Embrace faith in the general public sphere, invites Harvard professor speaking at BYU

The Savior Jesus Christ offered an unparalleled example of how Christians can carry their faith, wherever they go, as a component of themselves.

“He treated physical diseases like physicians,” said Ruth L. Okediji in a BYU forum. “He counseled the rejects and the social outcasts, identical to counselors do. He multiplied bread and fish to feed the hungry, identical to charities and social welfare works. He challenged corruption and hypocrisy, identical to good political leaders should.”

His ministry included reaching out in each temporal and spiritual realms, each internally and externally. In the identical way, Okediji said, Christians can treasure their faith in each private and public, slightly than simply worship at home and feel their religion has no place in school or work. 

Okediji — a professor of law at Harvard Law School and renowned scholar in international mental property law — spoke to BYU students and staff on Tuesday, Jan. 30. She explained how her faith in Christ has driven her mental pursuits and defined her academic profession, slightly than detracting from them.

“I’m fully an instructional and fully an individual of religion, all of sudden,” She said. “I’m never less of 1 or the opposite. Nevertheless, our current religious freedom jurisprudence suggests just the other.”

Bringing faith into the general public sphere

With great strides made in religious freedom, “the private sphere becomes a shield that permits us probably the most sacred moments of worship,” said Okediji.

“But additionally it is the instrument that endangers the rights of the fully integrated person to take part in society, because you’ll be able to’t take all of you from that non-public space into the general public sphere.”

Religious freedom, she explained, “simply means the political legal right to say immunity from exercising the facility which may prohibit, interfere with or otherwise constrain the exercise of 1’s faith.” Some may subsequently look to those that practice faith publicly as outcasts, said Okediji, slightly than as residents contributing to the well-being of society.

In reality, Christians have the responsibility of using their faith to profit the general public sphere, comparable to a piece or school environment. Okediji told her student audience, “When you bring your faith with all that you simply are into chemistry or math, you might be impacting the world. You are changing the world. You are making a difference.”

Love of God is the center of human dignity

When asked what the nice commandment within the law was, the Savior responded, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37).

“If we must love Him with every thing, then it goes without saying that we will probably be driven to lives which might be increasingly filled with God,” said Okediji. For those that love God with their whole being, “there will probably be no private sphere or public sphere that you simply are divided between. There will probably be no difference between who we’re at work and in school and what we are saying or do at home or at church.”

Okediji said Christians can see the inherent human dignity — or a universal value of every human being — of their brothers and sisters by keeping the primary great commandment.

“Just love God,” she said. “This is the center of human dignity. You are loved, I’m loved, and we’re to like others.” In fact, she continued, “human welfare demands that we love others.”

Fully integrated people carry their faith

Humans are “designed to be fully integrated people,” where the entire of who they’re might be represented in all spheres of their life, “whether we’re at work, whether we’re having fun, whether we’re in class learning, whether we’re worshiping in church.”

Studying and sharing beliefs in a public sphere is like studying the works of Shakespeare, said Okediji. “From the study of Shakespeare, we get well actors performing Shakespeare, we get performances more deeply anchored, we gain within the knowledge of Shakespeare.”

Similarly, “as we study religious truths, biblical truths, we should have a spot where we can also perform higher, where we will look more like Christ, where we will engage reason and debate. And that place is the general public sphere.”