This article discusses the value that freedom of religion provides to a healthy democracy. The author describes religious institutions as an alternative source of ideas and social criticism and a training ground for democratic citizenship, and he makes the case for why democratic governments should encourage respect for religious diversity. Ted G. Jelen is a professor of political science at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, and at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Respect for freedom of conscience, which most often involves freedom of religion, has many salutary effects on democratic government. The consequences of religious liberty are generally positive: 1) Religion provides alternative sources of ideas, social criticism, and innovation for democratic governments; 2) Religious institutions provide experiences and skills that can be applied to democratic citizenship; and 3) Respect for the prerogatives of religious minorities can enhance the legitimacy of democratic governments domestically and internationally.

RELIGION AND THE STATE

In a healthy democratic regime, the state and religious institutions should retain a respectful independence from one another. This is not to say that there should be no contact between the secular realm of politics and the sacred space defined by religion, because there is considerable overlap between the two. However, a certain functional autonomy between church and state seems to have important benefits for the state.

Observers as diverse as French author and statesman Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) and German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (1916- ) have noted the conformist tendencies of democratic political cultures. That is, in societies that are highly egalitarian (in social and legal senses), there is tremendous social pressure to conform to prevailing opinion. Noelle-Neumann has termed this phenomenon "the spiral of silence," which closely resembles Tocqueville's classic conception of the "tyranny of the majority." Prevailing viewpoints often can have irresistible effects on public opinion and public policy.

Religion often provides a "prophetic voice" to public discourse. Religious values can allow stable, transcendent values to enter the democratic dialogue and to empower the expression of minority viewpoints. This is an important function in regimes in which public opinion is the ultimate authority, since the presentation of alternative perspectives often enhances the process of political deliberation. The fact that religious principles are grounded in beliefs that are not based on the social and political exigencies of the moment allows for such beliefs to serve as independent sources of criticism of the prevailing political mood.

To illustrate, widespread adherence to Roman Catholicism provided a plausible, alternative world view to citizens of Poland during the period of communist domination. The efforts at political socialization made by the communist regime were not particularly effective, and they were actively resisted by a politically assertive Catholicism. Indeed, the presence of a popular Catholicism may have permitted Poles to make a distinction between the Polish state (secular and socialistic) and the Polish nation (Catholic and potentially democratic). Similarly, in the early years of Ronald Reagan's presidency (1981-1989) in the United States, policies such as nuclear disarmament and assistance to the poor fell out of favor in public discourse. The National Council of Catholic Bishops wrote pastoral letters concerning the immorality of nuclear war and asserting the moral imperatives underlying assistance to the poor. The spiritual and intellectual resources of the American church provided a necessary counterweight to economic and foreign policy conservatism.

There is, of course, nothing particularly novel about this insight. In his Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville identified religion as one of the most important factors mitigating the tyranny of the majority in the United States. As sources of transcendent values, which contain numerous moral imperatives related to public policy, religious traditions that are not identified with ruling regimes provide an important check on the conformist tendencies of democratic cultures.

PROTECTING RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY

Democratic governments should protect and encourage religious diversity. The public presence of multiple religious traditions enhances their potential to serve as social and political critics for at least three reasons.

The most obvious value of religious diversity for democratic political discourse is that multiple voices may result in multiple perspectives being considered in public deliberation. For example, in contemporary Brazil, the Roman Catholic Church (especially at the level of the local parish) has been a source of social criticism of the structural sources of economic and political inequality (the tradition of "liberation theology"), while a growing movement of evangelical Protestantism has served to refocus attention on individual-level morality and family life.

Secondly, religious diversity has a positive effect on religious belief, participation, and membership. Sociologists of religion have suggested that denominational groups in competitive religious environments have strong incentives to make their respective traditions attractive to members and potential members. In such settings, overall religious participation is generally higher than in environments in which one tradition has a monopoly. For example, religious involvement is generally higher in the religiously pluralistic United States than in Scandinavian nations with established churches. Similarly, in the post-communist period in predominantly Catholic Poland, church attendance and other measures of religious participation have declined markedly.

Why should this matter? Research literature suggests that participation in religious organizations is an important source of social capital, or the cognitive and social skills necessary for engagement in democratic politics. People in churches learn to work together to achieve common goals, to mediate interpersonal conflict in constructive ways, and to choose among competing social goods. All of these skills are important for the development of democratic citizens. Indeed, some of this research has suggested that religious socialization is the only reliable source of social capital among otherwise disadvantaged citizens in the United States. Thus, religion, like other institutions in civil society, is an important source of citizenship training. More people are likely to avail themselves of the learning opportunities provided by religious institutions in religiously diverse environments.

