Don't forget

While Americans celebrate Independence Day with flags and fireworks, cookouts and complaints about the price of gas, we should take a moment to remember how many people in the world still remain without religious freedom.

In several former republics of the Soviet Union, for example, persecution of the church is a daily affair. Baptist pastor Hamid Shabanov, for example, was recently arrested in Azerbaijan by police who claimed they found a gun in his home. Supporters insist the gun was planted.

In Kazakhstan, authorities are closing down churches and other places of worship, often on the basis of specious reasoning or trumped-up charges. You can learn more about religious persecution in these and other former Soviet bloc states at the watchdog site Forum 18.

In countries where Muslim law is incorporated into the national government, conversion from Islam to Christianity is against the law and can carry stiff penalties, as illustrated by a recent case in Iran. A religious freedom organization called Compass Direct offers updates of religious persecution across the globe -- more than enough stories to prompt prayers for the oppressed and thanks for the religious freedom Americans have.

One of the things we can pray for is that the Baptist World Alliance will find an effective spokesperson to lead an open staff position to promote religious freedom and human rights worldwide. BWA has good connections in the United Nations and is the most widely respected voice for Baptists in global political circles.

Another thing we can do is to offer thanks for the freedom we have. While some Baptists have joined other conservative Christians in pushing for a more cushy relationship between religion and government, our founding fathers knew of the dangers, and guarded against them. To learn more about the role Baptists played in guaranteeing religious liberty for Americans, you can reprise this old editorial, or take a look at this excellent post by David Stratton.

On this holiday, fireworks can be fun, but center stage belongs to freedom.

Professors in arms?

The the Los Angeles Times reported May 2 that a lecturer at California State University at Fullerton got the ax because she refused to sign a loyalty oath to defend the U.S. and California Constitutions “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

That sounds like an oath that members of the military would take, or public officials like governors or presidents -- not university professors.

The latest victim of the misbegotten requirement is Wendy Gonaver, a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, who was to teach American studies this year. Given her subject matter, Gonaver is very familiar with the anti-Communist fervor that spurred California voters to approve the loyalty oath in 1952, but also with Constitutional protections.

Gonaver told the Times that she had offered to sign the oath if she could attach a short statement expressing her views, but Fullerton wouldn’t allow that.

There's hope for her, though. Earlier this year, news-media attention led to the rehiring of another faculty member who had been fired for inserting the word "nonviolently" before signing the oath.

One would think, at the very least, that a professor could substitute the word "support" in place of "defend," which sounds like a commitment to join the Army if called upon. Or that one could refuse to sign an oath on religious grounds.

Respondents to a news blog at the online Chronicle of Higher Education berated school administrators for their strict interpretation of the McCarthy-esque policy. While some simply spoke of the entire situation as "idiotic" or "absurd," others focused more on the issue of respect for Quaker beliefs, which are characteristically non-violent and see no need for oaths.

I couldn't help but remember all the Southern Baptist missionaries who were recalled from the field or forced into early retirement because they refused to sign an equally misguided "Baptist Faith and Message" statement.

While defending the Constitution, it appears that Cal-State Fullerton administrators could benefit from a lesson on the Bill of Rights, which has something to say about respecting religious freedom.