of technological progress. The accumulated wisdom of the past that makes for culture is thus destroyed.

Another question which has to be asked is why is that tyrannies of this ideological variety find it necessary to abolish religion and those who practice it. I can only presume that it is because those in power insist upon controlling every aspect of human existence, including that of the mind.

The first characteristic is that of negating the past and the memories of it. The past, therefore, is to be destroyed in the romantic presumption that out of its ashes and ruin will emerge the new society in which the new man will come into being.

The second is that of materialism, which presumes that reality is a closed system of natural laws, and that it is these laws which can be objectified and applied to society. Thus, the individual is a piece of biological machinery who is a part of the greater social machine which, in turn, is part of the cosmic machinery. Consciousness, as such, is an illusion, and religion is the greatest illusion of all. That is why it is referred to as the opiate of the people.

And the third is that of atheism. This attempt to abolish God attempts, at the same time, to abolish man, the living soul or conscious being. The mystery of mind and personality is thus destoyed in intention, if not in fact.

Thus, it would seem that the religious person, one whose faith is centered upon God, cannot be subject to the ideology which demands complete obedience. The freedom of the person lies in his or her freedom to obey God as the only one worthy of such obedience. In this connection, we may say that a free society is one which recognizes the freedom of its citizens to worship God rather than itself. It is in this recognition, and in the recognition of the reality of what is called sin, that we have a system of checks and balances. I believe that the faith articulated by the Bible is unique, and part of its uniqueness is its rejection of any government, system, or tyrant who would be God. Together, the Jews and Christians have existed as a community of faith and freedom in the world. The ideals of this community have characterized the best of Western civilization and the greatest threat to tyrannies.

It is interesting to note that the intellectual antidote to this tyrannical ideology was worked out in Russia by philosophers such as Prof. S. L. Frank and Prof. Nicholas Beroyaeu who rejected Marxist ideology to become Christian thinkers. Their thinking, by the way, has had great influence among intellectuals belonging to the underground religious movement.

I shall end by quoting from one of them, having written about the dehumanization of contemporary social life because Western civilization has lost its religious roots, he goes on to say, “At the present time, Christianity is again called upon to protect man, to protect his whole image from a demonology which torments him with servitude to the new technical forces."

I am not romantically optimistic about the present or the future. I am convinced that the struggle we are engaged in is not between right or left, it is a struggle to maintain the freedom of people everywhere to think for themselves, to witness to God and to obey Him, and to act morally according to the dictates of their conscience. This struggle for human freedom is such a threat to tyran

nies, that they will continue to oppose it. Therefore, we may expect religious persecution to increase rather than decrease over the next decade.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. BONKER. Professor Clark.

STATEMENT OF ROGER S. CLARK, PROFESSOR OF LAW, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Mr. CLARK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

After that wonderful cosmic view of our subject by Dr. Gordon, I am somewhat embarrassed to come down and talk about some of the nitty-gritty details of our subject.

However, I was asked to discuss particularly what the letter from you, sir, called "the definition, scope and historical aspects of religious persecution." Persecution and freedom, Mr. Chairman, are two opposite sides of the coin, and I hope that you will forgive me if I approach the subject from the positive side-from the viewpoint of the development of religious freedom.

I propose to deal in three different ways with this subject: First, by discussion of the United Nations recent declaration on religious freedom; second, by outlining some historical aspects of the topic; and third, by giving some current examples of religious persecu

tion.

I believe that a positive approach is justified to the topic because these hearings are taking place at a moment of great symbolic significance in the struggle for the international protection of human rights.

After some 19 years of sporadic effort, the U.N. General Assembly has just completed the drafting of a very important document with a rather cumbersome title of the "Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief." That document was adopted by the Third Committee of the General Assembly on November 9 last and by the Plenary Meeting of the Assembly on November 25.

You will find a copy of the declaration in annex 1 to the written document that I have supplied for the record.

I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the subcommittee will find the declaration a valuable framework for its work. It is clearly destined to be the prime benchmark for anyone who seeks in an international forum to make a case based upon religious freedom.

