Reclaiming International Religious Freedom: How the United States can depoliticize an important human right and advance equitable foreign policy goals

By Jasper Vaughn

Introduction

In May 2021, when the U.S. Department of State released their yearly International Religious Freedom Report, the Biden administration took the opportunity to excoriate China over its criminalization of religious expression, as well as to announce a travel ban on a former senior Chinese official.[1] In this instance, the rhetoric and policies championed by Biden via Secretary of State Antony Blinken in many ways mirrored those of Trump and Secretary Mike Pompeo, demonstrating the outsized importance that international religious freedom (IRF) and freedom of religion or belief (FORB) continue to hold for U.S. leadership. Evaluating the role and position of IRF within U.S. foreign policy is timely, then, as the Biden administration has now had over a year to establish policy priorities and an approach to religious freedom. 

This article assesses the current state of IRF in U.S. foreign policy, including the politicization it has undergone over the past few years. Next, it critiques the suggestion that increased advocacy for economic and social rights will necessarily lead to gains in FORB or existing human rights more broadly. It finishes with several suggestions for the Biden administration regarding international religious freedom, through which policymakers can develop a more equitable and effective approach.


Background

IRF gained prominence in U.S. foreign policy concern in the 1970s, as evangelical Christian groups in the United States increasingly wielded lobbying power in pursuit of their foreign policy goals. These groups focused on attaining increased aid for regimes in which Christianity held a favored (or at least warmly tolerated) status, while pushing for sanctions against countries like the Soviet Union that held policies of persecution toward Christians.[2] U.S. Christian advocacy thus shaped the human rights landscape, integrating religious freedom more fully within foreign policy priorities throughout the 1980s and 1990s and culminating in the 1998 passage of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). 

IRFA passed with widespread bipartisan support and was soon signed into law by President Clinton. It established the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), as well as an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom within the Department of State and a special adviser for IRF within the National Security Council. It is fair to say, then, that at this point in U.S. history, policymakers regarded religious freedom as a consensus, nonpartisan issue—a relatively noncontroversial right among other important human rights.


Evaluating religious freedom in recent years

Under the Bush and Obama administrations, faith remained an important part of foreign policy. However, while these two presidents prioritized the development of a diverse set of advisers on IRF, and faith in general, some cracks in the bipartisan consensus began to show: the office of Bush’s ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom often conflicted with other State Department officials, while Obama faced criticism from conservative Christian leaders regarding his more inclusive IRF agenda.[3] The once bipartisan consensus continued to shift dramatically in subsequent years, with Trump’s campaign and administration in particular fueling sharp polarization on IRF. Trump and his advisers worked to elevate religious freedom above other rights as a means of mobilizing a conservative, evangelical base. Instead of developing or adopting an integrated human rights regime, the Trump administration favored a sort of hierarchical model of rights, with FORB at the top. This misguided approach led to damaging, hypocritical policy on international religious freedom.

In contrast to prior administrations, Trump’s IRF policy had a near-exclusive focus on Christian persecution.[4] Further, it gave mixed messages regarding people of no faith, who ought to be included in all FORB policy and protection. On the one hand, Secretary Mike Pompeo proclaimed in a speech that all people have the right “to hold no faith at all”; while just several months earlier, Attorney General Bill Barr had publicly condemned the “growing ascendancy of secularism” and the “erosion” of Judeo-Christian values in the United States.[5] 

The Trump administration was also notoriously reluctant to condemn China’s treatment of the Uyghur people (including clear violations of religious freedom), instead waiting until its last day in power to do so.[6] Former administration officials report Trump’s personal nonchalance about FORB violations in China, demonstrating the warped attitude toward IRF that defined his time in office.[7] Such a narrow view of religious freedom led to even further hypocrisy, as the Trump administration’s domestic policy enacted the so-called “Muslim ban” and opened federal lands to resource extraction, thereby violating sacred Native American sites.[8] The injustice to Native American communities, in particular, was only the latest incident in a long history of government exclusion of indigenous traditions from religious freedom protections—an exclusion that is rooted in differing definitions of what ought to be considered religious or sacred.[9]

Although it is still early, the Biden administration has taken some positive steps in restoring a more equitable attitude toward IRF in foreign policy and depoliticizing freedom of religion or belief. Most importantly, the administration’s rhetoric and policy has returned FORB for Christians from its privileged position under Trump to its proper place as one of many interwoven human rights.[10] Biden appointed the first ever Muslim ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom in Rashad Hussein—an important step in restoring a non-Christocentric approach to religious freedom.[11] The administration has also indicated a willingness to critically examine domestic shortcomings in FORB, with Secretary Blinken referencing antisemitism and Islamophobia in the United States as key challenges during last year’s remarks on the release of a report on IRF.[12] 

