Since the early days of the Restoration, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have championed the fundamental human right to religious freedom.
In 2023, President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, asked, “Where would the absence of religious freedom lead society?” To consider this important question, author, researcher and professor on religious law Steven T. Collis joins Church News reporter Mary Richards on this episode of the Church News podcast.
They discuss the importance of understanding religious freedom, including Collis’ conversion story; how to advocate for it by being peacemakers; and the need to promote this freedom worldwide.
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon,Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
Steven T. Collis: You know, I work as a scholar and a lawyer in the religious freedom space. I work with people of almost every religious belief you can imagine, including atheists and agnostics. And I’ve been exposed to a lot of different religious beliefs. I regularly talk to people about their beliefs. I regularly defend them and their rights to be able to live out their beliefs. But the central question of the last — I would arguably say, I guess, for the entire existence of humanity, is: Did Jesus Christ actually walk on the earth the way that we read about Him in the Bible? And was He resurrected? Was He actually the Son of God? And what I know from personal experiences I have had is that He did walk the earth as we read about Him. He was resurrected. And what we read about Him in the Book of Mormon is true. And I know that, and I’m grateful for that knowledge, because it drives everything else I do in my life. And so, religious freedom is critical to each of us in our own journeys, and I hope we can all appreciate it. I am certainly grateful that it was in play at that time when I was exploring and asking the hard questions about “Is there a God?” and “Why are we here?”
1:10
Mary Richards: This is Mary Richards, reporter at the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
From the early days of the Restoration, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have championed the fundamental human right to religious freedom. President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, has said, “If you have not thought seriously about religious freedom, or if you wonder why it is important, let me encourage you to think about, ’Where would the absence of religious freedom lead society?’”
Joining me now is Steven T. Collis, clinical professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law and the founding faculty director of the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center and its Law and Religion Clinic.
2:07
Steve, welcome to the Church News podcast.
Steven T. Collis: Well, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Mary Richards: Tell me about your background and how you came to these topics and these issues.
Steven T. Collis: Well, my background, that’s a long, convoluted question. That’s to say, I’ll leave out some of the too-personal stuff and say: I decided to go to law school, and I ended up at the University of Michigan Law School, which is one of the nation’s top schools, and there happened to be there at the time the world’s leading scholar on religious liberty law, whom I didn’t know, but I thought the class looked interesting. I took it more on a whim. I didn’t even know religious liberty law was a field. And I just fell in love with every aspect of it. I couldn’t get enough. My wife mocked me because I kept running out from my studies, talking about all these things I was learning. And I’ve just been involved ever since. And I’ve also been involved in publishing, and that’s why I’ve had a foot in general First Amendment law really my whole career.
3:01
Mary Richards: Tell me about being the founding faculty director. What is the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center and the Law and Religion Clinic?
Steven T. Collis: Yeah, so I was in private practice. I was an equity partner at a large law firm in Denver, Colorado, and I chaired our firm’s religious institutions and First Amendment practice group. And one day someone called me up, and they said, “Hey, how are you doing?” And I said, “Well, I’m living somebody’s dream.” And they kind of laughed. And I thought, “Well, that joke landed. I’ll use that from now on.” So every time people asked me how I was doing, I said, “Well, I’m living somebody’s dream.”
And I realized very quickly that it was true. It was someone’s dream to be an equity partner at a large law firm with a healthy book of business, but it wasn’t mine. At the same time, I was writing and publishing, and I was teaching at a law school, and I realized that I was far more passionate about teaching and writing and working with students and engaging in this space than I was about the pure practice of law.
So I transitioned into academia. I managed to get a research fellowship at Stanford Law School, and I thought I’d be there for three years as I was transitioning into academia before I got a full-time professorship. But then the University of Texas called, and they had this opportunity to launch a center focused on all the freedoms of the First Amendment — where we do a deep exploration of all the freedoms of the First Amendment, including religious freedom — on the scholarly side. But we could also have as part of this center a religious liberty clinic, where law students get to work pro bono on real religious liberty matters, really across the entire United States at all levels of what you can imagine of the legal system.
