The following lecture was recorded during Providence’s 2017 Christianity and National Security Conference.

Thomas Farr argues that the most profound and powerful reasons for religious freedom are Christian reasons, and that they extend not only to Christians, but to all people. He discusses the roots of religious freedom in Christian theology and the importance of this theology today.

Well, Mark didn’t say what I’m going to talk about. So, let me tell you. I’m going to talk about the theology of International Religious Freedom, which I’m delighted to do because I’ve never talked about such a thing publicly. But I think about it quite a bit, so I’m really looking forward to hear what I have to say. The great novelist Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “How did she put it? I don’t know what I think until I see what I say.” I love that. I think that’s exactly right. So, let’s see what I have to say.

I believe the most profound and powerful reasons for religious freedom are Christian reasons. And they extend not only to Christians but to all people. In my view, this means that there’s also a deep theological warrant for International Religious Freedom, including its positive impact on the generic topic of this conference: American national security. So, we’re approaching the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. It’s quite appropriate to recall the theology of religious freedom as it emerged from reformers such as Luther and Calvin. As a Catholic, however, I’m going to emphasize the pre-Reformation roots of religious freedom.

By the way, at Georgetown on November 1st, we’re going to have a day-long conference commemorating the Reformation and the pre-Reformation Christian contributions to religious freedom. So, if you’re interested, you can find the event page on the Berkeley Center website. I’m going to talk about the pre-Reformation roots of religious freedom and how they converged in the American founders with the ideas of the reformers. The roots of religious freedom as it emerged in America also, in my view, lie in the Scriptures which of course Luther and Calvin would have been happy with, but also what I would call the early church fathers and the Middle Ages.

My remarks today are also a reflection on the importance of Christian theology to American foreign policy and to American national security. I spent 21 years as an American diplomat, and I can tell you it’s a pretty secular profession. Madeleine Albright once wrote that diplomats of her era were trained to stay away from religion. Well, that religion avoidance syndrome has diminished somewhat in recent years, but it has not entirely disappeared from Foggy Bottom, especially among members of my generation – call us the Geezer generation – who are actually in charge of running the place.

I’m not suggesting that our foreign policy should be Christian. I am suggesting that an aggressive secularism at the State Department has handicapped our foreign policy of advancing international religious freedom. It’s clearly encouraged the hesitancy at State to channel US assistance to religious minorities, such as Iraqi Christians and Yazidis, a hesitancy that is grotesque in light of the United States having declared officially that these two religious groups are the victims of genocide by ISIS. Quite properly, we are sending large amounts of aid to the Rohingya Muslims of Burma. Why not the Christians of Iraq? Thank you.

Faith, that’s a good name. One answer to that question is that our foreign policy elites no longer understand the true meaning and value of religious freedom to America, let alone to other nations. Their decisions are tactical and, in my view, deeply mistaken. A few, unfortunately, are simply anti-Christian. The remedy, however, is not to assert the superiority of Christianity but to remind them and ourselves of the Christian roots of this precious right of religious freedom. No Christianity, no religious freedom. No Christianity, no secular democracy that protects the right of all human beings, Christian or not.

Unfortunately, notwithstanding Christianity’s contributions to the world and to the issue of freedom, and by the way, one of the themes of the November 1 conference I mentioned a minute ago will be to celebrate the publication of a two-volume series that we did at the Religious Freedom Research Project on Christian contributions to freedom historically and in the contemporary world. Notwithstanding these contributions, in the early 21st century, much of the Academy, the media, the corporate world, certainly the entertainment industry, and progressive movements in general, view Christianity as irrational, illiberal, and intolerant.

This view helps fuel opposition to religious freedom in the West and helps to confound our ability to sell it to skeptics overseas. Of course, there are historical examples of Christian intolerance and coercion. There are contemporary examples. In the 5th century, Augustine used the Scriptures to justify coercion of the heretical Donatists. And of course, the Inquisitions were state and church-sponsored attempts to save souls and deter heresy by burning heretics. Contemporary critics of Christianity certainly cite these and other examples.

