I started thinking about this with a pretty firm opinion: I don’t believe Sharia law has a place governing a free society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Notice I said governing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Muslim has every right to practice his faith. The same freedom that allows me to open my Bible, pray to Jesus and call myself a Christian must protect his right to open the Quran, pray and live according to his beliefs. Otherwise, what I am defending isn’t religious freedom. It is simply freedom for my religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that left me with a question I couldn’t ignore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I don’t want another man’s religion governing me, how much power should my religion have over him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is where this became more complicated than I expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sharia isn’t one giant Islamic law book followed identically everywhere. Its interpretation and legal authority differ considerably from country to country. A Muslim personally choosing to live according to Islamic principles is one thing. A government making its interpretation of those principles compulsory law is something very different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iran shows just how different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Article 4 of Iran’s constitution requires its laws and regulations\u2014including civil, criminal, economic, administrative, military and political laws\u2014to be based on Islamic criteria. Islamic jurists within its governmental structure have authority to determine whether legislation conforms to those requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Think about what that actually means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a Christian, would I willingly live under a government where Islamic religious authorities could determine whether the laws governing my life were religiously acceptable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But fairness requires me to turn the question around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Would the Muslim living next door want Christian religious authorities deciding whether America’s laws properly followed my Bible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Probably not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I couldn’t blame him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That doesn’t mean Christianity and Sharia exercise equivalent governmental power today. They don’t. Christianity influences American politics enormously, but the Bible isn’t America’s criminal code and Christian ministers don’t possess constitutional authority to reject federal legislation because it violates Christian doctrine. America’s First Amendment protects religious exercise while restraining government from establishing religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That difference becomes much more important when we stop talking about political influence and start talking about human lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Life and death.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Look at homosexuality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am a Christian. My faith has teachings about sexual morality, and I am entitled to believe them. A Muslim is entitled to his beliefs as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But my freedom to believe something is sinful is very different from my government having the authority to punish someone because my religion says it is sinful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Saudi Arabia criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual activity under its Sharia-based criminal system, with punishments that can include the death penalty. Under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, LGBT people face severe persecution, and same-sex sexual activity can potentially be punished by death under the interpretation of Sharia applied there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether you believe homosexuality is right, wrong or somewhere in between, stop and consider what we are actually discussing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A human being can potentially lose his life because a government controlled by religious doctrine has turned a matter of faith into a matter of criminal law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That isn’t merely someone’s freedom to believe anymore. That is the power of the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christians shouldn’t get too comfortable pointing across the ocean, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act includes the death penalty for an offense classified as \u201caggravated homosexuality.\u201d Its Constitutional Court upheld most of the law in 2024, including the availability of the death penalty in certain circumstances. Religious leaders have been among those contributing to the country’s hostile political environment toward LGBT people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Uganda isn’t Iran. Christian religious authorities do not possess the sweeping constitutional authority Islamic jurists possess within Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if religious belief contributes to government having the power to imprison or execute another human being, Christians should be willing to examine our own influence just as critically as we examine Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I cannot condemn religious coercion when Muslims practice it and conveniently look away when Christians contribute to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there is Israel, which refuses to fit neatly into either box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel defines itself as the nation-state of the Jewish people while maintaining democratic institutions. Religion nevertheless possesses real governmental authority in certain areas. Its legal system includes Rabbinical, Sharia, Druze and Christian religious courts, including jurisdiction involving important personal-status matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That helped me realize that religion and government aren’t simply two switches marked ON and OFF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a line, and different governments stand at different places along it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel also forced me to examine something else I had heard: that Sharia calls for the death of Jews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I couldn’t substantiate that as a blanket description of Sharia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, Iran’s Islamic constitution expressly recognizes Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians as religious minorities, although recognized and unrecognized religious minorities can still face significant restrictions and discrimination there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that doesn’t make the darker part of this subject disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hamas’s original 1988 charter contained explicitly antisemitic religious language, including a passage about Muslims fighting and killing Jews. Its later political document changed that framing and presented its conflict as being with Zionism rather than Jews simply because they are Jewish, while Hamas continued to reject Israel’s legitimacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iran’s government has likewise maintained fierce opposition to Israel in its present form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would still be wrong, however, to turn that into \u201cMuslims want Israel destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2025 New York Declaration supports a sovereign Palestinian state living beside Israel in peace and security and says Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand its weapons to the Palestinian Authority. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation likewise reaffirmed in 2025 that a two-state solution is the only viable solution for regional peace and stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That distinction matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iran is not Islam. Hamas is not Islam. Hamas is not every Palestinian. And the actions of a Christian extremist don’t represent every Christian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The more important question is what happens when any religious movement becomes powerful enough to turn its beliefs into compulsory law for everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pakistan gives us another example. Its constitution provides for a Federal Shariat Court that can examine whether laws are incompatible with the injunctions of Islam. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws can also result in death sentences. Whether or not those sentences ultimately result in execution, the fact that a person can face death under law for a religious offense should make anyone who values freedom stop and think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where my original concern about Sharia remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a profound difference between allowing a Muslim to practice Sharia voluntarily and allowing religious authorities to make Sharia compulsory for people who do not believe in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One is religious freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other can become religious control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Christianity deserves exactly the same warning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Christians tomorrow demanded governmental authority to punish people simply for violating biblical teachings, I would have the same problem with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because if I demand freedom to follow Christ while denying another person the freedom not to, I haven’t really defended religious freedom at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have defended myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I started this article with a bias, and I might as well admit it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I believed Sharia law had no place governing a free society. I had seen what can happen when religious authority becomes government authority, and much of what I saw disturbed me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After researching it, that opinion has not changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has broadened.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I no longer believe the warning should be directed only toward Sharia. I believe no religion\u2014Islam, Christianity, Judaism or any other\u2014should control government, write its religious beliefs into criminal law, or determine punishment simply because someone has violated its teachings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That realization forced me to look at my own Christianity by the same standard I was applying to Islam. If I would reject living under another man’s religious law, I cannot honestly demand that he live under mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And perhaps the greatest danger comes when the most extreme voices gain enough power to stop persuading people and start controlling them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Extremism does not become less dangerous because I happen to recognize the holy book being carried beside it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am still a Christian. My faith still guides the way I live and the decisions I make. I want elected leaders with moral conviction, and I don’t expect them to leave their faith at the door when they enter government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there is a difference between faith guiding a leader and faith controlling the law.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The moment faith needs a prison to keep someone from leaving, an executioner to punish someone for loving differently, or a government to silence the person who questions it, something has changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is no longer simply faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is power wearing the robes of faith.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And perhaps that is the line the free world can never afford to cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We protect religious freedom by electing leaders who understand something that extremists of every faith too often forget:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Faith may guide government, but it must never control it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n by J Jones<\/p>\n\n\n\n Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran<\/strong> \u2014 Articles 4, 13 and 14, including Islamic review of legislation. Constitute Project.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Constitution of Pakistan<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 Provisions establishing the Federal Shariat Court and review of laws for conformity with the injunctions of Islam. Government of Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First Amendment Religion Clauses<\/strong> <\/a>\u2014 Constitution Annotated, U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Saudi Arabia: Criminalization of Same-Sex Activity<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 Human Dignity Trust. Current country profile covering Saudi Arabia’s Sharia-based criminal system and applicable penalties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Afghanistan: Criminalization of Same-Sex Activity<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 Human Dignity Trust. Current country profile covering Taliban rule, LGBT persecution and penalties under its interpretation of Sharia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act<\/strong> <\/a>\u2014 Human Rights Watch. Reporting on the 2023 law, its constitutional challenge and the death penalty for \u201caggravated homosexuality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel: Religious Courts and Personal-Status Law<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 Government of Israel. Official information concerning Rabbinical, Sharia, Druze and Christian religious courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hamas: 1988 Charter and Later Political Positions<\/strong> \u2014 Wilson Center.<\/a> Analysis of the organization’s original charter and later political document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and Implementation of the Two-State Solution<\/strong> \u2014 United Nations, 2025.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Istanbul Declaration<\/strong> \u2014 Organization of Islamic Cooperation, 2025. Reaffirmation of support for a two-state solution.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nReferences<\/h2>\n\n\n\n