And it was a really wonderful opportunity for me. University of Texas is one of our nation’s top law schools. It was a great opportunity to just build this center from scratch. So we host debates, conferences, dialogue. We promote scholarship. We do basically everything we can to support an exploration of all of the freedoms of the First Amendment and help foster an appreciation of their place in our society. And then I help lead students on working on real, live cases everywhere from the U.S. Supreme Court down to just the most modest matters anywhere in the country.
5:03
Mary Richards: So, when we talk about religious freedom, what do we mean by that?
Steven T. Collis: Well, that’s a good question, because most people have absolutely no idea. So, there’s a story I like to tell about when I was a little boy — I grew up in New Mexico — and my family didn’t have a lot of money. We had a relatively small home, and we all shared one bathroom. And I walked in, and I was 9 years old, and it was really cool back then for little boys like me to spike up their hair, like people with hair like mine. So I went in, I got the mousse, and I spiked up my hair.
And I came walking out of the bathroom, and right then my mom walked by, and she started sniffing. And she said, “What is that smell?” And I very proudly pointed to my head, and I said, “It’s the mousse.” And her eyes got really big, and she grabbed me, she spun me around, pushed me back into the bathroom and ran my head in the sink. And it turns out that what I thought was the mousse was actually her hair removal product Nair. And all of my hair started coming out.
I learned a valuable lesson, though. We get in trouble in life when we think we know what something is and we’re wrong and we don’t know what it is. And I learned that about Nair when I was 9, and I find that repeatedly about religious freedom. People have really strong opinions about it, and most people have absolutely no idea what it is.
So, when we talk about religious freedom, what we’re often talking about in the United States is: It is the protection for the free exercise of religion, so the protection from government in burdening how we live out our religion. And it’s also the protection against having government favor one religion or religious belief over another.
The idea is that as much as possible, government stays out of our religious choices and our religious decision-making. And then we are all left on our own to persuade one another, to convert one another, to proselytize one another based on the power of our teachings, the spirit people feel when they visit with us, the examples of our lives, the way they feel when they come to our places of worship. That’s how we should be converting one another, not using the heavy hand of government.
So when we talk about religious freedom, that’s what we’re talking about. And I hope just from that description, people can understand that it protects everyone who lives in this country, regardless of their beliefs or nonbeliefs. It really allows all of us to make our own religious decisions without having to fight over who’s controlling government when it comes to our religion.
7:11
Mary Richards: So in that way, then, my question I was thinking of is: Why should people care about religious freedom as a fundamental human right? But that seems to lead exactly what we’re talking about here.
Steven T. Collis: Yeah, everyone should care about it. And there’s actually two reasons for why we should care about it, but both are very big reasons. But one is just: If all you care about is preventing human suffering, you should care about religious freedom. If you go back and look at the history that led up to the development of religious freedom in the United States, what it was really marked by was about 250 years of religious warfare.
In the Western world, in Europe, it was Protestants and Catholics. But there is no religious group on earth, including atheists and agnostics, who have not been guilty of what I’m about to describe, which was trying to use the power of government to force religious unity on a society. And those efforts inevitably led to religious warfare.
Some people mistakenly think that it was religion that led to that warfare, but it wasn’t religion. It was a lack of religious liberty. When we have no religious liberty, what ends up happening is we have to fight over control of government, based on our religious beliefs, and that has led to warfare historically all over the globe, and it’s even leading to warfare today. So we care about religious liberty because it leads to the peace that we enjoy. We live in the most religiously diverse country in the history of the world, and we live alongside one another in relative peace. That is a miracle that people don’t truly understand.
The other reason we should care about it — there’s the utilitarian avoidance of suffering and warfare, but there’s also just: These are the most important decisions any of us make in our lives. “Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? Is there a God? What happens when we die? What does God demand of me?” Those types of questions are the kinds of things that are so intimately personal that we don’t want someone else in government forcing them upon us. And we should all care about that, regardless of our beliefs or nonbeliefs.
9:08
Mary Richards: I have on my mind being in the United States of America and recording this in July and thinking of my freedoms and such. But we have listeners all over the world who this is also impacting them as well.
And so, in the way you’re describing religious freedom, and tell me about this: How does religious freedom impact other societal and individual freedoms?
