Religious liberty: The new everyday cultural battle

Each week, The World and Everything in It features a “Culture Friday” segment, in which Executive Producer Nick Eicher discusses the latest cultural news with John Stonestreet, president of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Here is a summary of this week’s conversation.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal this week vetoed a law that would have provided legal protection for pastors, faith-based organizations, and business owners who, in good conscience, refused to service gay weddings. Deal claimed the bill would “give rise to state-sanctioned discrimination.” Big money interests such as the National Football League warned of severe economic sanctions should Georgia adopt the law. Deal said his veto was not a response to those threats.

The bill would have protected Georgians’ fundamental freedom of worship, which is different from freedom of religion, John Stonestreet explained.

“The freedom of worship is the freedom that Cubans have, that people in even North Korea have, which is the right to believe what you want in your own mind and even practice it in your houses of worship,” Stonestreet said. “These are basic, common sense things.”

But the culture does not see freedom of religion or freedom of worship as basic cornerstones of society, Stonestreet said, and that’s a problem Christians need to tackle.

“We’re using a different dictionary than the culture. The culture does not hear that as a public good. The culture, more and more, is hearing [freedom of religion] as code language for ‘license to discriminate,’” Stonestreet said, adding Christians need to defend the concept of religious liberty across the backyard fence and around the barbecue pit. “We can’t just leave this up to legislators and state houses to win this battle. This is now an everyday cultural battle. And it underscores the important role that every Christian plays in defending and articulating a Christian worldview.”

Listen to “Culture Friday” on The World and Everything in It.