When religious freedom is attacked, freedom of thought becomes the next target.

The human mind is a sacred entity.  What people think, what they want, and what their imaginations create is all private and only to be shared if desired.

Thought Police are only a fantom of George Orwell’s 1984 dystopian world where people’s thoughts are monitored and punished if someone’s thoughts question the government’s rule.

Or so we thought.

Americans Are Free Thinkers

Of course, Americans are free thinkers.  No one can control our thoughts!

As Founding Father James Madison put it: “More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man’s religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy.  Conscience is the most sacred of all property;…”  

Conscience, in Madison’s quote, refers essentially to one’s thoughts.  Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines conscience as, “Internal or self-knowledge, or judgment of right and wrong;…” and adds, “The conscience manifests itself in the feeling of obligation we experience, which precedes, attends and follows our actions.”

Indeed, totalitarian governments throughout history have sought to suppress thoughts that ran contrary to the state, but all failed miserably.  A man’s conscience is sacred, and try as they might, power-hungry tyrants cannot control everyone’s thoughts.

American Freedom of Conscience

The difference between America and other governments lies in America’s Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence where freedom of conscience materializes into the law of the land.  It’s an amazing thing and unique only to America.

This makes the leftists go crazy.  Try as they might to brainwash young students and force-feed lies through propagandist media, they cannot control people’s brains.  They try, but they can’t succeed.  The human mind will never stop exploring the larger questions of faith, family, freedom, equality, and the search for truth.

Protecting Religious Freedom = Protecting Freedom of Thought

Protecting this freedom of conscience is a foundational motive as to why America’s founding documents protect religious freedom so carefully.  Many people make the argument that religious freedoms don’t really matter since they only protect people who are religious.  But religious freedom is essential to all other freedoms.  

“A government that intrudes on conscience will not hesitate to intrude […] other freedoms” (Heritage Foundation). 

Progressive history makes the case that America’s history revolves around freedom from religion.  This revisionist history does not tell the truth: the majority of the Pilgrims fled England to escape religious suppression.  They were seeking freedom for religion.  

A quick look at the Library of Congress reveals that Christians in Europe experienced harsh persecution, including strangling Mennonites, disemboweling Jesuits, excommunicating Lutherans in Austria, and massacring Huguenots in France.

These horrifying persecutions were what the Pilgrims fled, finding refuge in a New World: America.  In fact, “beginning in 1630 as many as 20,000 Puritans emigrated to America from England to gain the liberty to worship God as they chose” (Library of Congress).

Freedom FOR Religion, Not Freedom FROM Religion

When the American Revolution broke out, the key difference between it and the French Revolution that occurred later was that the American Revolution “was a religious event, whereas the French Revolution was an anti-religious event.”

John Adams further supported this idea by saying, “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.”

America wanted freedom for religion while France wanted freedom from religion.  This is key to understanding America and what it stands for.  Today, leftists want America to think freedom is defined as freedom from religion.  They claim America is not a Christian country.

America: Founded on Christianity

This simply is not true, and it goes all the way back to the Founding Fathers.  “To them, freedom of liberty was tantamount to freedom of thought,” which brings us full circle to the sacredness of conscience.

The Founding Fathers understood that “freedom of the mind is logically and philosophically prior to all other freedoms protected by the Constitution.”

As Alexis de Tocqueville once said: “Tyranny may be able to do without faith, but freedom cannot.”

Even more amazing is the fact that there are over 4,500 quotes from the Founding Fathers with statements connected to “the Bible, God, and […] the importance of ethics based on Christian principles.”  All of these quotes were public, verified, and were made while the speakers were physically standing on government-owned properties.  The government was whole-heartedly Christian at America’s founding.

School kids aren’t taught this, but the Bible was used as the first textbook in American public schools.  If you read the original state Constitutions of all 50 states, God is mentioned in each one.  There is also a Bible verse engraved on the Liberty Bell.  Not to mention, each president is sworn into office with the words, “So help me God.”

The sovereignty of religion is essential to the American way.  When religious liberty is encroached upon, one can be sure other liberties will quickly be snatched up by the state.  

It boils down to the fact that freedom of religion is freedom of conscience.  

Religious Freedom Is Under Attack… And So Is Freedom of Thought

America’s religious freedom is under attack, as many well know.  Newsweek reported in August 2020 that officials were using COVID-19 as a ruse to halt drive-in church services, forbid chanting or singing in a church service, and even threaten to “permanently shut down synagogues.”  Now, more than eight months later, we can look back on that and wonder why we were surprised.  Christianity is under heavy attack from the left.

This weekend, as Apple suspends Parler (an alternative social media app for free thought and free speech), conservatives are outraged as we see one more chunk of our freedom broken off.  

The signs were clear that it was coming when President Trump was repeatedly blocked from his Twitter account throughout 2020 and officially suspended shortly after the electoral votes were certified this week.

Staying Uncensored

The work is cut out for us.  Freedom of religion and freedom of thought is under siege, and we have a choice: give up or fight.

For us, the choice is clear.  We will not be self-censored.  Keep speaking up in class even if you have a liberal professor.  Keep posting on your social media platforms, even if you are censored.  And most importantly, keep having those tough conversations with friends and family who might disagree.  We must continue speaking up, lest we end up like Martin Niemoller, a Confessing Church pastor in Nazi Germany.  He waited too long to speak up against the Nazis’ agenda, and by the time he decided to raise his voice, it was too late.

Niemoller wrote these words during his eight-year imprisonment by Adolf Hitler:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – 

because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out –

because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – 

because I was not a Jew.

And then they came for me –

And there was no one left to speak for me.”

We must keep speaking up for our freedoms.  We can’t let our own fears create self-censorship.  And we mustn’t let others shame us into silence.  The fight for religious freedom and freedom of thought is only the beginning of a much larger battle.