9:31
Steven T. Collis: Well, those same ideas really play a role everywhere you go. The question is: How much is government burdening people and their ability to exercise their religion? And how much is government favoring one religion over another, such that people are incentivized to fight for control of government based on religion? And we see this. It’s a major problem around the world.
In fact, many of the more modern genocides — and I use the word “genocide” as a legal term of art; so, when the United States government labels something a genocide, it triggers all sorts of treaties and puts all sorts of requirements on the government, so they’re very careful about when they use that word, unlike maybe popular commentators — many of the last genocides that the U.S. government has labeled a genocide have been based in religion. Not on race or ethnicity or anything else; it’s been based on religion. And we see it across the spectrum, the religious spectrum. Who the victims are just depends on which country you’re in. In some cases, it’s Christians. In some cases, it’s Muslims.
So that’s a major issue worldwide. There’s also research that shows that countries who respect religious freedom also tend to respect many of the other freedoms that we all cherish, freedoms of speech, equality under the law. These are the rule of law generally. All of those tend to be more robust in countries that also protect religious freedom. So people often refer to it as one of the parent freedoms, that from it flows all sorts of others. And that’s something to always remember.
11:00
Mary Richards: Yeah. How, then, can protecting and emphasizing religious freedom contribute to a more pluralistic or a more peaceful society?
Steven T. Collis: Going back to that history I talked about — so, human beings are all guilty of committing something that we scholars in the field call “the Puritan mistake.” So, thinking of July and the founding of the United States, we like to say that the Puritans came to these shores for religious freedom. And it’s true, they did, but they were interested in religious freedom only for themselves. They even passed laws that said you can be a Puritan or you can get out of Massachusetts. So they very quickly began doing exactly what they were trying to escape.
And here’s the thing: I asked the scholar who coined that term why he was picking on the poor Puritans. And he said, “Well, I thought it would sound good for my audience,” or whatever. But the reality is there isn’t a human group on earth that has not been guilty of it at one time or another. We’ve seen, historically, we saw Catholics do it to Protestants, and Protestants to Catholics, and atheists to theists, and theists to atheists, and Christians to Jews, and Jews to Christians, and Muslims to Christians, and Christians to Muslims, and Hindus to Buddhists. And I could just go on and on and on and on. There isn’t a human group that’s not been guilty of the Puritan mistake.
So, because we are so prone to committing the Puritan mistake, we need law to protect against that. And that’s what religious liberty law is. It protects us all from one another, while simultaneously allowing all of us to kind of progress on our own religious journeys, without someone else using the heavy hand of government to try to influence us. When people try to use the heavy hand of government to force a religious unity on a people, it almost inevitably leads to violence and warfare, and we don’t want to see that happen. It’s critical.
12:46
Mary Richards: Yeah. I began this podcast by mentioning how from the early days of the Restoration, leaders of the Church have championed this right to religious freedom.
And so I wanted to ask you: Why is religious liberty, religious freedom, a significant issue for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? How does it align with the Church’s teachings?
13:08
Steven T. Collis: Well, this goes back to our founding, some of our founding scriptures, and it’s right there in our canon. We can look at article of faith 11, which people regularly quote. “We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.” That’s a common phrase for the Church. But also, if you look at Doctrine and Covenants 134, which is kind of a statement on our view about government and law, you actually see both of these principles I’ve been talking about right there in our scriptures.
So, in Doctrine and Covenants 134:7, the scriptures say, “We believe that rulers, states, and governments have a right, and are bound to enact laws for the protection of all citizens in the free exercise of their religious belief; but we do not believe that they have a right in justice to deprive citizens of this privilege, or proscribe them in their opinions.” And a couple verses down, “We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges” (verse 9).
So, you can see in our scripture, in our canonized scripture, the value that we place on these principles of religious freedom. And you see the Church working hard to do that all over the globe. Now, look, I’m not a lawyer for the Church. I don’t know everything that the Church is doing around the world. But I can tell you, as someone who regularly speaks at conferences all over the globe and who is regularly involved in educating people about religious freedom, that the Church is always a willing participant in these things and in helping educate people about religious freedom and in standing up for the religious freedom not just of the Church’s interests but of everyone.
