The God-Given Right to Freedom of Religion and the Modern-Day Persecution of Christians

Traditionally, believers are permitted to worship God by assembling in places of worship such as churches, synagogues and mosques. This being said, we do not leave our belief at the door when religious services are over. We should be free to express ourselves religiously in the public sphere, without harming anyone, without imposing our convictions on anyone, and never forcing anyone to adhere to our religion. 

  
Freedom of religion should always be safeguarded because faith is a gift from God, not from a government entity. No one should be deprived of publicly expressing their God-given gift of faith. In fact, the goal of a country declaring a separation of Church and State is to respect each person’s exercise of religion, not to exclude it from the public square. It means that the government will not intrude on the affairs of the Church, thus respecting its autonomy. 

Therein lies the beauty of freedom of religion: it is part and parcel of the right to express oneself. It goes hand in hand with freedom of speech. Certain countries like Canada, among others in the Western hemisphere, seem to be eroding the freedom of its own citizens, especially when it comes to expressing disagreement with issues that go against their religious convictions. 

Canada's Bill C-9 for example, which is now written into law as of June 17th, 2026, will jeopardize the ability to express one’s opposition against abortion, euthanasia, transgender surgeries for minors, gay marriage, or any other issue that opposes Christian teaching. The reason given by the government is the very broad banner of "hate speech," which targets religiously based opinions and beliefs as non-conforming to the "Hate Law." This effectively stifles any dissenting voices and undermines honest debate. Unfortunately, the Canadian Charter of Rights is not as iron-clad as the American Constitution. In Canada, it is the government that decides what constitutes hate speech. This means that expressing one's disagreement and dissent based on religious grounds would not be accepted since expression falls under speech which is being curtailed because of hate laws. In a nutshell, freedom of religion and freedom of speech go hand in hand, which is why the First Amendment of the American Constitution binds them together. 

The silencing of religiously expressed beliefs and customs began many decades ago in order to be respectful towards non-believers and other religions. This was a mistake, because it opened the door to what we are witnessing currently: a wide-ranging explicit intolerance to any expression of belief in God, which is mainly perpetrated against Christians. 

Statistically speaking, there is a large proportion of people who identify as religiously unaffiliated, which reflects a growing trend of discarding so-called organized religion. Some of the unaffiliated people are quite vocal against public expression of belief in God. While they are freely exercising their own freedom of speech by expressing their unbelief, believers are not afforded the same right of vocalizing their belief. There is thus a lack of reciprocity. 

While some people use subtle means such as mockery and intimidation to denigrate someone’s belief, others can be outwardly aggressive and combative, reducing Christians to silence, thus persecuting them because of their faith. 

Indeed, how many Christians are being not only silenced, but killed, around the world by intolerant ideologues? According to opendoors.org 's World Watch List, there are over 315 million Christians worldwide being persecuted for their faith by either being harassed, detained and/or killed. This international religious agency also provides a detailed statistical map of these persecutions as well as a comprehensive country-by-country rundown of what exactly is happening to our fellow Christians. 
 
And who are the persecutors of Christians? According to the independent organization Geopolitical Intelligence Services’ Report (GIS Report)  the persecution of Christians, is a worldwide issue, from many different factions, such as the Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria, where “Sharia law is enforced in several states ... contributing to police harassment against Christians”  and other perpetrators of persecution, including ISIS, among others, where "Due to the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) and similar jihadist movements, Christianity has been nearly eradicated from its historical strongholds in Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, Egypt’s Coptic Christians, an ancient and important minority, continue to face significant challenges.” 

Let us not forget that many other countries which are non-Islamic are seeing persecutions of Christians as well due to communist ideologies: North Korea, China, Cuba and Nicaragua, among others.  Simply put, it is a global problem. 

Not only are Christians being targeted by many different groups throughout the globe, but they, and Jews as well, are also being intimidated in western countries by other citizens who disagree with their beliefs, customs, and traditions. For example, Christians and Jews in Canada are being menaced repeatedly by actions such as arson (i.e. burning churches) and vandalism (i.e. desecrating Jewish cemeteries) in a spike of religiously motivated hate crimes.  

As National Director of ACN Canada Marie-Claude Lalonde explained, there is a refusal to include religion in public discourse because religion in general is viewed as a privilege rather than a fundamental right. There is also the political push for secularism, based on atheism and the outlawing of religion as such, particularly in Quebec, Canada, which has ultimately led to the curtailing one’s religious expression. These examples demonstrate the restraining of the God-given right of personal freedom of religion. 

In closing, let us be aware that as soon as governments come for one of our freedoms, they will come for all of them. Prophetic voices of the past have warned us, time and again. We now have living proof of those warnings. Ideological entities around the globe are shutting down our freedoms, one by one, without fail. Let us be meek as lambs, but wise as foxes, and speak up, peacefully, but truthfully, in defense of our God given rights.     

                                                                             __________________ 

This is the updated and abridged version of my original March 18, 2026 article titled "Freedom of Religion: an inalienable right given by God, not by the government" posted on my website Blog page. 
 
Author of “Defending Human Dignity: Catholic Answers to Gender, Abortion and Relativism”  
Website: mariebrousseau.com