Religious freedom over time

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Lead by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

Our group started with a follow-up discussion of Brian Grim’s lecture on religious freedom. We talked about how issues of religious freedom might well change over time in response to events like the September 11 attacks. With such events conflicts between religious groups can escalate and religious freedoms can be compromised. If the face of threatened violence, restrictions on freedom might see like a logical response. We wondered when the documentation Grim used for his study was gathered and how his results might change over time. We also wondered how he coded social restrictions. Even in one country like the United States people’s perceptions are different.

We noted how imperialism can result in changes in religious freedoms and talked specifically about the experience of Korea. Native Buddhism was suppressed in favor of Shintoism by the Japanese in the first half of the 20th century.

In our reflections about Korea we noted that American influence has also likely affected Koreans’ acceptance of Christianity. It was sometimes thought to represent an attractive religion because American power and riches were understood to validate its cultural and religious superiority. This dovetailed into some reflections on this week’s readings about West Africa in which a similar dynamic was identified as a cultural invasion. There and in Korea mission initiatives seem to generally have introduced “western ways.”

Bruce Yoder, discussion moderator

with Cindy Wu, Myungeun Park, Taeseob Cho