And I take great pride in that, because you see the Church not just committing the Puritan mistake. I see the Church regularly promoting and talking about and standing up for the religious freedom, even of groups with which we do not agree theologically. And, again, it’s not as if the Church is conceding any theological ground. We’re not saying that we are abandoning our truth claims by protecting others. What we say is, “Let us persuade and teach by the power of our doctrines and the Spirit while protecting everyone equally under the law.”
15:21
Mary Richards: Yeah. This made me think of — and I just brought this up here — Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke at the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C., earlier this year, where he said religious freedom is more than the right to worship, and I quote, “It is about preserving the dignity, compassion and respect that all people deserve in this world.” And then later, he said, “We can love each other even if we have different beliefs.
And President Dallin H. Oaks, the first counselor in the First Presidency, has also, I’ve heard him speak about this multiple times, that it’s the idea of freedom for all, of even of no religion. If you have religion or have no religion, the Church has to be there at the table championing this right, right?
16:06
Steven T. Collis: Yeah, absolutely. And I wrote in one of my books, I called the book “Deep Conviction,” and one of the things I emphasized in there, and the reason we picked that title, is because it takes a certain level of deep conviction in your beliefs to believe in what I’m talking about here, to believe that, “Hey, on an equal playing field, without government playing a role, I am confident that my religion can stand and can thrive and that I can teach and preach to others, and I feel confident in what will happen if I do that.”
It takes a certain conviction to do that, to stand up for someone else’s religious beliefs while simultaneously inviting them to church. That’s what we’re talking about here. We’re not talking about abandoning our principles or beliefs, but we are suggesting that everyone should have equal protection under the law when it comes to their own religious beliefs.
16:51
Mary Richards: You’re speaking right to my heart as a missionary mom. My son is serving in Bolivia right now, and his whole purpose is to bring others to Christ, to the restored Church, to the gospel, to Jesus Christ. But he’s not forcing it on them. Your answer kind of spoke to my heart as a missionary mom.
17:10
Steven T. Collis: Well, if I could comment on that too, that’s another part of the theory behind religious freedom. It’s not so much — I do think it’s consistent with our doctrines, but it’s not something I’ve seen the Church really push a lot, but it is something that people who have talked about religious freedom over the centuries have emphasized that a faith forced upon someone by paying a penalty from government is not really faith at all. God wants our hearts, and we can only give those voluntarily, not because we’re worried about worldly punishment from the government. And so that’s another reason to want to promote and support religious freedom.
17:42
Mary Richards: And you see, as well, the Church working with other faiths, other governments to address barriers to religious freedom. Because, like we’ve talked about, we’ve got different countries who might have different levels of this. And for the Church to grow, they would like to be able to be in a country and for people to practice what they want to, but not just our Church; any church in that country to be able to practice and live what they believe.
18:08
Steven T. Collis: Yeah, that’s right. And the Church is — again, I’m not a lawyer for the Church and don’t work inside the Church to see everything it’s doing, but — I see it regularly partnering with other faith groups, including, as you say, people of no faith. I see it regularly, partnering with government groups, international aid agencies and others to try to promote religious freedom everywhere for all people. And it’s great to behold and a great blessing to people of our faith, but also many people not of our faith.
18:35
Mary Richards: And Steve, this isn’t something where I can just keep saying, “Oh, the Church is doing this. The Church, the capital C, the Church, they’re working on it.”
What, then, as I learn more about these topics, what then can I do? Or what can our listeners do if this perks their interest? Or why should they care, I guess, is the reason now to this question.
18:51
Steven T. Collis: You’re right. First off, the Church as an institution can only do so much anyway. I don’t know if people fully realize what a true religious minority the Church is in many countries, so it only has so much influence when it partners with other groups. Really, where religious freedom will get protected is on the ground where people value and see the good that religion is doing.
And one thing I would emphasize — and I think this is true in every country on the globe — what individuals can do really relates to helping people appreciate religion generally. So, I was at a conference some time ago with all of the leading religion reporters in the Western world, at least, although I should emphasize we’re seeing similar trends in other parts of the world as well. But a lot of these reporters, these different major media outlets, somebody asked the reporters, “Why is it that you only report on negative stories about religion? You never report anything good.”
