I think you are correct in calling out the excesses of secularism in places like France. You are also correct in discerning faux religious liberty arguments about masks and other COVD-related measures vs. genuine concerns about religious liberty in aggressively secularising European states.
You write: "Many countries rooted in various systems of communism still oppress, punish, or banish certain expressions of religion, even when it does not threaten the government’s power to try to express it."
I would state this differently. Some nations headed by official Communist parties do have repressive policies towards religion, motivated by the actual history of religions fighting against genuine liberation. In some cases, those regimes are abusing their power, but this side of global liberation from oligarchy, capitalism, and religio-fascism, there is no reason to single out existing Communist regimes as worse than all other national regimes in this regard.
Thank you for this piece.
I think you are correct in calling out the excesses of secularism in places like France. You are also correct in discerning faux religious liberty arguments about masks and other COVD-related measures vs. genuine concerns about religious liberty in aggressively secularising European states.
You write: "Many countries rooted in various systems of communism still oppress, punish, or banish certain expressions of religion, even when it does not threaten the government’s power to try to express it."
I would state this differently. Some nations headed by official Communist parties do have repressive policies towards religion, motivated by the actual history of religions fighting against genuine liberation. In some cases, those regimes are abusing their power, but this side of global liberation from oligarchy, capitalism, and religio-fascism, there is no reason to single out existing Communist regimes as worse than all other national regimes in this regard.