For the last 15 years, challenges to religious freedom have been unceasing. Too many controversies—and Supreme Court cases—could be spoken of to make this point. In response, advocacy for religious liberty has been an urgent priority for Christians. We must maintain our vigilance for religious liberty with urgency.
Religious freedom is inextricably linked, though, with freedom of speech. In fact, as someone who studies religious freedom academically, I believe religious liberty grounds freedom of speech, since the need to speak freely stems ultimately from an encounter with religious truth. Of course, non-religious speech has freedoms as well. The moral and organizing logic of the First Amendment connects religious freedom with free speech.
Background aside, I write with an urgent plea: Christians, with the energy historically shown in defending religious freedom, must now wage a two-theater battle to protect freedom of speech. Many, of course, have been doing both simultaneously for some time. Challenges to religious freedom and freedom of speech are, after all, catalysts for why the American project began.
And yet, while nothing less than bold advocacy for religious freedom must continue, Christians must make anti-censorship a priority, too. Attacks on freedom of speech are accelerating to the point that it is hard not to conclude that powerful forces within the government and government-backed media are working overtime to suppress it.
In the last few weeks, we have learned of the government’s pressure on Facebook to censor views deviating from government orthodoxy on COVID-19. French authorities arrested the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, for letting illicit material roam free. Rather than go after the creators who use Telegram illegally, authorities are going after the owner of the service. (Pavel has since been released, though the charges continue.) A Brazilian judge has banned X within that nation, thereby cutting its citizens off from the world’s largest public square. Liberal economist Robert Reich has called for government regulators to threaten Elon Musk with arrest if he does not tamp down on “lies and hate” on X. One can scan headlines from The New York Times and read examples such as “The First Amendment is out of control.” In the United Kingdom, the government warns its citizens to “Think before you post,” and in Ireland, a teacher was arrested for refusing to honor a student’s pronouns.
None of this is to suggest that freedom of speech is absolute. There are limits, usually called “time, place, manner” restrictions. For example, you cannot incite violence with your speech or defame. However, the sheer volume of attacks on free speech makes it unlikely that this is all a mere coincidence. Governments seeking to “crack down” on viewpoints challenging official narratives will always put those viewpoint holders in their crosshairs.
This is all more than a little ironic, considering that progressives in the government and the media are the self-appointed defenders of liberal democracy. Checking in on liberal democracy as defined by the regime seeking to protect liberal democracy, so-called, leaves no room for encouragement.
Here is what we must know: Authoritarianism and totalitarianism begin by letting censorship gain an inch.
To care about the freedom of speech is an invitation to think deeply about whether there is a public theology of free speech that justifies elevating it as a priority. In my understanding of the Bible’s portrayal of human nature and government authority, a public theology of free speech is grounded in two realities.
First, positively framed, truth-seeking and truth-speaking are moral and human goods related to human personality and human knowledge. In other words, speech is fundamental to our self-constitution. Truth-seeking and truth-speaking require freedom and, therefore, political rights for each natural right to be secured. When we defend freedom of speech, we are not defending the inherent good of misusing one’s speech (e.g., profanity, misinformation). No, we are defending the right of someone to search after the truth and then speak in defense of it should they conclude they have come to experience the truth. Of course, other people think they better understand the truth. So, free speech exists to allow competing claims on the truth to wage intellectual combat and see whose version of the truth is correct. The exercises of citizenship and capacities of human nature that free speech reflects are valuable not simply because we are citizens in a democracy. No, they are valuable because we are rational creatures made in God’s image who is Himself the ground for truth.
Second, negatively framed, all humans and human institutions are fallible and need to be reminded of their fallibility for fear of unchecked infallibility turning into authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Government censorship over viewpoint differences is inconsistent with God’s purpose for human government. However, applying that basic principle will be prudential and based on context and fact-specific realities. For example, I believe the government can and should prohibit pornography. The challenge of enforcing speech laws around such things as obscenity is that this can become highly subjective. Regardless, we should constantly force the government to make its case about why it has the right to censor speech. The burden should not be on citizens to prove their right to free speech. The burden should be on the government to prove under what conditions it ever could censor it.
Famed writer Walter Kirn—not a conservative—recently said this on X: “The last few days have seen an almost symphonic surge of attacks on our most fundamental rights, by officials, newspapers, politicians, celebrities, & academics. It’s not rhetoric anymore, it’s an organized massing of institutional forces prior to big moves which seem imminent.”
This seems self-evidently true. Be on the lookout for busybodies in the government and media who think restricting access to speech and information is for your good. It is not.