And to their great credit, one of the reporters, whom I have a lot of respect for, raised her hand, and she said, “Look, I know that religion does a lot of good in the world, but I don’t see it as my place to report on the good. It’s my job to identify problems in society and report on those problems.” And I actually don’t begrudge them of that. I see that being a reporter’s duty. Now, what is the problem, though? The problem is that you’re only going to hear about a clergy abuse scandal. You won’t hear about the millions of hours that a religious organization or a group like the Church might be spending in service and lifting up the hands that hang down and ministering to widows.
Think about just in our own Church, the millions of hours of selfless service that is happening all around the globe as people minister to one another, and Relief Society sisters are helping and lifting up hands that hang down, or bishops are meeting with widows, and all this stuff that is happening. You’re never going to see a news story about that. But there’ll be one controversy, and you’ll hear that story. That’s a problem, because it has tainted the way people view religion. In recent polls, we’re seeing close to 50% of adults now think of religion as a net negative on society, that it does more harm than good. I think that belief is a vague notion based only on this phenomenon of media only reporting on the negative, and they have really no idea all the good that religion is doing.
So one thing people can do to help society as a whole understand the good that religion is doing and to help support religious freedom is just get the word out about the good that religion is doing in the world. The other thing is standing up for other people’s religious beliefs. Too often we tend to — and when their religious freedom is being burdened — I think too often we tend to think, “Well, this town in Texas won’t let a mosque be built. That’s not my problem.” And then if they won’t let a temple be built, we get really worked up about it. The reality is we should be standing up for other people as well when they are facing similar problems in their religious beliefs and helping support them as they try to navigate the laws in all these different countries.
21:46
Mary Richards: Oh, that is so interesting. That made me think of what President Oaks talked about. In July 2022, he spoke at the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit, and he spoke about these suggestions for people, the ways that they can care about this and maybe some things they can do. And one of those, he said, was, “We should do more to teach the public generally about the advantages that everyone has when religious people have freedom to pursue their doctrinal interest and their command and service to God. Everyone benefits when we have that freedom.”
And that’s what you’re saying when we talk about the importance of religion, the good that it does, that’s something that should be protected. That’s exactly what you’re saying, isn’t it?
22:27
Steven T. Collis: Absolutely. And we have a problem, though. Most religions, and especially Christianity, have this doctrine of what you might call Christian modesty, like, “Don’t let the right hand know what the left hand is doing.” So we don’t want to run around bragging about all the things we’re doing. And the Church as an institution is very self-conscious about that, not in a negative way, but because trying to follow the Savior’s command, we should be doing good and then not posting about it on Facebook eight seconds later. So, what do we do about that?
The best advice I ever heard on this was: So, I was in a meeting once with Sharon Eubank, and I mentioned this problem to her. I said, “We have a dilemma.” She had explained to me all this stuff that the Church was doing, and that didn’t even account the millions of hours being given at the ward and stake levels in selfless service, but she was talking about what the Church as an institution has been doing. And I said, “Well, what do we do about this idea that we don’t want to brag about everything we’re doing?” She said, “Yeah, that’s a real problem if we want to help people understand the good that religion is doing.”
But then she gave me a really profound answer. She said, “But one thing I think we can do is we can promote the good that other religions are doing.” I really like that answer. If you have an interfaith service project with your local Muslim group and a local Baptist congregation, you can get online and talk about how wonderful it was to partner with them and how grateful you are for their example. I don’t think we need to be insecure or afraid to do that. We can lift up what other religions are doing and hope that they’ll do the same for us. And then hopefully, over time, the general vibe in society will start to shift. People will come to see, “Wow, these religious groups really are doing a lot of good in the world.” Right now, that simply is just not out there, it’s not getting reported on in any real way.
24:06
Mary Richards: Yeah. That’s a great step we can take. Do you have other steps that individuals can take to be more informed or more involved for advocating for this in their communities?
Steven T. Collis: Well, the more informed thing is critical. I would encourage people, going back to my Nair story, I would encourage people not to assume that they know what they’re talking about when they hear something related to religious freedom. Most human beings tend to jump to immediate conclusions based on almost no information, and then they just lock themselves in. Spend a little time reading about the cases, try to understand what’s actually at stake.
