by Jorge Gomez • 4 minutes
Vice President J.D. Vance reminded Americans—and people around the world—why religious freedom is essential for a nation to flourish.
He recently spoke at the 2025 International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C., a major bipartisan, multifaith conference that brings together religious leaders, academics, nonprofit organizers and government leaders. Last year, 1,500 people joined the summit from 41 countries.
Religious freedom is “the bedrock of civil society in the United States of America and around the world,” Vance said. “In America, our Founding Fathers rightly recognized this, listing freedom of religion first among the liberties enshrined in our great Constitution.”
Vance recalled the words of our nation’s first Vice President, John Adams, who wrote “it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.”
VP Vance echoed that same sense of urgency to protect religious freedom during his speech at the Munich Security Conference. Vance recounted the story of Adam Smith-Connor, who was arrested for silently praying outside of an abortion clinic. He spoke boldly about the dangers of censorship, especially the stifling of religious voices happening in America and Western democracies.
Vance’s words are a reminder that no version of freedom—whether personal or collectively as a nation—could ever exist in absence of the free exercise of religion.
Why is religious freedom the first freedom in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? Because without religious liberty, you can’t be truly free. It is the foundation of all other freedoms—social, political and economic. If we are stripped of the liberty to live out our faith, it isn’t long before other civil liberties vanish.
Thomas Jefferson—one of America’s most influential voices and advocates of religious liberty—once asked:
“Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?”
Originally published in 1781, Jefferson’s words predate the framing and final ratification of the Constitution by almost a decade. Yet, they already showed the link between religious liberty and every other civil liberty that was later included in the Bill of Rights.
For those who may not know, Thomas Jefferson has only three accomplishments on his tombstone: the author of the Declaration of American Independence, the founder of the University of Virginia, and the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which he wrote in 1786.
Jefferson said, “by these, as testimonials that I have lived, I wish most to be remembered.” Why would someone so accomplished be so specific as to include religious freedom on his tombstone?
Because Jefferson—and virtually all of the Founders—understood that religious freedom is the most sacred and important freedom of all. That Virginia statute shaped and inspired our religious liberty protections in the U.S. Constitution.
James Madison, commonly regarded as the Father of the Constitution, was an ardent defender of religious liberty, perhaps even more so than Jefferson. Madison was the architect and mastermind of the language in the First Amendment as we know it today. He frequently made the case that the freedom of conscience—specifically belief or conviction about religious matters—was the centerpiece of all other political endeavors. He called religious belief “precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”
“By placing freedom of conscience prior to and superior to all other rights, Madison gave it the strongest political foundation possible,” explained Joseph Loconte, scholar at the Heritage Foundation.
There’s a reason why tyrants and repressive regimes throughout history have tried to destroy and undermine religious liberty first. They cannot tolerate citizens who have an allegiance to something higher than government. A free people know that their ultimate loyalty is to God, the true provider and source of all freedoms and rights. If authoritarians can succeed at repressing religious freedom and religious institutions, then they remove the most effective challenge to government power.
Recent reports show that religious liberty is under attack worldwide. Pew Research recently reported that government restrictions on religion remain at an all-time high. Reports from International Christian Concern and Open Doors reveal that more than 300 million Christians are facing increased persecution. Aid to the Church in Need noted in its most recent Religious Freedom Report that more than four billion people live in a country where they’re persecuted for their religious beliefs. That’s more than half of the world’s population.
This isn’t just something we are seeing in nations far away. We’re feeling the effects of religious oppression in America and many Western democracies.
America is built on a promise that people of all faiths can live according to their beliefs. The United States is the land of the free, and we are known around the globe as the safe haven for religious freedom. Religious freedom is in our DNA. It’s our identity as a nation. May we not take this incredible blessing for granted and instead commit ourselves every day to fight for religious freedom, the wellspring from which all other liberties flow.
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