Despite these encouraging signs, however, the Biden administration has also adopted some of the same problematic practices that defined IRF in the Trump years, most notably in its wielding of or neglecting IRF in service of other foreign policy goals. Biden has authorized billions of dollars in arms sales to FORB violators like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel despite vocal objections from human rights groups.[13] In contrast to his campaign pledges to center human rights in foreign policy, the president appears to prioritize the ostensible stability brought by authoritarian regimes over a true commitment to religious freedom. And while the administration recently canceled $130 million in military aid to Egypt over human rights concerns, the gesture reeks of window dressing—a performative and largely useless step that does nothing to change the vast sums exchanged through other means.[14]

In another case, the Biden administration removed Nigeria from its list of “countries of particular concern” regarding FORB late last year. The change in designation came despite an official USCIRF recommendation to place Nigeria on the list, a decision which left USCIRF leadership “appalled” and “especially displeased.”[15] At best, the incident was a problematic disconnect or communication gap between administration officials responsible for IRF; more cynically, it reveals Biden’s continued prioritization of other foreign policy goals at the expense of religious freedom, especially given Secretary Blinken’s travel to Nigeria the day after the list was published.[16] 


Building a human rights consensus?

The continued politicization of religious freedom, still present in Biden’s IRF agenda, along with the rise of populist movements in recent years, has led many policymakers to search for answers regarding the preservation of a comprehensive human rights agenda that has broad support among right- and left-wing bases. Clearly, a fundamental imbalance currently exists with regard to who cares about which rights: FORB (or at least a type of Christocentric FORB) maintains strong support among the proponents of populism who helped place Trump in power; whereas mainstream human rights advocacy focuses on marginal and oppressed people, and is often seen by Trump supporters as an enterprise only for “asylum seekers,” “criminals,” and “terrorists.”[17] Thus, given the role of economic factors in populism’s rise, some experts argue for greater integration of economic and social rights within existing human rights advocacy as a way to correct this imbalance and broaden support for comprehensive human rights among those who support populists globally.[18] Addressing the economic concerns of those who feel slighted by globalization, the thinking goes, will draw populists and their supporters into a diverse coalition for human rights advocacy. 

However well-intentioned, this strategy is both fundamentally flawed and impractical as a way of ensuring equitable IRF policy and human rights more broadly in the U.S. context. For instance, even a cursory examination of the economic data on recent elections reveals that Trump’s supporters are not actually the most economically disadvantaged in U.S. society.[19] Assuming they will reject Christian nationalism and the racist overtones of Trump’s policy agenda for slight economic gains, then, is misguided; an optimistic human rights coalition cannot just will away populist ideological entrenchment regarding religious freedom, despite opportunities for economic consensus among conservatives and progressives. Further, past experience under the Trump administration demonstrates that this theory of addressing grievances regarding populism and human rights does not hold weight. When IRF was given primacy in Trump’s foreign policy, exactly as his supporters demanded, other human rights did not suddenly flourish or gain support among populist voters and leaders in the United States.[20] In fact, elevating FORB did not even significantly expand Trump supporters’ understanding of religious freedom beyond Christianity, as evidenced by domestic support for the so-called “Muslim ban” and other discriminatory policies.[21] 

Those who care about human rights, and IRF in particular, can and should form broad coalitions when possible. However, the lack of relative economic disenfranchisement among Trump’s base, along with its track record on human rights support even when grievances are met, means that policymakers should approach the integration of economic and social rights into wider rights conversations with skepticism. It is unlikely that those who care only about religious freedom will expand that interest, regardless of tactic.


Recommendations

How, then, should the Biden administration move forward to enact an equitable and integrous approach to international religious freedom? First, it must work to de-couple IRF from certain other foreign policy objectives. Escalating rhetoric around China’s FORB violations only to promote trade and security goals, or overlooking violations among autocratic governments in the Middle East because they are counterterrorism partners, as well as other explicit links between IRF policy and economic or political objectives cannot continue. While some, including religious freedom scholar Luke Perez, advocate for creating “a more assertive link between international economics and religious freedom,” thus tightly connecting IRF and diplomacy, this approach only further politicizes FORB and gives the United States less credibility as a champion of international religious freedom.[22] Losing credibility matters in this case. The United States will find it harder and harder to enact accountability against regimes violating FORB if its inconsistent approach continues. Instead, the United States should approach FORB in the same way it should approach human rights generally in foreign policy: support rights-respecting governments instead of abusers; do not sell or transfer arms to abusive governments; and pursue FORB as a distinct and prioritized part of diplomatic efforts.[23] 

