Campaign launched to preserve hard-fought religious protections

Magna Carta

The United Kingdom is the home of the Magna Carta, one of the foundations for the world's understanding of rights, including religious rights.

But those rights are under fire there, and the Barnabas Fund has launched a 2018 campaign to restore and protect them.

The organization that works in support of persecuted Christians around the globe said it is now lobbying for a new act of Parliament "to guarantee seven fundamental aspects of freedom of religion."

"These seven freedoms have developed in the U.K. by various mechanisms over the last five centuries but are now under threat. A law to protect and guarantee them is urgently needed," Barnabas announced.

See the WND Superstore's collection of Bibles, including the stunning 1599 Geneva Bible.

The organization is seeking a law with written assurances about:

Freedom to read the Bible in public (achieved 1537)
Freedom to interpret the Bible without government interference (achieved 1559)
Freedom of worship (achieved 1689)
Freedom to choose, or change your faith or belief (achieved 1689)
Freedom to preach and try to convince others of the truth of your beliefs (achieved 1812)
Freedom to build churches and other places of worship (achieved 1812), and
Freedom from being required to affirm a particular worldview or set of beliefs in order to hold a public sector job or stand for election, work in professions such as teaching and law, or study at university (achieved by the repeal of various Test Acts between 1719 and 1888)

"Tracing the heritage of religious liberty takes us back more than 800 years to Magna Carta in 1215. At that time, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland were separate nations; it was long before Great Britain was created, let alone the United Kingdom," the ministry explained.

"So Magna Carta's ringing call that 'the English Church' must be free should not be seen as limited to England. We must see it as an affirmation to be embraced by the whole of the U.K., and far beyond, but expressed in the language of its time and context. Indeed, in later centuries, Magna Carta became a rallying cry for the freedoms of all the English-speaking peoples. For example, those who signed the American Declaration of Independence described themselves as 'patriots' claiming their ancient rights as Englishmen which had been set out in Magna Carta and subsequent laws."

Most of the threatened freedoms were obtained over the generations by removing "various restrictions" on religion rather than enacting laws protecting those rights.

"They are therefore vulnerable to being eroded by those who are either intent on imposing a particular ideological agenda, or by politicians who are simply ignorant of the enormous importance that previous generations played in developing freedom of religion and spreading it to other parts of the world," Barnabas Aid explained.

The efforts to petition for such a law in the U.K. will be accompanied by similar moves in Australia and New Zealand, the ministry said.

"We shall be calling on Christians to engage in numerous ways to reclaim the freedoms which our forefathers endured hardship, persecution and even death to achieve."

Why now?

"We believe that, as a nation, the U.K. has again left the pathways of God. We have forsaken His laws, and we are faced with the possibility of the lampstand being removed from our country (Revelation 2:5). With this will probably come the loss of our fundamental religious freedoms. Yet, we believe it is not too late. We believe that we are still, as a nation, in the hands of our sovereign Lord, that it is He who will determine our destiny."

See the WND Superstore's collection of Bibles, including the stunning 1599 Geneva Bible.