But in the main, today’s opposition to Christian teachings derives from the Church’s resistance to modern norms of freedom, radical individualism, and human autonomy, especially in matters of sex and sexuality such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and the right to construct a gender identity. Under these circumstances, it’s perhaps not surprising that skeptics tend to ignore the rich tapestry of Church teachings on human freedom, including religious freedom. But those teachings are critical to understanding how modern ideas of freedom and self-government emerged.

The origins of the Christian understanding of human freedom, including religious freedom, reside in the Scriptures. The Book of Genesis declares that each of us is created in the image and likeness of God. Now, consider the implications of this statement, which you have, I assume, read and thought about many times. If each of us bears God’s image, then we are fundamentally and in a profound sense equal to each other. Second, in imaging God, each of us possesses intellect and will – the wellsprings of free choice. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection emphasized these ideas of equality and freedom by freeing each of us from the bondage of sin. As Paul put it in Galatians, “For freedom, Christ has set us free.”

Now, this was, of course, not the modern human idea of autonomy that we have today. The Christian logic of religious liberty is this: true liberty is the freedom to choose God in this life and therefore in the next. But God does not coerce us to choose Him. Jesus did not coerce obedience or belief. To do so would have eliminated the way we image God – that is, our intellect and will – and the source of our dignity and human agency. Each of us is truly free because we are capable of and free to choose the true and the good.

Christianity’s first three centuries were experienced as a tiny but growing minority religion, often under severe persecution. This experience produced theological reflection on the end times and the meaning of persecution and suffering, such as we see in Peter’s letters and in Revelation. But the experience of persecution of the early Christians, combined with reflection on the Scriptures that were then being placed into the Canon, also yielded remarkably rich, forward-looking, and optimistic reflections on human freedom, including and especially religious freedom.

The works of early Church fathers such as Tertullian and Lactantius posited a revolutionary idea: the very nature of religion, they wrote, requires free choice. Accordingly, justice requires freedom for all in matters of religion. Tertullian argued that religious freedom was a natural right, a capacity inherent in nature, that “every man should worship according to his own convictions.” Sounds like James Madison, except it was written in the 3rd century. Lactantius moved this idea to the level of policy, arguing in his Divine Institutes that a just governor would protect religious freedom.

This idea found its way into the so-called Edict of Milan, issued in 313 by the Emperor Constantine. The edict declared religious freedom for all throughout the Roman Empire. Unfortunately, this policy did not last. Constantine’s successors abandoned universal religious freedom, in part because the early Middle Ages saw struggles over core questions of Christian teachings and orthodoxy. What’s the true nature of Christ? Is He divine? Is He human? Is He both? Constantine’s successors, including the early kings and emperors, used coercion to punish heretics and schismatics. True religious freedom would not emerge until the modern era.

Nevertheless, the seeds of religious freedom had been planted within the body of Church teachings, and later they would flower. Lactantius, for example, was read and quoted by Thomas Jefferson in the 18th century and by the Catholic Declaration on Religious Freedom in the 20th. But those seeds did not lie dormant all of those centuries in between. Several developments in Christian theology and philosophy kept them alive. Let me name three. The first was the assertion by Popes of libertas ecclesiae, the freedom of the Church over against secular authority.

As secular kings and emperors began to emerge in medieval Europe, we see the Church declaring a principle that would be crucial to the development of democracy and civil society: the principle that the secular state has no warrant over Popes, bishops, and priests and is therefore limited in its power. In the 5th century, for example, Pope Gelasius wrote to the Byzantine Emperor that “the world is ruled by two authorities, the consecrated authority (the priesthood) and the royal power.” Here, the Pope was rejecting all monarchical and totalitarian claims by the secular state. He was declaring that the state had no authority in matters of religion. Again, it sounds like the American Founders.