Second, the United States must better protect overlooked populations by accounting for the interconnectedness of religion and other identity markers. In Guatemala in 2010, for instance, Maya communities in the Quiché department faced discrimination and violence due to their opposition to proposed resource extraction and hydroelectric projects—opposition that was rooted in religious and cultural concerns around the destruction of the earth.[24] However, as Elizabeth Shakman Hurd notes, the State Department’s next International Religious Freedom Report found no “reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice” in Guatemala that year, as the communities’ grievances were evidently not deemed religious enough to qualify.[25] Religious belief often intersects with factors like ethnicity and relationship to land, and indigenous populations are therefore especially neglected in IRF concerns and domestic religious freedom protections. 

Acknowledging these gray areas might necessitate the Biden administration actually defining religion, since the predominantly Christian United States tends to understand religious belief as an “opt-in” voluntary association, rather than other religions’ and cultures’ conceptions that “tie sacred identities and practices to blood, soil, and community.”[26] And while some critics (Hurd herself among them) maintain that government defining religion is inherently problematic, clarifying what is meant by religion and FORB should be the role of the state, in consultation with the global community and diverse stakeholders. Since the U.S. government is responsible for designing and implementing its own policy regarding religious freedom, it makes sense that it should establish clear definitions and goals so that gaps do not arise, as in the Guatemala case. Clarity and good communication can only enhance protection of vulnerable communities. Importantly, this work must be done with unflinching acknowledgment of the racist and colonial roots of the religious freedom movement in the United States.[27]

Finally, while the United States should not ignore Christian persecution globally, it must continue to de-center this particular religious concern in its approach to international religious freedom. While the Biden administration has made important first steps in restoring a more equitable interpretation of IRF and more equitable policy priorities, additional steps can be taken. For instance, the administration could, as Gregorio Bettiza suggests, “integrate religious freedom efforts more organically” between existing IRF-specific efforts and other human rights mechanisms at the State Department like the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.[28] The more that international religious freedom is treated as an integrated lens in U.S. foreign policy, and less as an isolated issue, the better insulated it will be from being wielded as a political tool and subjected to dramatic swings between Christocentrism and more equitable approaches with changes in administration.


Conclusion

While the politicization of international religious freedom will not disappear overnight, the Biden administration has a unique opportunity to restore FORB to an interconnected system of human rights without lessening the important work of advocacy for vulnerable populations worldwide. The damage done over the past few years is not irreversible, but it will take dedication, clear communication, and accountability to overlooked groups to develop an equitable approach to IRF that transcends its previous, Christocentric iteration.

About the Author

Jasper Vaughn is an MA student at the Yale Jackson Institute of Global Affairs and Lead Editor at YJIA. He is interested in the intersection of religion, peace, and conflict, and holds a BA in Religion from Davidson College.

Endnotes

  1. Matthew Lee, “US Hits China and Others for Repressing Religious Freedom,” AP NEWS, May 12, 2021, sec. Asia Pacific, https://apnews.com/article/china-religion-government-and-politics-688d180b0aa0fed541f00ef446af29f1.

  2. Lauren Frances Turek, To Bring the Good News to All Nations: Evangelical Influence on Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Relations (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020), https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501748912/to-bring-the-good-news-to-all-nations/.

  3. Thomas F. Farr and William L. Saunders, Jr., “The Bush Administration and America’s International Religious Freedom Policy,” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 32, no. 3 (2009); Lee Marsden, “Bush, Obama and a Faith-Based US Foreign Policy,” International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 88, no. 5, 2012, pp. 953–74.

  4. Jeffrey Haynes, “Trump and the Politics of International Religious Freedom,” Religions 11, no. 8, August 2020, pp. 385, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11080385.

  5. Jolyon Thomas, “The Two Faces of Religious Freedom,” Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, January 19, 2021, https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/the-two-faces-of-religious-freedom.

  6. Humeyra Pamuk, “In Parting Shot, Trump Administration Declares China’s Repression of Uighurs ‘Genocide,’” Reuters, January 19, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/world/china/parting-shot-trump-administration-declares-chinas-repression-uighurs-genocide-2021-01-19/.

  7. David Choi Sheth Sonam, “Trump Told China’s President That Building Concentration Camps for Millions of Uighur Muslims Was ‘exactly the Right Thing to Do,’ Former Adviser Says,” Business Insider, June 17, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-china-detention-camp-xinjiang-2020-6.

