Balancing act of religious freedom

Churches and other charity bodies walk a fine line on what volunteers can say.

In the present public debate about religious freedom, one issue has emerged that does need comment.

How can a religious denomination, without contradiction, promote religious freedom while limiting what members of their faith or employees can say when they act in an official capacity?

Christian church agencies provide services across a wide range of sectors, from family counselling and hospital care to education.

Like any voluntary association, they face the challenge of trying to maintain a commitment to core values and beliefs among members and employees, at least in any official ­capacity.

This is a particular challenge for Christian church agencies as an increasing number of their staff come from a largely secular world view.

How is it possible for a church or church agency to maintain a commitment to its mission and identity while respecting religious freedom?

How can it maintain and defend the integrity of the church’s teaching while not overly restrict what employees can say?

We know from historical examples that voluntary associations enter a period of decline and corporations cease to operate effectively when they do not ensure commitment to the core values and beliefs of the organisation. So this is no small question.

Religious freedom concerns one’s ability to express and practise one’s beliefs without unjust limitation, or to be protected from being forced to hold or engage in religious practice that one does not share.

No organisation has the rightful authority to prevent someone expressing or practising their religious beliefs or to force someone to comply with a particular set of beliefs.

But when one joins a voluntary association, as an employee or member, one is undertaking to respect and uphold the core beliefs of that association.

When they find they can no longer do this in good faith, it is necessary to part company.

In not permitting members or employees to use the resources or the authority of the organisation to promote views inconsistent with its core beliefs it is not violating religious freedom.

Voluntary organisations have the duty to ensure the integrity of their core beliefs. This is the only way the association or organisation can maintain its purpose for existing.

Further, voluntary organisations do not compel anyone to hold their values: one is free to accept or reject these values.

Members or employees who after some time find themselves at odds with the organisation’s core beliefs are able to resign and look to join an organisation with a better fit for them.

This understanding is central to the operation of political parties and freedom of speech.

The Liberal Party would no more give a platform to those members wanting to advocate socialism than the Labor Party would someone seeking to promote rampant, unregulated capitalism, just as the Greens would not give a platform to those members who have had a change of mind and seek to use the resources of the party to promote destruction of the environment.

Such restrictive actions do not violate the principle of freedom of speech.

This is of course also true for any corporate body. Coca-Cola would no more provide a platform for its employees to promote Pepsi than McDonald’s would with regard to Hungry Jack’s.

It is exactly because they are voluntary organisations that there is no injury to freedom of speech when restrictions are placed on what members can do and say when acting on behalf of the organisation.

No one is being forced to hold any particular views. Rather, one seeks to become a member and remain a member only if one agrees with the core principles of the voluntary association.

No one is being forced to believe anything or being impeded in expressing their particular view as such.

They only are being prevented from using the resources of the association to promote views that are incompatible with the organisation’s stated values.

Anyone can criticise Liberal, Labor or Green party policies in a respectful way but these parties are not required by the principle of freedom of speech to provide a platform for such criticism.

In the same way, the church does not in any way offend against the principle of religious freedom by not providing a platform to members who seek to contradict its core beliefs and teachings.

Julian Porteous is the Catholic Archbishop of Hobart.