Finally, religious diversity can reduce the potential for serious religious-based political conflict. In societies which have more than one dominant religious tradition, citizens can demonize their counterparts in other traditions, increasing the possibility of intense and violent conflict. By contrast, in a more pluralistic environment, no religious tradition may attract a majority, which forces religious citizens who engage in politics to compromise in order to achieve partial political goals.

In the United States, for example, some religiously affiliated groups have criticized government policies on a variety of moral or lifestyle issues. However, their effectiveness has been limited by, among other things, theological differences within their own religious traditions. Internal controversies, then, over such matters as modernism, evolution, religious experience, and doctrinal interpretation have largely prevented the formation of monolithic political coalitions. In brief, the doctrinal diversity within the religion practiced by a majority of Americans (Christianity) - as well as the tradition of respect for other religions, including Judaism and Islam - makes it unlikely that any single religious group will come to dominate political discourse in the United States.

RIGHTS OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES

Religious traditions often make truth claims about ultimate realities, such as the nature of reality, the purposes of human existence, and explanations for the existence of evil in the world. Such assertions are not typically verifiable or refutable and, as such, are not subject to straightforward negotiation or compromise. From this, it follows that people or institutions in positions of political power (e.g., popular majorities in democracies) often are tempted to suppress alternative versions of religious truth or to restrict substantially the prerogatives of religious minorities. There are at least two reasons why political leaders in democratic governments should resist this temptation and should respect the rights of religious minorities to as great an extent as possible.

First, allowing religious freedom for members of minority religions, which may be socially or theologically marginalized, avoids the problem of equating full citizenship with membership in a particular religious tradition. To illustrate, if a person can be fully American without being a Christian, or fully Israeli without being a Jew, members of religious traditions that fall out of the culturally dominant pattern are not confronted with the problem of divided loyalties. If there is no necessary connection between national citizenship and discipleship in a particular religious tradition, members of minority traditions are more likely to obey the law and to participate fully in the political life of the nation. Put another way, allowing religious liberty for religious minorities seems likely to enhance the legitimacy of government for members of such groups.

The issue of legitimacy is especially important for democratic regimes, because democracy is a persuasive system, which requires the active assent and participation of the governed. That is, democratic governments achieve their legitimacy by persuading citizens of their right and ability to govern. Democratic governments also require active participation, rather than passive compliance, on the part of their citizens, and such participation is arguably more difficult to achieve when certain members of the community are denied the ability to exercise fundamental aspects of their identities.

A second reason to respect the rights of religious minorities is the international aspect. The flexibility of national governments to engage in complex relations with other states is often limited by perceptions of religious discrimination on the part of the governments of those states. Viewed another way, a government that discriminates against certain religious minorities is often disadvantaged in its dealings with other states in which the marginal religious tradition is more politically consequential.

For example, in the early 1970s, the ability of U.S. President Richard Nixon to engage in d¡¦ente with the Soviet Union was occasionally limited by the perception on the part of many Americans (including many members of Congress) that the U.S.S.R. discriminated against Jews. The "Jackson Amendment" (introduced by Senator Henry Jackson) sought to limit trade between the United States and the Soviet Union and to make such trade contingent on improvement in the Soviet observance of human rights. Clearly, the path to d¡¦ente would have been considerably smoother were the Soviet Union not widely perceived as anti-Semitic. More recently, allegations of restrictions on Christian missionaries have made it difficult for President George W. Bush to engage in cooperative relations with states such as Jordan, Egypt, China, and North Korea. Evangelical Christians are an important component of the president's Republican coalition in U.S. politics, and it is politically difficult for any president to pursue diplomatic policies at odds with the preferences of a key constituency.

Similarly, on a recent trip to Pakistan, I noted that my credibility as a representative of the United States was compromised by the widespread belief that the American government, and the American people, were somehow "anti-Muslim" in the post-9/11 period. I found several audiences of university students unwilling to listen to my defense of the principle of religious liberty until I had addressed to their satisfaction that Muslims living in the United States were not the victims of legal discrimination at the hands of the government. On the other side of the Atlantic, France's attempt to thwart religious divisiveness by banning Muslim girls from wearing headscarves along with Jewish boys from wearing skullcaps to public school may have caused a decline in the national prestige of France in the Middle East and elsewhere. Certain films perceived to be anti-Islam may have occasioned religiously motivated, political violence in the Netherlands.

In all these cases, the perception of discrimination is at least as important as the reality. To a considerable extent, successful diplomacy is contingent on goodwill between sovereign nations. The belief on the part of the citizens of some nations that their co-religionists are second-class citizens in other states can make the achievement of such goodwill problematic.

CONCLUSION

A vibrant, diverse, and pluralistic religious environ-ment contributes to a healthy democratic society. While one should not exaggerate the importance of religion in democratic politics, religion can serve as a source of policy criticism, education for citizenship, and political legitimacy.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.