Understand the arguments on both sides when you hear about disputes or controversies so that you can actually talk about them intelligently. Don’t assume that whatever political partisan group you happen to be a part of necessarily is correct on a given issue related to religious freedom. It’s important to really dig deeper and understand the complex issues that are at stake when we hear about a controversy or something happening; that alone would go a long way to helping people promote religious freedom.
25:08
Mary Richards: So as, then, we are becoming more informed, learning more about it and doing these kinds of things, can that then make another step forward toward actively contributing to the protection and promotion of religious freedom?
Steven T. Collis: Well, one thing I will say about actively contributing is that the vast majority of burdens on religious freedom tend to occur at the local level. So, as a society, we tend to only pay attention to national news. We all have headlines in our minds bouncing around about geopolitical things that we can have absolutely zero influence on. Might argue for 18 hours about tariffs when we don’t even know how to spell the word tariff. But we don’t really have any way, we’re not going to influence international global trade policy.
Religious freedom is almost often burdened at the city/local/school level. So when we hear about — the vast majority of cases come and problems come from that level of government — so when we hear about, say, a school district doing something, we can get involved. We can go and express our opinions in an intelligent, informed way. When we hear about a local government doing something that might, say, prevent a church from being built, we can go and express our views.
And again, we should be doing it not just for our own religion but for anybody. When we hear about a school district or some government official perhaps favoring one religion over another, we can come in not just on our own behalf but on behalf of others, and comment on that and do it in an intelligent way. But again, we need to be informed, and we need to pay attention to what’s happening at the local level and not simply watching what’s happening geopolitically while we miss all of these matters that are percolating at the lower levels of government.
26:46
Mary Richards: Yes. That did remind me that the Church has a position of institutional neutrality regarding political parties and candidates and any of that sort of thing. The statement from the Church is that the Church “does not endorse, promote or oppose political parties and their platforms or candidates for political office.” This can kind of come into play in this discussion as well.
27:06
Steven T. Collis: Yeah, absolutely. And again, the Church is going to remain neutral. But that doesn’t mean individual members of the Church must remain neutral on various issues. But also, it’s important to remember threats to religious freedom come from all different angles of the political spectrum. So there’s this — again, going back to, I keep going back to my Nair story — there’s this kind of vague and popular notion that the only threats to religious freedom are coming from the secular political left, and the political right is a champion of religious freedom. But the reality is when you look on the ground and you look at all the different threats that are out there and various things that happen, it comes from the entire political spectrum.
So this is not a partisan issue, and people really should be looking for, again, something that threatens people’s ability to live there and exercise their religion, and instances where government might be favoring one religion over another, and when they see that, standing up against it to support religious freedom. And what they’ll find is they will not be just swimming in partisan waters. They will hopefully be trying to protect religious freedom for everyone.
28:07
Mary Richards: And I love what you said about the local level. That has really come to mind for me in the last several years, is this idea of a circle of control; “What can I control in this circle, and what’s outside of my circle, and what’s near me?” And I have this duty or this right to be able to speak up or to say things when I see them locally, where I might be able to make a difference. It’s something I’m trying to teach my children.
And of course, we all have a long way to go, don’t we, in many of these things that we’re trying to be better on?
28:40
Steven T. Collis: Oh, sure. And it’s hard to be involved in civic government; it is. But if you want to make a difference in religious freedom, you can make far more of a difference from going and participating in local government when you see issues arise than spending how many countless hours as a keyboard warrior arguing with people online.
Mary Richards: Yeah, exactly.
Steven T. Collis: And by the way, most of the time you probably aren’t arguing with another person. You’re probably just arguing with a bot. So even then, go out and get involved. That’d be way better.
29:11
Mary Richards: And Steve, this intersects with another one of your specialties, which is peacemaking.
Steven T. Collis: Yes, yes. So, as a scholar who focuses on First Amendment law, I end up talking about some of the most controversial issues you can imagine. I mean, I find myself traveling around the globe talking about constitutional interpretation, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the right to peacefully assemble and petition the government. And as you probably know, those things intersect with stuff like abortion rights, LGBT+ rights, the campus protests, academic freedom. Those are really hot, controversial issues.
But what I’ve noticed about four or five years ago is that as I was traveling around the globe talking about these things, the people with whom I was having conversations and I never had one of our conversations blow up on us. No one ever canceled anybody, no one ever got upset. We were able to talk about these things despite deep differences, and we were able to do so in a productive way.
