Liberia debates amendment declaring country to be a Christian nation

Christian leaders in Liberia—including the nation’s president, who is a United Methodist—are speaking against a proposal to amend the nation’s constitution to declare Liberia a Christian state.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said the efforts would create “division among the citizens based on religious belief.” She made her comments when she submitted the report of the Constitution Review Com­mittee to the national legislature on August 18, five months after the com­mittee met in Gbarnga and approved the proposal to make Liberia a Christian country.

In an eight-page letter to the Liberian Senate, Sirleaf said the founders of the republic did not put into the Liberian Constitution a declaration of Christianity as the nation’s religion. She added that Article 14 of the constitution correctly separates religion and state and holds specifically and unequivocally that the republic shall establish no religion.