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10. Faith and Freedom Need
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“Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (The First
Amendment, United States Constitution).
“SGI shall, based on the Buddhist spirit of tolerance,
respect other religions, engage in dialogue and work together
with them toward the resolution of fundamental issues
concerning humanity” (Article 7, the SGI Charter).
To exercise freedom of religion, as guaranteed by the
First Amendment, is to choose and practice religion freely
according to one’s conscience. We exercise this
freedom when we make a conscious decision to take faith,
uninhibited by any external power. I exercised my freedom
of religion when I was 21, although my family had joined
the Soka Gakkai almost two decades earlier.
When I was a senior in college, one of my best friends
developed a lymph cancer and was given a year to live.
I was desperate, not knowing what I could do for him.
So I spoke with an SGI leader whom I respected. He said,
“Let’s introduce your friend to Nichiren Daishonin’s
Buddhism!” So I did. After I visited him at the
hospital for over forty days in a row, my friend decided
to join the SGI, not because my explanation of Buddhism
had made any sense to him, but probably because he thought
he had nothing to lose at that point. To make our long
story short, he eventually overcame his illness. Today,
almost twenty years later, he still practices Buddhism
despite his busy work schedule. He is healthy and happily
married with two children.
The process of encouraging my friend to take faith was
the process of my own awakening. I witnessed the power
of prayer as he became healthier and the sincerity of
many SGI members who supported my friend as if he were
their own son. Then I decided to practice the Daishonin’s
Buddhism for my own sake, by my own accord. That was the
moment I exercised my freedom of religion. It is ironic
that when I thought I was helping my friend, he was actually
helping me to make one of the most important decisions
in my life. I freely chose to practice this faith through
my own experience and understanding, however limited at
that time.
Faith needs freedom.
Faith must be freely chosen. If faith is coerced, whatever
one professes cannot be called “faith” anymore.
In his Latin treatise A Letter Concerning Toleration [Epistola
de Tolerantia], John Locke wrote: “All the life
and power of true religion consist in the inward and full
persuasion of the mind; and faith is not faith without
believing” (Patrick Romanell, ed. William Popple,
trans. p. 18). Locke went so far to assert that the coercion
of faith is not only “hypocrisy,” but also
“contempt” of religion itself (ibid., p. 18).
True religious faith cannot exist without freedom of religion,
whose quintessence lies in freedom of conscience. Nichiren
Daishonin understood the importance of individual conscience
and held that the realm of faith is above and beyond the
reach of any secular power. As he proclaimed to Hei no
Saemon, a powerful military official of the Kamakura shogunate
government, “Even if it seems that, because I was
born in the ruler’s domain, I follow him in my actions,
I will never follow him in my heart” (The Writings
of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 579). The Daishonin knew that
to compromise one’s freedom of conscience is to
abandon one’s personal integrity and lead a life
of hypocrisy. So he encouraged his own disciples: “My
disciples, form your ranks and follow me…If you
quail before the threats of the ruler of this little island
county [and abandon your faith], how will you face the
even more terrible anger of Yama, the lord of hell? If,
while calling yourselves the Buddha’s messengers,
you give way to fear, you will be the most despicable
of persons!” (WND, 765). James Madison, the prime
author of the First Amendment, also understood freedom
of conscience as the foundation of faith. In his “Memorial
and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,”
Madison argued against a proposed tax to support Christian
ministers of all denominations. He wrote: “Religion
or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner
of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and
conviction, not by force or violence. The Religion then
of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience
of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise
it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an
unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions
of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by
their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men”
(James Madison: Writings, p. 30). Freedom of religion
exists so that it may protect and encourage freedom of
conscience. For without freedom of conscience there can
be no faith. The outer shell of religion may flourish
without freedom of religion, but the substance of religion
cannot survive without it. Madison explains that the absence
of religious freedom and the influence of external powers
lead to “pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance
and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry
and persecution” (Ibid., p. 32).
Freedom needs faith
For faith to thrive, one’s conscience must be free.