And that got me wondering: What is it that we’re doing? What are the habits we’re engaged in that allow us to have these conversations about really tough issues but to do so in a productive way? And so I spent the last four years researching that, trying to figure out what are the habits that we were engaged in, and how could I distill those down so people could try to use them in their daily lives. And yeah, what we’re talking about are using those types of skills to promote religious freedom.
30:35
Mary Richards: You bring to mind recent remarks from our Prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, where he says, “Contention is a choice” and “Peacemaking is a choice.” And so, I go back to my circle of control idea, this idea that we have the choice to be peacemakers as we talk about these issues.
30:56
Steven T. Collis: Yes, and we can do it in a productive way. There’s no need for name calling. There’s no need for attacking people with whom we disagree. One thing that — and I think President Nelson emphasizes this — peacemakers tend to spend time trying to understand the motivations and viewpoints of those with whom they disagree, instead of just immediately assuming they must be a monster.
There’s a joke I like to tell that most of us strut around this world thinking that there’s three kinds of people: There’s the people who agree with us, and then there’s fools or monsters. That tends to be how we walk around the world. And the reality is the vast majority of people actually have sincere, real, very reasonable worries. And understanding what those are so we can address them is a critical thing that peacemakers do.
And this is true for religious freedom as well. In every single religious freedom case, there is a legitimate concern on all sides, and trying to figure out what that is is critical. Even if the person with whom you disagree can’t articulate it themselves, a good peacemaker will try to understand it even if the person they’re talking to can’t articulate it very well.
31:58
Mary Richards: And President Nelson points us to the Savior when he talks about this, that “true disciples of Jesus Christ build, lift, encourage, persuade and inspire,” and “charity defines a peacemaker.” And this can be what we do as we try to understand religious freedom better and promote it better in our communities, is to build lift, encourage, persuade, inspire, right?
32:22
Steven T. Collis: Yes. And I talk about how really good peacemakers are excellent at being selfless and establishing love and trust between others in how they live their daily lives, long before they ever get into a controversial conversation.
If you’re someone who is known for lifting others up for service, for trying to help them, and then you have to have a difficult conversation about religious freedom, people are going to listen to you. If you’re known as someone who’s selfish, who’s combative, who’s always looking out for their own interests and never that of anyone else, it’s going to be much harder to then go and make a difference when you see religious freedom at risk.
And so I do think there is tremendous value in developing and then living out charity, the pure love that Christ has for all of us in our daily lives, so when it comes time to actually champion issues that may be controversial, people will have respect for one another.
33:20
Mary Richards: Can we also do it courageously and bravely along these same lines? I think of standing for truth and righteousness, for example, and that idea of being courageous and brave and standing for your beliefs, or is that just a little bit different from this conversation?
33:36
Steven T. Collis: I mean, I think the act of doing it is courageous and brave. It’s important, though, not to mistake courage, bravery and boldness with combativeness. Those are not the same things. It is courageous to perhaps go to a school board and stand up for the Muslim child that’s not being allowed to wear the hijab. That’s a courageous thing to do, and you can be bold in doing that. Getting up there and calling people names or being really combative or assuming the absolute worst about them is not the same thing as being courageous and brave. So yeah, I think we absolutely can be courageous and brave. We just need to make sure we know what we mean by those terms.
34:13
Mary Richards: OK. I was reading this quote just now as well that I pulled up for our conversation. Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, speaking at BYU–Idaho commencement in December 2011, said religious freedom all over the world is under attack. And so this is where I was thinking about how I could be a little bit more brave or courageous, but also a peacemaker and try to understand this better.
So here’s what he said: “It is important for us to become well educated on this issue and assume responsibility for ensuring that the religious freedom we have inherited is passed on to future generations. We must work together to both protect religious freedom and restore morality.”
34:55
Steven T. Collis: Yes. And I will say one of the things I find is it goes back to, again, not understanding what religious freedom is, we tend to just take it for granted. I don’t think we realize truly how unique it is in the United States and how unique it is in world history and even across the globe today. It is remarkable what we have in this country, but you’re only one generation away from losing something like this if you’re not careful with how you treat it.