Of course, kings and emperors did not always accept this limit on their power. At times, secular kings insisted that they, not the Pope, would appoint bishops in their territories. Interestingly, this same issue is playing itself out as we speak in China in its relationship with the Vatican. This tension played out during the Middle Ages with secular rulers and religious clergy battling over the boundaries between religion and state, church and state. While the two often collaborated, such as in the Inquisitions and the Crusades, the claim of Libertas Ecclesiae, the freedom of the church, was a significant step toward the concept of a limited state.

This helped establish the framework of what became modern social pluralism. It’s no accident that one of history’s formative documents of limited government, England’s Magna Carta from 1215, begins with a declaration of the freedom of the church. A second medieval development that would contribute to the modern understanding of religious freedom was the emergence of the idea of individual conscience. This is a Catholic teaching. By the 11th to 12th centuries, canonists were drawing on the epistles of Paul.

Catholics read the epistles of Paul to declare that all men have a duty to follow the dictates of their conscience, even if doing so puts them in conflict with the church. Again, this teaching, which still exists in the Catholic Church, is not the modern idea of a free-floating autonomous conscience. The greatest duty of men and women is to ensure that their consciences are well-formed in the truths of the church. Then, as now, the church teaches that an erring conscience can send you to hell. But if you are certain your conscience is well-formed and correct, you must follow your conscience.

Now, this idea at the time did not lead to full religious freedom. What was crucial to its development was a third medieval contribution to religious freedom: the beginnings of the idea that all persons possessed natural rights as the result of natural law. That is to say, rights that adhere to them by virtue of their existence, not because of the grant of kings or the positive law. By the 12th and 13th centuries, church authorities were writing of a natural right, a human right to property, to self-defense, and to support against the surplus wealth of the rich.

In early entitlement to socialism, there is a 16th-century Dominican monk, Bartolome de las Casas, who defended the natural rights of American Indians against oppression and forced conversion by appealing to medieval, biblical, and church sources. Now, of course, the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century made a substantial contribution to what later became the American understanding of religious freedom. Some of that contribution stemmed from the Reformers’ conviction that the authority of the Catholic Church had to be rejected, and they did. Martin Luther and John Calvin, in particular, emphasized the supremacy of individual conscience in matters of religion and the authority of the Bible rather than the church.

But as we have seen, many of these arguments did not first appear in the 16th century. Many of them were present among church thinkers for centuries before the Reformation. But it was not until the American Revolution and the American constitutional settlement that religious freedom emerged full-blown in its modern sense. Now, before we turn to that founding, since I have captured some of you and you are leaving anyway, I assume this is mainly a Protestant audience. So I want to give you a glimpse of the 1965 Catholic Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae.

That was a culmination of much of the early church teachings that I’m talking about today. Dignitatis Humanae tells the whole story. It means the dignity of the human person. That’s the Latin title of the Declaration on Religious Freedom. Drawing on the teachings we’ve discussed, the declaration declares, “The human person has a right to religious freedom.”

This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals, social groups, and any human power. The freedom due to all persons, Dignitatis continues, is “in accord with their dignity as persons,” that is, beings endowed with reason and free will, and therefore privileged to bear individual and personal responsibility. Men are bound to seek the truth, adhere to it once it is known, and “to order their lives in accord with the demands of truth.” However, in order to discharge this duty, men must have freedom defined as an immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom.

Even those who do not live up to the duty to seek and live by the truth, Dignitatis says, are not to be coerced by the state or any external authority, including the church. So, let’s turn to the American understanding as it was present at our founding. Almost none of the American founders were Catholics. Each of the founders had some debt to Reformed theology, some quite significant debts. Well, you think, Joe, am I getting this right? I haven’t gotten into it yet, so you can tell me later.

But the American constitutional settlement was grounded on a belief in the value of religion for individuals and for society and the consequent necessity to protect the free exercise of religion in law. There are echoes here of both the Reformation and ancient and medieval Christian ideas. Let me give you three examples. I’m a Trinitarian, so three examples. First, the founding generation venerated the role of the religious conscience in human nature and in social and political flourishing.