Freedom of conscience, in turn, depends upon one’s
inner strength of character. Those who lack in spiritual
strength may be easily swayed by the threat and fear of
an external power and confused by the manipulations of
others. As a means of spiritual empowerment, people have
often depended on their faith. As much as faith needs
freedom, freedom needs faith, because freedom presupposes
a strength of spirit, which seeks as its source the engine
of faith. Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the most astute
observers of American democracy, saw another reason why
freedom needs faith. He wrote: “Religion, which,
among Americans, never mixes directly in the government
of society, should therefore be considered as the first
of their political institutions; for if it does not give
them the taste for freedom, it singularly facilitates
their use of it” (Democracy in America, Trans. Harvey
C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, p. 280). What is the
use of freedom, Tocqueville argues, if we lack its prime
outlet of expression? We can enjoy the fruit of liberty
with a great sense of immediacy when we experience freedom
in our choice and practice of faith. Because we cherish
faith, we value and fight for the liberty upon which faith
depends. As much as our democracy needs freedom, our freedom
needs faith. In this sense, there is a profound significance
in Tocqueville’s statement that religion is “the
first” of America’s “political institutions.”
Religion, in Tocqueville’s opinion, is the foundation
of America’s freedom and thus its democracy.
Dialogue is an expression
of our faith and freedom
Our honest, open dialogue with others is a concrete expression
of our faith and freedom; it is one of the most important
forms of the “free exercise” of religion as
the First Amendment guarantees for all Americans. Through
speaking what we believe as truth and listening to the
viewpoints of others, we can develop mutual respect amongst
different faiths based on understanding, instead of inciting
hatred based on ignorance. The exercise of religious freedom,
however, should not be without bounds. One cannot inflict
violence on others, claiming that doing so is one’s
free exercise of religion. No one can refuse to pay taxes
in America, claiming that paying taxes goes against one’s
religious beliefs. These are external bounds of religious
freedom set by the laws of society. In addition, there
are some internal forms of the abuse of religious freedom,
which, though they may not go against the laws of society,
contradict the purpose and intent of religious freedom.
If a person, engaged in a dialogue about faith, tries
to manipulate another’s conscience and obstruct
his or her exercise of reason through fear or falsehood,
that person is contradicting the purpose of dialogue by
causing confusion instead of understanding. In this sense,
one important purpose of our dialogue on faith is to encourage
the free exercise of conscience through appealing to others’
reason and integrity. To show respect for others and their
religions is to respect their power and responsibility
to make up their own minds.
Beyond ‘negative freedom’
and ‘passive tolerance’
Although we have religious liberty, there are some limits
to what our Founding Fathers could do for us to truly
enjoy “the free exercise thereof.” An influential
British philosopher of the last century, Isaiah Berlin
explained that there are two kinds of freedom: “negative
freedom” and “positive freedom” (“Two
Concepts of Liberty” from Four Essays on Liberty,
pp. 118-72). What he describes as negative freedom is
freedom from external constraints, which are usually political
in nature. Berlin called such freedom “negative”
not necessarily because it is less in value, but because
it is essentially a release from external forces and conditions.
Positive freedom, on the other hand, is freedom to do
something in accord with one’s conscience. Berlin
explains that positive freedom is the freedom of a “doer—deciding,
not being decided for, self-directed and not acted upon
by external nature or by other men” (Ibid., p. 131).
In America, we enjoy the precious, hard-won negative freedom
from government powers in the matters of religion, thanks
to Madison and other fighters of religious liberty. To
enjoy the positive freedom of religion, however, each
of us must work to overcome our inner powerlessness and
awaken to our true conscience. For without inner strength,
we become vulnerable to external powers and their manipulation
of our conscience. We would let others decide matters
of faith for us, instead of deciding on our own. Another
hurdle to overcome for the true enjoyment of religious
freedom is passive tolerance. Passive tolerance is indifference
to others’ happiness; it is the lack of compassion
that says: “Do whatever you please. It’s your
own concern. But don’t meddle in my business.”
Genuine tolerance is the opposite of indifference; it
is an active concern and respect for the happiness of
others. To go beyond negative freedom and passive tolerance,
each of us need to strength our lives and develop compassion
for others. In this sense, to further deepen the idea
and practice of religious liberty in America, we practice
Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism. Our efforts to engage
in dialogue with others are not only an expression of
freedom afforded by the Founding Fathers, but also a historic
enterprise to give substance to this American ideal.
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(Originally published in the World
Tribune, Feb. 15, 2002)
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