are not siblings; they are rivals. If they are siblings, they have been fighting since the womb. One demands submission; the other demands participation.

 

To protect democracy, we must reassert the sanctity of secularism; not as an attack on religion, but as a defense of freedom. Churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples must remain free to worship. But they must never govern. If they do, democracy will not fall in a single cataclysmic moment. It will erode sermon by sermon, law by law, until the people find themselves ruled not by elected leaders, but by priests in suits, cloaked in the language of God but drunk on the power of kings.