James Madison defined religion as “the duty we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it.” He understood conscience as a primary means by which people discerned and carried out that duty. The duty of following one’s religious conscience, that is to say, the duty of religion, is so important that, as Madison put it, “that duty is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation to the claims of civil society.” Second, the core American democratic principle of limited government and its checks and balances was in part derived from a core Christian concept: original sin.

Original sin is the root cause of the corruptions that inevitably accompany concentrations of power. The founders believed that no group should be invested with too much power for too long, which is why we have so many checks and balances, although many have been forgotten. The idea of limited government was also supported by the commitment of religious citizens to an authority greater than the state and by the role of religious communities in the voluntary institutions of civil society. I suspect Jennifer Marshall is going to be talking about this in a few minutes. Overall, the founders were convinced that religion constitutes one of the most effective limits on government power and authority.

Here, we see reflections of the medieval idea of Libertas Ecclesiae. Third, most Americans believed that the new republic would fail without a virtuous citizenry and that a central source of virtue was religion. They came to accept that religion’s contribution to the common good and law and public policy was not through establishments of religion or religious monopolies, but through the free and peaceful contention of citizens’ moral arguments derived primarily from religion. These and other colonial views about the value of religion led to the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion for all individuals and all religious groups.

Notice that last point. When the Protestant founders considered wording for what was to become the First Amendment, one option was protecting “the rights of conscience.” There’s not much more Protestant-sounding phrase than that. But they chose instead to protect “the free exercise of religion.” First Amendment scholar and evangelical Christian Michael McConnell argues that the founders chose that phrase, “the free exercise of religion,” in order to protect two things: the public rights involved in religious exercise, not just the private rights of conscience, and secondly, the rights of religious communities, not just the rights of individual citizens.

In sum, the American constitutional establishment valued religious expression, both in public and private, for individuals and groups. The purpose of the First Amendment’s ban on establishment, therefore, was not to keep religion out of politics. Precisely the opposite is true. The ban on establishment was designed to protect religion from the government, thereby to limit the power and reach of government, and to ensure the moral vibrancy of the American people. These ideas, while they had deep roots in Protestant and Catholic thought, protected all religions and all religious individuals, not just Christians.

Finally, usually, there’s a big sigh of relief when I say finally. I don’t really mean that. I’ll say it three more times before I finish. A few thoughts on how all of this relates to U.S. foreign policy and a little bit to national security. In my view, the essence of the American understanding of religious freedom, as heretofore explained, is what we should be advancing in our foreign policy.

Not the First Amendment, not the law, but the principles. That is, equal protection in law and culture for the free exercise of religion. We should be doing that by making arguments grounded in history, modern research, and common sense that without religious freedom, no society can flourish. With religious freedom, good things will result, including the stabilizing of democracy over the long term, economic growth, greater rates of literacy, and the undermining of religion-related terrorism.

Now, we’ve had, since 1998, as many of you know, a statutory requirement to advance religious freedom in American foreign policy, led by an American ambassador at large who heads the Office of Religious Freedom at the State Department. The policy has been in place for 19 years, under four administrations and both political parties. Many remarkable people have served in that office, present company excluded, and some important steps have been taken.

But unfortunately, it cannot be said that International Religious Freedom has increased or that international religious persecution has decreased during those 19 years. Indeed, the opposite is true according to the Pew Research Center’s annual reports. Restrictions on religion have been high for at least the last decade, and religion-related terrorism persecution is growing. Some three-quarters of the world’s population lives in countries where there are high restrictions on religion. This, it seems to me, constitutes a global crisis in religious freedom.

There are many reasons for this, some of them, of course, completely beyond the control of the United States. But we could have done better in my opinion in the past, and we can do better in the future. Our IRF policy, international religious freedom policy, has not been seen as part of mainstream diplomacy. Rather, it’s been treated within the State Department as a narrow human rights issue with policy tools that are highly rhetorical and often ineffective in changing things on the ground. We should view that policy not only as a human rights issue (which of course it is) but also as a counterterrorism and stabilization strategy. There’s ample evidence that religious freedom can undermine religion-related terrorism. Is there a more important – well, it’s among the top two important national security issues of the United States.

