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Madison Proctor

Professor Mary Steible

English 102 - 004

13 October 2023

The Importance of Religion and its Effect on Civil Obedience

Religion has always been a part of global culture. America was founded on the desire for

religious freedom and equality. Religion generally agrees that believers should follow

government created laws. However, faith also guides morals, and while religion is not an excuse

to circumvent the law or participate in civil disobedience, people are not going to follow a law

that does not align with their religious teachings. Faith motivates people in everything they do,

which is why religious freedom is so important. Religion is so powerful that it can override

federal laws in peoples’ minds. If the laws that are in place match someone's belief system, that

person is going to obey the law; if the laws in place oppose a person's faith system, they are

going to ignore the federal law and do what they think is right. On the other hand, there are also

people that don't ascribe to a religion but use the importance of religion in the United States to

get a religious exemption for something they do not want to do, but while it is obvious that a

loophole like the exemption is exploited occasionally, it is very difficult to prove. Religious

exemptions must be disallowed to ensure fair treatment of all Americans regardless of religion or

lack thereof.

According to Steensland, a self-reporting survey done on the correlation of civic

engagement and religious or spiritual labels shows that, “…for over half of the American public,

neither spirituality nor religion is viewed as being an influence on their civic engagement.

Significantly, this absence of perceived religious or spiritual influence is associated with lower
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levels of civic activity.” (Steensland 403). This data implies that that the spiritual or religious

American population is more involved than the average nonreligious citizen. This may be

because morality or doctrine says to care for the community, or it could be because churches are

also places to socialize. Congregations also plan and host events to help their communities.

The population of faith that is unfortunate enough to have beliefs that disagree with the

current laws may be able to obtain a religious exception to something like the draft or a vaccine.

Unfortunately for these people, if the exemption was ended they would have to go against their

religion, but the secular American government should not treat Americans differently, regardless

of religion. Currently, for every person that seeks an exemption for genuine religious reasons,

there are likely many more people that use the loophole for less honest reasons.

There is not really an accurate way to judge how much the exemption is misused, but

according to Wang, “Today, […] when an individual disobeys a law based on a purported

conflict with their free exercise [of religion], they prevail around 70% of the time” (Wang 1003).

People have a good chance to get the exemption because it is very difficult to prove what

someone believes, because faith is not measurable. This ends up making the exemption a

privilege for Americans of faith only. However, this does not mean that faith cannot be a valid

basis for civil disobedience.

Doctor Martin Luther King Junior's fight against segregation started based on his

religious beliefs, which included equality for all people. This is different than civil disobedience

for religious exemptions, however, because he did not seek a religious exemption only for

himself based on his beliefs. King used his faith as reasoning to end all segregation, regardless of

a person’s faith. This is also why he chose nonviolent civil disobedience and a peaceful protest

strategy. He was breaking the law because of his faith, to help all Americans, without hope for an
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exemption. He did not want to oppose government in general, rather, he just wanted to end the

unjust Jim Crow laws. In his ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ King explains, “One who breaks an

unjust law must do it openly, lovingly, not hatefully […] and with the willingness to accept the

penalty” (King 356). He did not want anarchy. He just wanted freedom. He was a religious

leader, and a good one at that. He would never break a just law. He knew that the Jim Crow laws

were unjust and that the only way to end segregation was to do something technically illegal to

bring attention to how wrong the laws were and to demonstrate how badly black Americans were

treated.

This is why religion is one of the most important topics in America, as well as one of the

most prominent controversies. Laws that exempt religious Americans from mandated laws

should be overturned because it allows for a ‘religious privilege’, enabling religious Americans

to avoid laws without equal opportunity for Americans who are not religious. These laws that

allow exemptions are also laws that people can exploit with no measurable proof, to avoid

following other laws. Religion is so inexorably tied to American culture that it influences even

how we run our secular, democratic government, and how much we participate. Religion and

spiritual beliefs are always going to override the desire to follow civil laws, so the government

must create a delicate balance between laws that are fair to Americans of different religions, and

laws that compromise enough to keep people from the different religions happy while ensuring

equality.
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Works Cited

King, Jr., Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Reading the World, edited by Michael

Austin, 4th ed., Norton, 2020, pp. 350-66.

Steensland, Brian, et al. “The Discursive and Practical Influence of Spirituality on Civic

Engagement.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, vol. 61, no. 2, 2022, pp. 389–407,

https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12788.

Wang, Xiao. “Religion as Disobedience.” Vanderbilt Law Review, vol. 76, no. 4, 2023, pp. 999–

1065.