And it’s also critical, again, to define what we mean by religious freedom. There’s a lot of people who say they are doing things in the name of religious freedom who, arguably, what they’re doing is counterproductive to religious freedom. So understanding what it is and then trying to promote it when you can, having the courage to stand alone if you need to for the principle of religious freedom is critical.
You may find — I find all the time that I am aligned with some groups on some matters, and then when they deviate from what I think are solid principles of religious freedom, I have to stand alone. I don’t do it with antagonism, and the next time I’ll be right there with them again when we’re aligned again. But it does sometimes mean that I have to stand alone for the principle, and I think that’s a critical thing to remember when we talk about standing up for religious freedom.
Incidentally, if I could jump in on that, that is another trait of peacemakers: They are willing to stand up courageously for principles, even if that sometimes means they have to separate from their partisan groups that they might be a part of.
36:29
Mary Richards: I see. Steve, do you have any personal experiences with religious freedom that you could share with us?
Steven T. Collis: I do, and if I can be honest, I didn’t know I was enjoying religious freedom at the time. But I grew up in a little town in New Mexico, and my family was mostly, I would say, somewhat antagonistic to organized religion. I was not a member of the Church. None of my family were. But I was in a public school, and I started thinking there had to be far more to life than what I was experiencing and what I was doing.
And so around my junior year of high school, I really started studying a lot of different religions, and I did a lot of this in public school. And then at some point, someone invited me to church. They invited me while we were sitting in a public school library, and so I said I would go, and I had a profound spiritual experience when I was there. And for the next nine months, I started exploring and studying and learning about the Church.
And here’s where religious freedom comes in. All of that was happening inside the walls of a public school. So you had public school teachers there. You had government officials representing the government, and we had students. They were members of the Church who were teaching me about the Church, proselytizing, giving me copies of the Book of Mormon. And we had other students who were opposed to this, so they were giving me anti-Church literature, talking to me about why the Church was wrong.
And I remember especially at one moment being in a classroom where members of the Church were teaching me about the things I was learning. Other people were challenging them. I was trying to decide what I was going to do. And this very wise teacher just quietly sat there and watched without saying a word. He did not influence the conversation one way or another. And eventually, I had a very powerful moment with the Holy Spirit that told me I needed to get baptized, and I joined the Church.
That was religious freedom working in real time. The school and the government were not influencing my religious journey as others were trying to teach and persuade me. And I had atheists talking to me, and I had different religious groups, and I had members of the Church all talking to me. And the government was not a part of it. And in that environment, I was able to convert, and it completely changed my life. That was 30 years ago, and it’s changed everything in my life.
And so, religious freedom is critical to each of us in our own journeys, and I hope we can all appreciate it. I am certainly grateful that it was in play at that time when I was exploring and asking the hard questions about “Is there a God?” and “Why are we here?”
38:53
Mary Richards: Thank you for sharing that. It leads so well into our last question on the Church News podcast, which we always give our guests the last word, and that question is always: What do you know now? And so, with this experience you shared as you’ve experienced this in your own personal life and now professionally, working so much around this issue of religious freedom, what do you know now about religious freedom and this liberty?
39:21
Steven T. Collis: I work as a scholar and a lawyer in the religious freedom space. I work with people of almost every religious belief you can imagine, including atheists and agnostics. And I’ve been exposed to a lot of different religious beliefs. I regularly talk to people about their beliefs. I regularly defend them and their rights to be able to live out their beliefs.
But the central question of the last 5,000 years — probably I would arguably say, I guess, for the entire existence of humanity — is: Did Jesus Christ actually walk on the earth the way that we read about Him in the Bible? And was He resurrected? There are beliefs all over the spectrum about that: Was He actually the Son of God? That is the central question to deciding almost every religious question we have in our society today.
And what I know from personal experiences I have had is that He did walk the earth as we read about Him. He was resurrected. And what we read about Him in the Book of Mormon is true. That book is what it purports to be. He not only was resurrected as the Son of God, but then He visited other peoples and taught them as well. And I know that, and I’m grateful for that knowledge, because it drives everything else I do in my life. And I’m happy to say that in His name, even the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
40:45
Mary Richards: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m Church News reporter Mary Richards. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
