By MIKE SOUTHWORTH
Religious freedom has a future for those who vigorously pursue it, despite the Religious Freedom Restoration Act being struck down, said Thursday’s speaker at this year’s J. Reuben Clark Law School Lecture.
“It seems to me, at least for the short term, people of faith have to become more active in the assertion of the primacy of faith in the politics of the government,” said Hew Hewitt, Emmy award-winning co-host of a PBS affiliate series in Los Angeles, partner in the law firm Hewitt & Mcguire and law professor at Chapman Law School.
This echoes the LDS First Presidency’s message read in all LDS Church sacrament meetings just two weeks ago, which said to be anxiously engaged in a good cause and politically active.
“I think there’s a very important issue — to defend the American tradition. When it comes to the historic tradition of Americans, you’re not allowed to say on the air, ‘It’s a Christian country, folks,’ [but] that’s what it was; that’s what it remains predominantly,” Hewitt said.
“We’ve to be able to name that which is traditional in the United States in order to protect it, and do so without fear of being intolerant,” he said.
Hewitt said, though the American people are predominantly Christian, the government isn’t. He quoted a sociologist, Peter Ferger, who said, “If India is the most religious nation in the world and Sweden the least religious nation in the world, then the United States of America is a country of Indians who are ruled by Swedes.”
He said that our secular world is very critical of religious beliefs and does not take them seriously.
“The trend is ominous because of the anti-belief mindset, a culture of disbelievers. At a time (where there is a) cultural mockery, where if you’re a person of faith and you take that faith into the secular world, you will not only be met with argument. But more often than not, you will be met with mockery,” he said.
“People who believe rationality simply cannot be reconciled with religious conviction have triumphed in a number of different ways, they are winning the field,” Hewitt said.
Hewitt believed the solution for the freedom-of-religion dilemma revolved around “apologetics” — the branch of theology having to do with the defense and proofs of Christianity.
“It’s my belief that apologetics is the most important project for the next millennium. By that I mean, people of faith who have intellect have to make faith respectable,” Hewitt said.