I want to conclude (that’s the second time I’ll say that) by focusing on what, to me, is a more fundamental concern. As a general rule, many members of the American foreign policy establishment, like many of our aforementioned political and cultural elites today, no longer believe in religious freedom as the first freedom of the American Constitution, of the human soul, let alone abroad. They no longer believe it’s necessary for the health of American society, let alone other societies abroad. And, alas, their ignorance and indifference seem attached to our Christian leaders as well as our secular leaders.

But those of us who are Christians have good reason for supporting a vigorous American religious freedom policy. And those of you who aren’t Christians have the same reasons: we are American citizens who want to further our nation’s interests. Most of us believe, whether we’re Christian or not, in the Christian argument that all should have religious freedom. And we observe from the data and from the news that Christians are being targeted more than any other religious community in the world. The results are obviously catastrophic for them but also for the societies in which they live.

So let me, truly end (third time) by giving you five reasons to act and ways you can act, especially if you’re Christians, to advance International Religious Freedom as an American national security first. Those of us who are not subject to violent persecution have a Christian responsibility to defend those who are. Love of Christ surely means love of those who suffer in His name. To avert our eyes, to conclude that we are powerless, to pretend that we cannot have an impact is unacceptable ignorance and indifference. Our sins against Christian love, their sins against our Lord.

Second, as Christians, we must pray. We must pray constantly. At Gethsemane, Jesus asked Peter, James, and John to pray. They failed Him. Let’s not fail Him now.

Third, we must act as citizens who have both the right and the responsibility to influence our own government. As Americans, we must insist that our government do better at defending religious freedom abroad. We must support the new ambassador-at-large who is nominated, Sam Brownback. And many of you may not know this, but his hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set for next Wednesday morning at 10:30. You can find out where it is, probably somewhere in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Go there and support him. Support him once he’s in the job. We all have a stake in his success.

Fourth, we Americans have a particular responsibility to retrieve the traditional understanding that religious freedom is the first freedom. For as we’ve seen, that understanding is derived from a Christian worldview. For that reason and that reason alone, it encompasses religious freedom for everyone. Please don’t think that the secularist understanding of religious freedom in this country will protect those of you who are Christians. It won’t. We are in imminent danger of losing the understanding of religious freedom’s value to us in America today. The phrase “religious freedom” appears in scare quotes in the mainstream press. Last year, the chair of the Human Rights, the Civil Rights Commission, an official institution designed to protect the civil rights of every American, wrote in a report that religious freedom stands for, and I quote, “intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and Christian supremacy.” We must fight this destructive attitude with the same determination and the same Christian love with which we fight violent persecution beyond our shores. If we in America lose the idea of religious freedom, where can it be retrieved? What happens to religious freedom in this country has an impact on the world.

Fifth and finally, we must do more than defend religious freedom. We must exercise religious freedom. Those of us who are Christians must live openly and without apology as Christians in our increasingly secular and hostile society. We’re indeed threatened by secular hostility, but a greater danger, in my view, is our own indifference and fear. If we don’t live our lives publicly defending our Lord’s teachings on such things as the sanctity of life and protecting all the defenseless among us, on marriage, on human sexuality, where will we find the passion and the discipline to defend our brothers and sisters whose lives are threatened because of their beliefs overseas?

Why do we, should we even merit the name Christians if we hide our beliefs under a basket? So let’s not sleep like Peter, James, and John at Gethsemane. What our Lord is asking us is to stay awake. Let’s not avert our eyes at the suffering church or at any group, Christian or non-Christian, suffering persecution because of their religious beliefs. Let’s act publicly as Christians and as American citizens with love for our Lord, for our country, that we better defend our Christian brothers and sisters and all others suffering religious persecution abroad by protecting the precious right of religious freedom. Thank you.

hope these are just the Protestants who are leaving. Okay, questions, comments? I figured Jose Han was going to go. Are there some students? There’s a student before you. No, no, I’m in a calling now. What I want to hear is what you have to say.

