Hi Gail,
Well, they say that two of the things you should never talk about in polite company are religion and politics. Religious liberty crosses into both of these areas. :-)
I've been interested in religious liberty topics since I was a little kid - I remember hearing stories in church and when I got to middle school, reading the Great Controversy and hearing all kinds of stories about what people had gone through for their faith. Stories of people who put up with all kinds of crazy persecution just because they wanted to tell other people what they believed, or even just wanted to follow their own beliefs.
When I was in high school, my church had an opening for a religious liberty leader and I volunteered for the post. I was surprised that I got it, but then I found out that a lot of local liberty leaders thought it just meant that they should call for the offering once a year. I decided to make it a lot more than that, and added a column to our church newsletter and then when I was in college I started making an entire newsletter for our local church. I've still got them around somewhere.
Back when I started, I thought of religious liberty issues as focusing only on apocalyptic events and on protecting the right of people to keep the Sabbath and keep their jobs - these are important things, but over time I realized that we have a responsibility to the people who are facing persecution in the world today, and to protect the rights of all peaceful people of faith (or non-faith) to handle religion in their own way, and that God's calling for Christians is to "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God." (Micah 6:8)
A lot of times, the loudest voices in Christianity are not the most just, ,or the most merciful - certainly not the most humble. We need to get back to that - to portray the character of a loving God who gently calls us, and does not force our consciences. The more we try to defend God, the more we put unnecessary barriers between people and God. It is our job to represent His true character and let Him shine - we don't need to do it.
After practicing law, I had the opportunity to work full time in religious liberty work for three years and there I met a lot of real-life heroes who were willing to put everything on the line for what they believed - not to force other people to believe what they did, but to live their own lives of quiet devotion to God. Although I'm back practicing law full time, I am still dedicated to the ideals that these heroes and maintain a website at
http://www.religiousliberty.tv to highlight some of the current issues. Hopefully I can inspire other people to want to learn more about the issues and to be involved.
Ellen White, writing about some of the work of the reformers, said something that I think is extremely profound, “This principle we in our day are firmly to maintain. The banner of truth and religious liberty held aloft by the founders of the gospel church and by God's witnesses during the centuries that have passed since then, has, in this last conflict, been committed to our hands."
Liberty will only last as long as we work to maintain it. It's an anomaly in world history - most people were never free. If it is to last for future generations, it's up to us to maintain it now.
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