Parson to Person - Fighting for religious freedom

In the next few days, we will again celebrate our nation?s independence with picnics, barbeques and fireworks. This is an exciting time of the year for all Americans. It is particularly important to those with religious beliefs as our country is the result of our ancestors who were searching for freedom to practice their beliefs.

Today, there are those who seek to deprive us of many of our religious freedoms. I felt it appropriate to offer some thoughts on religious freedom as presented by church leaders throughout the world. People in all nations should work together to promote religious freedom.

?Church members should seek to create goodwill among people of all religious beliefs, political persuasions, and of every race,? said Dieter F. Uchtdorf, at the John A. Widtsoe Religious Symposium at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Calif., in April 2015. ?The effort to throw off traditions of distrust and pettiness and truly see one another with new eyes?see each other not as aliens or adversaries but as fellow travelers, brothers and sisters, and children of God?is one of the most challenging while at the same time most rewarding and ennobling experiences of our human existence,? Uchtdorf said.

?There should be no belligerence between religion and government,? Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said at the Court/Clergy Conference at Congregation B?nai Israel in Sacramento, Calif., in October 2015. ?We all lose when an atmosphere of anger or hostility or contention prevails,? he said. ?Governments and their laws can provide the essential protections for believers and religious organizations and their activities,? he said, noting that religious principles, teachings, and organizations ?can help create the conditions in which public laws and government institutions and their citizens can flourish,? so that all can ?live together in happiness, harmony, and peace.?

Jeffrey R. Holland, addressed the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Foreign Affairs in the House of Lords in London, England, in June 2015. ?By appealing to one?s deepest values,? he said, ?religions and religious organizations have a unique capacity to motivate people and, at the same time, cultivate attitudes of forgiveness, reconciliation, and a willingness to strive yet again for the ideal in their personal lives and in society.?

?Religious freedom is the cornerstone of peace in a world with many competing philosophies,? Elder D. Todd Christofferson told an interfaith group at the Brazil Mosque in São Paulo, Brazil, in April 2015. He spoke in Portuguese to an audience that included Muslims, Catholics, Adventists, Jews, Evangelicals, Latter-day Saints, native spiritualists, people of no particular faith, and others during an event celebrating the nation?s strong support of religious liberty. ?May we pursue peace,? he said, ?by working together to preserve and protect the freedom of all people to hold and manifest a religion or belief of their choice, whether individually or in community with others, at home or abroad, in public or private, and in worship, observance, practice, and teaching.?

?People of faith must be at the forefront in protecting religious freedom?a freedom from which many other essential freedoms emanate,? ?We must not only protect our ability to profess our own religion but also protect the right of each religion to administer its own doctrines and laws,? he said.