蜜芽传媒

Last week, Victoria Wasteney appealed to an employment tribunal after losing her NHS post, she claims, for sharing her Christian faith with a Muslim colleague. In her view, this wasn鈥檛 merely about religious dogma but the freedom to talk about the believing person she is.

The case mirrored a week of heated debates in the United States where the Governor of Indiana, Mike Spence signed a controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This act purports to give redress to faith communities who feel that their freedom of choice is being compromised but is criticized - among other things - for being anti-gay.

Having recently returned from a global consultation on religious freedom, both events felt particularly current.

During our 4 day consultation, we heard horrendous accounts from a number of countries including, Vietnam, North Korea, Myanmar and Yemen where the clash of ideologies led to brutal persecution and people dying for their faith.

And then we returned to the UK to hear of Al-Shabaab鈥檚 outrageous extremisms that resulted in the slaughter of Kenyan students.

Despite our international provisions of rights and freedoms, 70% of the world鈥檚 populations still live in conditions in which their freedom to choose is compromised. And the battle between individual choice and mutual freedoms is nowhere near being resolved.

And so, I鈥檓 wondering if what is needed, is a rediscovery of choice as a benchmark of what it means to be a person.

From a Christian perspective, choice is the invitational imperative in the relationship between God and human beings. As the Old Testament character, Joshua put it, 鈥淐hoose today whom you will serve.鈥� In biblical terms, choice goes to the heart of the contract between people and deity.

And Christians must be bold enough to recognize that this means the freedom, not to believe in any God at all.

Theologically, choice is not a god. And in our complex, multi-faith and multi-cultural societies, we must accept that our freedom to choose must be regulated and sanctioned in the interest of the Common Good.

This idea of choice defines what it means to be human in community. But it also demands continuity between our religious ideas, human flourishing and political stability.

And wherever I live on this planet, it should mean the freedom to choose my faith as much as my political party.

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