Religious Liberty
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
As Christians, we want the freedom to live quiet and peaceful lives and to make the gospel known. Unfortunately, as our culture moves away from the Bible, the Christian worldview is increasingly rejected as discriminatory and hateful. How should Christians respond to these issues? Should we contend for religious liberty? What should we say when our non-Christian neighbours ask us about these things?
In this module, we will be looking at the biblical basis for religious liberty, the history and current state of religious liberty in Australia, the different layers of religious liberty and case studies in evangelism, education and the workplace. Our aim is to equip you to provide a faithful case for religious liberty in conversation with your neighbours and, ultimately, to turn those conversations to the gospel.
We think a helpful definition of religious liberty is given by Andrew Walker in his thesis on the topic: ‘Religious liberty is defined as the principle wherein every individual should be free to live out his or her understanding of the conscience’s duty that is owed to God in all areas of life without liability to government penalty or social harassment.’ There are qualifications we could make to this definition, but it is a good start.
You can find each part of this module linked below:
Part 3 - Religious Liberty and Evangelism
Part 4 - Religious Liberty and Education