In my opinion, there are three basic issues that need to be addressed in any attempt to define the parameters of religious freedom: First, the right of members of religious faiths to practice their religion with a minimum of state interference; second, the prevention of discriminatory treatment by governments of individuals or groups on the ground of their membership in a particular faith; third, some requirement that the state make a good-faith effort to suppress the manifestation, by private persons or groups, of intolerance for others based on the holding of a different religion or belief.

The U.N. declaration is not a perfect instrument, but it does address itself in a forthright way to each of these matters.

In my written statement, I analyze the particular details of the declaration. I don't wish in my oral presentation to go through each of its provisions. However, I would like to mention some highlights of it, particularly article I and article VI.

Article I, Mr. Chairman, makes it clear that freedom to have a religion includes freedom to manifest one's religious beliefs. It is one thing to say that, in the solitude of one's own mind, there is freedom of belief; it is quite another, and I suggest a much more important thing, to acknowlege a right to act out the tenets of one's belief, particularly in the company of others.

I have in mind the kind of activities later listed in article VI of the declaration-freedom to worship with others, to engage in religious practices, to learn and to teach and to have some kinds of religious organizations. Such rights are not absolute in any legal system or under the declaration. They may, according to article I, be subject "to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others."

Reasonable people can differ about where such lines of limitation are to be drawn. And one cannot always expect good-faith linedrawing in this area in domestic or international forums. But the basic statement of the right to manifest one's religion in article I and the specifics later in article VI are of crucial significance.

Article VI is the most detailed provision of the declaration. It contains a list of various manifestations of religion or belief which are protected, subject to demands of public safety and the like referred to in article I. It includes the rights of worship and assembly, the right to have an appropriate organizational structure, at least for charitable and humanitarian purposes, and to have communications—although not necessarily organic links-with likeminded persons and groups at the national and international level. Article VI(c) guarantees the right to "make, to acquire and to use" the "articles and materials" related to the rites or customs of religion or belief. This matter of obtaining religious paraphernalia is of great significance to, for example, Jewish groups in the Soviet Union.

I commend the other provisions of the declaration to your scrutiny. I cannot underestimate the importance of this document, the drafting of which proved so time consuming and painful to the international community.

Second, Mr. Chairman, I turn to a little history. It is important to recall how recent the development of the right to religious freedom is at both the national and international level, a matter already adverted to by Dr. Gordon.

At the national level, for example, it was not until after the French Revolution that Jews and Protestants in France had full freedom to practice their religion on the same basis as Catholics. In England, there were various kinds of civil and political disabilities on Protestants not members of the established church, and on Catholics and Jews, well into the 19th century. Religious freedom was by no means the norm throughout colonial America. There were, of course, shining exceptions like Pennsylvania.

The broad principle that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there

of," was guaranteed by the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1791, but its details are still being worked out by the courts. At the international level, there have been sporadic references to religious freedom since the 1500's in various international documents. At the 1945 San Francisco Conference, during which the U.N. Charter was drafted, representatives of a number of small countries-Chile, Cuba, New Zealand, Norway, and Panamaargued strenuously for the inclusion in the Charter of precise and detailed provisions relating to the freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Their efforts were unavailing. The U.N. Charter merely refers in a general way in article 1, paragraph 3, and in article 55, to the promotion "of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion."

The only slightly less general language in article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and now the much more detailed provisions of the declaration, can best be seen as efforts to give concrete detail to the very general norms in the U.N. Charter.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, there is the subject of current examples of religious persecution. In preparing for this testimony, I thought that I might be able to lay my hands on a comprehensive study of contemporary examples or religious persecution. To my surprise, none of the scholars of nongovernmental organizations like Dr. Gordon's working in this area appears to have produced such a study.

I did come across a survey of religious freedom by the United Presbyterians, which I will give to the staff, listing the 10 most suppressive and the 10 most free nations. I must confess that I have always been somewhat skeptical about lists of the 10 most something or other. And certainly this list contains some surprising inclusions and omissions. But it is interesting nonetheless. [The information follows:]

In Many Places It's Still Dangerous to Believe

A.D. survey of religious freedom

lists most oppressive and most free nations