The Acton Institute PowerBlog alerted me to an article by Ralph Benko in the Washington Examiner on the worrying implications of President Obama’s re-phrasing of the First Amendment:
President Obama’s recent formulation, “Freedom of Worship” has the religiously serious aghast. It telegraphs a subversion of faith — by defending a right not in question, the right to conduct religious feasts and fasts and ceremonies, and downgrading religion’s heart, values.
The First Amendment interdicts the making of laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The president now replaces a strong and constitutional word, “Religion,” with a weak and chic one, “Worship,” which is religion defined by esthetics, not ethics. Implication: the Constitution protects our steeples and liturgy, not religious values.
The political elites shamelessly are in the process of “defining devotion down” to liturgy — hey kids, totally up to you to decide whether the priest faces the altar or the congregation, knock yourselves out — and delegitimize the right to advocate for laws reflecting religiously informed values. A delegitimized right collapses, which is the objective of its adversaries.
Read the rest here.