This gentleman here, I believe, is a student. Hi, my name is Payton Smith, and I go to Wheaton College. Nice, great school! So, I guess I agree that religion can be used to promote virtue among its citizens, but I’m really worried. I said worried isn’t the right word, but I guess I’m wondering how these ideas of religious freedom might presuppose a liberal political order. It seems like it’s going to ask us to bracket important moral questions.

How does my religious freedom of conscience relate to my actions? For example, if I believe that it’s okay to sacrifice people to the Sun God for my religion, how do we relate that to good citizenry? How do we then further that political debate? Does this question even make sense?

It does make sense. I mean, the founders considered the Sun God question and decided not to include it in the First Amendment. No violence—that one really is an easy one. The harder question is why can’t I, as a Christian, bring my moral beliefs into public discourse? There are Christian arguments for same-sex marriage and Christian arguments against it. What is unacceptable in the American tradition, as I interpret it, is that if they are religiously motivated, you have to shut up.

That is wrong. That’s not what the founders intended. Michael McConnell has this right; it was precisely because they wanted religious ideas articulated in politics that they chose the phrase “the free exercise of religion” rather than “the rights of conscience.” The latter can be viewed as an interior matter, while they emphasized free exercise and religion.

You have a right, and I would argue a responsibility, to take your views—inasfar as they relate to public policy matters—and make them as charitable and persuasive as you can. There’s no constitutional prohibition on saying things that are unpopular or might not convince anybody. Other Christians, as I read from Galatians earlier, should feel free to express their views.

The fear I have is that students like you seem to think that you’re not supposed to do that. The ban on the establishment of religion does not prohibit you from making public policy arguments based on your views about marriage, sexuality, or foreign policy. No, the intention of the free exercise of religion is for you to bring those views into public life.

Whoever’s got the mic, I’ll let you decide who to go to. Hey, Joel, I’m sorry. Thank you so much. My question is about how to identify you.

Yes, I’m sorry. Ashland Webb, a student from UT Austin. My question is how not to get bogged down in the pessimism of it all. Primarily, starting from a place that I think Christ’s love extends to every corner of the earth—or it should—where do you start? I look at the International Religious Freedom report from the State Department, and it shows terrible human rights abuses happening in every corner of the world. So, how do we take this theoretically and make a practical contribution on the ground?

One option is to form a religious freedom institute, a nonprofit group whose job it is to promote these values. There needs to be more groups like this. Some, like Wilberforce and the Becket Fund, work in the field of religious freedom and urge our foreign policy elites to make this issue part of the foundation of our foreign policy. They develop programs designed to convince skeptics overseas that it is in their interests to support religious freedom.

Show them that they will have economic growth. For example, to the Chinese, you don’t have to use the phrase “religious freedom.” If you could convince the Chinese Politburo that backing off on its crackdowns on Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, and Christians would result in more sustained economic growth, you might have a conversation that goes somewhere. This is in contrast to the stale human rights dialogues that occur annually, where both sides pretend to listen.

Thank you, Ashland, for that question. It’s about programs designed to focus on the self-interest of the target country—not just wagging Article 18 in front of them. This approach has been in place for 19 years, and it hasn’t worked, so it’s time to try something new.

Okay, Joe, you’ve got the microphone. I can’t avoid it. It doesn’t work; I had it fixed. Yes, Joe Licata here with The King’s College in New York City. Tom, it’s great to see you. Thanks for a terrific talk, by the way. I quote you approvingly in my foreign policy class, just so you know.

I have a very concrete policy question for you. Think about post-9/11. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, one of the most religiously repressive countries in the world. The Bush administration knew this, and President Bush and some of his close associates identified themselves as deeply committed Christians. Yet, for eight years, the administration seemed to do little to move the Saudis in a more tolerant direction, whether in textbooks or funding.

