Clash Of The Acronyms? Finding The Right FoRBula In The Fight For Religious Freedom

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(OPINION) Religious freedom is a fast-developing cause in the free world. A side effect of the growing global focus on the persecution of religious minorities is the burgeoning list of acronyms with which we have to contend. Major nongovernmental organizations include ADF, ACN, MEC, ICC, IDC, VOM and my own Religious Freedom Institute (RFI). Open Doors International (ODI) publishes its World Watch List (WWL) every year.

There are civil society conveners like the IRF Roundtable, Religious Liberty Partnership (RLP) and the FoRB (Freedom of Religion or Belief) Forum. Institutions clearly consider themselves less obliged to be concise with their acronyms, so we have the International Parliamentary Panel for FoRB (IPPFoRB), the International Religious Freedom and Belief Alliance (IRFBA) and the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for FoRB, amongst others. SMH!

While the scale of religious persecution remains colossal and deteriorating, global governments have been paying greater attention to this issue. Indeed, the U.K. Foreign Office will soon be hosting an international conference called the 2022 International Ministerial Conference to Advance Freedom of Religion or Belief. It isn’t the snappiest title. Perhaps they should commandeer the name of the cancelled U.K. LGBT conference Safe to Be Me. There is a noticeable difference between the terminology of the religious freedom cause in Europe and that used in the United States. In the last decade, in the European context especially, the acronym FoRB has become the universal acronym. The aforementioned FoRB Forum, the APPG, along with the prime minister’s special envoy for FoRB are native to the U.K. The word “belief” has been appended to accommodate the nonreligious, derived from the wording of Article 18 in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The United States, which has been the leader in advancing religious freedom for over 25 years, continues to use the standard acronym IRF (international religious freedom). In the U.S. context there have been the IRF Act, the IRF Office at the U.S. State Department, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the IRF Roundtable and more examples besides. In the week before the London ministerial, there will be a conference in Washington focusing on the same issues. It is called the International Religious Freedom Summit.

The “B” or not the “B”? Does it even matter?

My own campaigning efforts have meant that I’ve spent a lot of time in both the U.K. and U.S., and I’ve considered at length the many differences in terminology, perspectives and practices. On this particular divergence I would argue that the language of IRF is sufficient, offers clarity and is more helpful in general. The addition of the “B” is clunky and unnecessary. Equating religion with belief is deeply flawed because the latter is imprecise and potentially detrimental to actual international engagement.

It is, perhaps, understandable that well-intentioned leaders among European religious freedom proponents were willing to make the change from IRF to FoRB. Most right-minded campaigners for religious freedom can see links between persecution and intolerance against religious minorities internationally and against those who identify as nonreligious. Most right-minded campaigners for international religious freedom believe in the right of all people to believe and not to believe whatever they like without facing the threat of violence or invidious discrimination. There are pragmatic reasons to adopt the acronym FoRB too, as it might seem to be an innocuous way for the religious believers who make up the vast majority of this campaigning community to be inclusive. Perhaps it’s also a means to make the issue more comfortable for governments and other secular stakeholders who might otherwise find anything exclusively related to religion a bit icky.

To be clear, we should stand and die for the right of anyone to hold whatever peaceful beliefs they choose. One may disagree profoundly with another person’s religion or their nonreligious faith. Some may believe that everyone’s convictions on spiritual matters have the most perilous consequences for them in this age and in eternity. However, people must be free to come to such conclusions, to hold and express such convictions without facing any form of intimidation, violence, repression or persecution. Recently, Mubarak Bala, the president of the Nigerian Humanist Association, was jailed for 24 years for “blaspheming Islam.” This is an abhorrent abuse of his rights, and it’s important for campaigners to stand up for him around the world.

So why do so many still prefer to use the seemingly narrower term religious freedom?

