January 16

Guru Har Rai, Sheema Kermani and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

Author

David Barnhart
January 16, 2026

Lizard at Caesarea Maritima, 2019. Own photo.

Today is the birthday, in 1670, of Guru Har Rai, seventh guru in the Sikh tradition, who instituted the tradition of langar (a free meal given to the community, regardless of religious affiliation, after the worship service). He is also known as “The Green Guru” because of his reverence for nature. 

Today is also the birthday, in 1951, of Sheema Kermani, Pakistani dancer, actress, and women’s rights advocate. She received death threats from fundamentalist Muslims for her continued performance of classical dance in Pakistan and for her activism. 

Today also marks the passage, in 1786, of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which was written by Thomas Jefferson. It has been marked as National Religious Freedom Day since 1993. 

Reflection: 

Sheema Kermani said: 

“…for me dance is a means of communication and a political act. It is a statement that I make: I am free, independent and proud of my body and my being!”

Some key sections of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which are particularly relevant today because of the rise of Christo-Fascism in our country: 

[Whereas] …That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;

…That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,

…That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it;

…And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them…

White Christian Nationalists often use the phrase “religious freedom,” but use it to mean “freedom for us, and marginalization for everyone else.” For them, religious “freedom” means imposing Christian prayer in schools, posting the Ten Commandments in courthouses, and ginning up outrage when people say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” The text and meaning of this document, though, makes it clear that religious freedom is not only an issue of human and civil rights, but one of theological integrity. Any religious system which cannot tolerate dissent or freedom of conscience for other religions has a thin and puny god.

Prayer: God of Truth, neither you nor your people have anything to fear from truth. Let all religion be exposed to sunlight, the best disinfectant. Amen.