  8. Annette McGivney, “Outcry as Trump Officials to Transfer Sacred Native American Land to Miners,” The Guardian, January 16, 2021, sec. Environment, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/16/sacred-native-american-land-arizona-oak-flat.

  9. Michael McNally, Defend the Sacred: Native American Religious Freedom Beyond the First Amendment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020), https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190891/defend-the-sacred.

  10. Peter Mandaville, Knox Thames, and Emily Scolaro, “Finding Common Ground on U.S. International Religious Freedom Policy,” United States Institute of Peace, May 20, 2021, https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/05/finding-common-ground-us-international-religious-freedom-policy; “Secretary Antony J. Blinken on Release of the 2020 International Religious Freedom Report,” United States Department of State, May 12, 2021, https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-on-release-of-the-2020-international-religious-freedom-report/.

  11.  “USCIRF Welcomes White House Nominations for International Religious Freedom Roles | USCIRF,” United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, July 30, 2021, https://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/releases-statements/uscirf-welcomes-white-house-nominations-international-religious.

  12.  “Secretary Antony J. Blinken on Release of the 2020 International Religious Freedom Report.”

  13. Jacob Knutson, “HRW Criticizes Biden over ‘Mixed Signals’ on Human Rights,” Axios, January 14, 2022, https://www.axios.com/human-rights-watch-annual-report-democracy-biden-7fdcbaee-9f38-4c0d-a7bf-6d4258a4a26d.html.

  14.  “US Cancels $130m Military Aid for Egypt over Rights Concerns,” Al Jazeera, January 29, 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/29/us-halts-egypt-military-aid-over-rights-after-huge-arms-sale.

  15.  “US Issues Religious Freedom ‘Concern’ List, Removes Nigeria,” Al Jazeera, November 18, 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/18/us-issues-religious-freedom-concern-list-removes-nigeria.

  16.  “US Issues Religious Freedom ‘Concern’ List, Removes Nigeria.”

  17. Philip Alston, “The Populist Challenge to Human Rights,” Journal of Human Rights Practice 9, no. 1, February 1, 2017, pp. 1–15, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/hux007.

  18. Samuel Moyn, “Economic Rights Are Human Rights,” Foreign Policy, April 9, 2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/09/the-freedom-america-forgot-populism-human-rights-united-nations/; Alston, “The Populist Challenge to Human Rights.”

  19. Nicholas Carnes and Noam Lupu, “It’s Time to Bust the Myth: Most Trump Voters Were Not Working Class.,” Washington Post, June 5, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/05/its-time-to-bust-the-myth-most-trump-voters-were-not-working-class/.

  20. Diane Taylor, “Trump Administration Alters and Downplays Human Rights Abuses in Reports,” The Guardian, October 21, 2020, sec. US news, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/21/trump-administration-human-rights-annual-reports; Haynes, “Trump and the Politics of International Religious Freedom.”

  21.  “Most American Voters Support Limited Travel Ban: Poll,” Reuters, July 5, 2017, sec. Editor’s picks, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-poll-idUSKBN19Q2FW.

  22. Luke Pérez, “International Religious Freedom in the Biden Administration,” Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, January 13, 2021, https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/international-religious-freedom-in-the-biden-administration.

  23.  “US: President Should Set a Human Rights Foreign Policy,” Human Rights Watch, November 10, 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/11/10/us-president-should-set-human-rights-foreign-policy.

  24. Diane Post, “Land, Life, and Honor: Guatemala’s Women in Resistance,” Fair Observer (blog), October 5, 2013, https://www.fairobserver.com/region/latin_america/land-life-honor-guatemala-women-resistance/.

  25. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, “It’s Time to de-Emphasize Religion in US Foreign Policy,” The Hill, July 19, 2021, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/563193-its-time-to-de-emphasize-religion-in-us-foreign-policy.

  26. Gregorio Bettiza, “International Religious Freedom’s Christian ‘Soft Spot’: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions,” Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, January 12, 2021, https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/international-religious-freedom-s-christian-soft-spot-causes-consequences-and-solutions.

  27. Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691180953/the-impossibility-of-religious-freedom.

  28. Gregorio Bettiza, “Why Does the United States Have a Christian ‘Soft Spot’ and What to Do about It?”, London School of Economics, Religion and Global Society Blog (blog), December 20, 2019, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2019/12/why-does-the-united-states-have-a-christian-soft-spot-and-what-to-do-about-it/.

ArticleYale Journal of International AffairsNorth America, Spring 2022