To start with, there is a reasonable concern that equating religion with “belief” can lead to confusion and misconceptions. Whilst there might be a degree of religiosity to nonreligious beliefs, it is unlikely to be the case that the freedom to exercise those beliefs will require much more than basic rights to freedom of expression. Freedom of belief is unlikely to entail any kind of freedom to worship. It is unlikely to require much in the way of freedom of association and the right to gather together as a group in a building licensed for that purpose. For the most part, freedom of belief is the right to hold and freely express opinions that dissent from the majority or the state religion or ideology. Religious freedom encapsulates many more freedoms and issues relating to religious practices, including their exercise in public. There is a risk that using FoRB terminology with stakeholders and influencers in government, for example, could imply that the right to freedom of religion merely entitles the individual to an opinion, albeit a religious opinion, without any acknowledgment that a religious conviction may bring with it obligations that mere belief does not.

Further, there is a growing recognition of a strong case that can be made for religious freedom as a source of societal flourishing. Religion is undoubtedly being misused to cause pain and division. It has been weaponized throughout history. Nationalist identities and political ideologies can be similarly implicated. A key problem in either case is that religious and ideological extremism germinates, festers, and develops in societal echo chambers. Religious freedom can provide part of the solution. Where religious communities are able to coexist peacefully, there is a practical benefit to security locally and internationally. Religious freedom, moreover, can contribute immensely to healthy and thriving societies. Most major religions promote personal responsibility to family, to community and to the world. Religion asserts that there is accountability to an authority higher than oneself or one’s government that has a considerable impact on limiting destructive and evil behaviors. Religion shapes virtue, sets moral standards and transmits them through time. Religion is not intrinsically good but it is important and can be valuable, especially in the context of free and pluralist societies. On the other hand, belief is a vague concept and is comparatively individualistic. Nonreligious beliefs are as likely and perhaps much more likely to be associated with subjective values and truths rather than communal ideals. While flourishing societies will allow freedom for those who hold nonreligious beliefs, it is harder to make the argument that freedom to believe will itself have an impact on the peace, stability and prosperity of a society or nation.

Contrary to the Western narrative, we live in an increasingly religious world with a plethora of massive challenges, both domestic and international, related to religion. Governments and civil society actors at the aforementioned U.K. Ministerial to Advance FoRB need to understand and engage with the specific dynamics of religion if they are to have any chance of achieving positive outcomes. Obscuring the relevance of religious freedom and diluting the cause to cater to the tastes of the religio-squeamish do not help in the process of policy development.

All this being said, the primary reason why some prefer to use religious freedom rather than FoRB is because the term FoRB itself implies that religious freedom does not include the right for people to believe in no religion and to follow no god. This is incorrect and is the most critical source of confusion that could divide this campaigning community unnecessarily. Religious freedom is the right for everyone, everywhere to reach their own conclusions about the deep questions on existence and the spiritual realm, and to live freely and peacefully in light of their conclusions, in accordance with their consciences. Christians can stand alongside atheists, and Muslims alongside humanists, under the banner of religious freedom. Religious freedom is inclusive, comprehensive and compassionate enough.

The semantics of FoRB vs IRF are clearly not dangerous enough in themselves to risk division and distractions by campaigning against the use of one or the other. But words are powerful, so it’s important for everybody with an interest in promoting these rights properly to consider the full significance of the words we use. There is a risk that if we do not think clearly about the cause and the concepts we are promoting, it could be detrimental to our shared mission. Around the world, the scale of persecution against religious communities is unfathomable. From Algeria to Iran to Afghanistan to India to Russia to China to Latin America, religious minorities are being repressed, hunted, tortured and murdered because of their religious identities. They are Jews, Christians, Sunnis, Shi’as, Ahmadis, Baha’is, Yezidis, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Kaka’is and many others besides. The extent of the global crisis of religious freedom warrants and demands an accurate focus. We owe it to those who are suffering on account of their devotion to their religious convictions.

Miles P.J. Windsor serves as senior manager for strategy and campaigns with the Middle East Action Team at the Religious Freedom Institute. Miles has over a decade of experience in international affairs and religious freedom, during that time focusing on the Middle East and North Africa.