Given your contacts and relationships in the State Department, help us understand how, if this critique is correct, there wasn’t a significant move to pressure the Saudis and others toward a more tolerant direction. What should have been an “aha” moment? Religious belief and repression are central to American foreign policy post-9/11. How could there not be serious action taken?

You want me to explain the State Department to this group in sixty seconds? Well, I might add that the policy, such as it was, continued under successive administrations. It’s a very interesting question regarding this administration’s new anti-terrorism center located in Saudi Arabia. What does this mean? Saudi Arabia is the mother of terrorism, the intellectual basis for what we are facing.

I’m prepared to be tolerant of this administration and see where this goes, although I remain skeptical. Your question was about the Bush administration, and I agree with you. If there was a profile of an administration that ought to have understood what to do, it would be this one. But in retrospect, I don’t think any of this was about religion. The religion avoidance syndrome, notwithstanding the strong religious views of the President himself, was prevalent in the State Department right after 9/11 and continued.

It’s beginning to change, but slowly. That’s due to institutional changes in the State Department, but not fast enough. People didn’t read Nina Shay’s expose of what Saudi Arabia was exporting to America or other countries. That’s a bit of a glib answer, but it reflects a lack of focus on religion.

Madeleine Albright explained it: we were trained not to think about religion. So now we are, perhaps, facing challenges in understanding what the administration is doing. It’s not a very satisfactory answer, Joe, but this is the hard core of the issue.

f Islamic terrorism, and if we think we can solve the problem of al-Qaeda or ISIS with some kind of military defeat and not address this, we’re not being realistic, to quote a good foreign policy term. Alright, I don’t know if we got any more time. Yeah, we got a little more.

Yes ma’am, thank you. My name is Xiao Chuang. I’m a Georgetown student at the School of Public Policy. I have a question on Christianity in China. There are a lot of reports saying that there are more and more Christians in China. You used to see pastors coming here advocating for people being persecuted, but now you begin to hear stories about how Christianity is taking roots there. It’s no longer only stories about persecution; it’s about people growing their faith. It looks like it will grow more because people have been praying for them. Americans have been praying for Christianity to take roots in China. Praise the Lord for answers to prayers!

But my question is: What would diplomacy and national security for America look like as this evolving Christianity begins to blossom in China? What’s your role in it? What’s your view on it? Thank you, that’s a great question, and I’m going to have to give another glib answer because it’s a deep question with a lot of answers. For 20 years, I’ve seen this back and forth of thoughts that the crackdown is ending, that President this or that has decided that the socialist characteristics of China should incorporate religion.

As far as I can see, this is mainly a management problem for the Chinese. They understand. I mean, the Chinese tried to kill religion in the Cultural Revolution; now they’re trying to live with it. But what you cited—that is, the growth, particularly evangelical Christianity—worries me, because I think it worries the Chinese. They watch it very closely. They don’t want to quote statistics about how many millions of people are Christians or any other religion. And what I fear is that the Chinese will institute, one day soon, a serious crackdown if they conclude that the growth of Christianity is going to threaten the stability of the Chinese state, which is their main concern.

Why is that a national security issue for the United States? Depending on how large religions, especially Christianity, gets in China, we could be talking about hundreds of millions of people. And anyone who knows Chinese history knows that there have been catastrophic and revolutionary things going on. Well, that’s a national security issue for us. China is, not to put too fine a point on it, they hold our mortgage. They are our banker. And that, by the way, is why we don’t do anything about this that is serious, in my view.

There are some heroic civil society efforts going on and have been going on in China, but the US government treats this, I think (and I’m going to give a little slack here), understandably, as not the top issue. You don’t go down to the guy that just gave you your mortgage and say, “Let me tell you, I want you to fix the problem of religion in your bank,” because he might pull your loan. So, we have a problem here, but it’s a very, very important issue. And I think the national security part of it in the future is a serious one.

[Applause]

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