10/23/2024 The West (International Christian Concern) – The idea of religious clothing is foreign to most nondenominational Western Christians. And I’m not referring to a graphic T-shirt sporting a (debatable) clever pun of a Bible verse.

Religious clothing, from a single article to an entire outfit, plays a profound and sacred role in many global religions (including in several Catholic and Orthodox denominations). Wearing these items is not merely a sign of passive affiliation but an act of faith-driven obedience.

Several Western states in Europe and France, however, have banished religious clothing in public to enforce secularism. While these laws can be applied to nearly every religion, they mostly affect Muslim women and their head and body coverings. The prominence (and on some occasions, targeting) of cases involving Islamic religious dress have earned these laws the nickname, “anti-hijab laws.” They are usually justified by the government’s interest in state security and secular government.

Why discuss these laws in a magazine from a Christian ministry dedicated to serving the persecuted church? Because anti-hijab laws most certainly affect the Western Church.

First, there are several cases of Christians who have been fired from government jobs for wearing a cross, specifically in England. Any law that can be used against one religion can be turned against another.

The Western legal tradition generally doesn’t distinguish between different faiths but lumps them all into a single broad category of “religion” or “belief.” A law that targets one religion inherently threatens all, including Christianity.

Second, these laws are migrating from Europe. The Canadian province of Quebec passed its own anti-hijab law in 2019 commonly referred to as “Bill 21.” This law banned the display of any religious affiliation by government employees. While Muslim women were most affected, the ban applies to Christian crosses, Jewish yarmulkes, and Sikh turbans, too. The law bars citizens of faith from public service if their faith is accompanied by any public display of that faith.

Finally, respecting the rights of people of different faiths is as old as the Old Testament. In Leviticus 19:33-34, God instructs the Israelites that, “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

In the same way the Israelites were told to “love” the stranger because they were once “strangers in the land of Egypt,” Christians in the West should remember our brothers and sisters overseas are often “strangers” in countries where other religions dominate. We should model and exemplify the same love and compassion we wish our brothers and sisters would receive overseas as modern strangers in the land of a global Egypt.

To read more stories like this, sign up for ICC’s free monthly magazine.