United States of America (MNN) – America turns 250 this weekend, marking 25 decades of religious freedom. David Bogosian, Executive Director of Alliance for the Unreached, calls us to reflect on and celebrate this gift.
“The United States is unique in the history of the world as being the place that championed religious freedom, and [it] has now become a champion for that all over the world,” he says.
Two and a half centuries out from our nation’s founding, religious freedom is ever relevant, as policy continues to shape the specifics of this freedom. Current bills focused on religious matters include Senate Bill 3056, which aims to curtail religious persecution in China, and H.R. 1744, which would fund the US Commission on International Religious Freedom through the end of 2028.
Bogosian emphasizes that it is no small blessing for a government to spearhead religious rights.
Courtesy of Lucas Y via Unsplash. Featured photo courtesy of Frank McKenna via Unsplash.
“And so encouraging our government to keep doing that is so important, and then praying for our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted,” he says, pointing out that much of the world has yet to experience religious freedom.
“There are thousands of people groups in the world today that we classify as unreached, and most of those live in areas that we call ‘restricted access,’ meaning their governments deny them access to the Gospel.”
In this way, unreached people groups often face a double-edged sword: restricted access to the Gospel and persecution when access is gained. But Hebrews 4:12 states: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
As God’s Word continues to go out among unreached peoples of the world, pray that it will not return void. Where it lands, especially when political landscapes are rocky or thorny, ask that spiritual soil would be fertile. Bogosian points out that in the midst of opposition, the Spirit of God equips us to love those who persecute us.
“And that is the privilege that we have as Christians,” he says. “In fact it’s in spite of persecution – and maybe you could say because of persecution – that Christianity shines the brightest and grows the fastest.”
While you celebrate America’s religious freedom, would you remember those who have yet to experience it?
“This is what we need to pray for: that governments around the world – that people around the world – would see the connection between freedom and the Christian faith,” Bogosian says.
Pray too for our own people: that we would treasure and preserve our blessing of religious freedom.
