Is freedom of religion a biblical concept?

Remember He's a jealous god. Not a happy-go-lucky sort of deity.

Warning: ignorant atheistic animosity indicated. First, jealously here,"godly jealousy," (2 Corinthians 11:2) which refers to Paul guarding the subjects from being seduced away from Christ who delivered them from the devil and into a salvific elationship with God, is not that of envy. The latter is a lust for something that someone has that you have no just claim to, while jealously is that of a just claim to something that is yours by right, but which is given to a party that does not have that right.

Second, since God needs nothing, (Acts 17:25; cf. Psalms 50:9-13) and is the giver of every good thing, (James 1:17), then His jealously is not that of need or selfishness but that of a covenantal claim to fidelity from those who entered into a covenant, and betrayal is justly costly to the subject who choose false unworthy objects of faith, and detrimental to the nation as well.

Likewise, a coach can be rightly jealous over the devotion a player has to something that robs the person from the dedication his team requires to win, and which the player professed he would provide.

Repeat, God loses nothing He himself needs, and does not act out of need of ego, but is the ultimate giver, and an omnipotent omniscient self-sufficient being is alone worthy to be one's God, the ultimate object of security, allegiance, and spiritual affection.

Even if your god is something lesser.

“Religious freedom” was not part of the Old Testament system, because God ruled over Israel directly. Of course, Israel’s theocracy was not intended to be a government model for the rest of the world. Nations which have imposed a self-styled theocracy, such as medieval Spain, have produced totalitarian nightmares. The religious intolerance of the Inquisition was not a product of true theocracy; it was the result of power-hungry, sinful men.

Wait a sec. You are a Catholic, which org has stated:

Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus (of Errors): "[It is error to believe that] Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true." Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus (of Errors), Issued in 1864, Section III, Indifferentism, Latitudinarianism, #15. http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P9SYLL.HTM

Pope Pius X: That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; ... Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. — Vehementer Nos, On the French Law of Separation, Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906.

Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus (of Errors): "[It is error to believe that] The (Catholic) Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect." Section V, Errors Concerning the Church and Her Rights, #24. http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P9SYLL.HTM

The Church has the right,...to admonish or warn its members, ecclesiastical or lay, who have not conformed to its laws and also, if needful to punish them by physical means, that is, coercive jurisdiction.... with the formal recognition of the Church by the State...came an appeal from the Church to the secular arm for aid in enforcing the said penalties, which aid was always willingly granted.... — Catholic Encyclopedia Jurisdiction; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08567a.htm

• Canons of the Ecumenical Fourth Lateran Council (canon 3), 1215:

Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate [one version says expel] in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath.

But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler’s vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action.

The same law is to be observed in regard to those who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.asp) More. And More

Of-course, early Protestantism had (has overall) much to unlearn from Rome.

---- "Is freedom of religion a biblical concept?"

The website to which you linked states, in part, "We are Christian, evangelical, theologically conservative, and nondenominational." Interesting. So which on the "non-denominations" then has "dibs" on the answer to the question above? All? Ome? Which ones? Roman Catholics? Eastern orthodox? Of Protestants, which Proetstant(s)?

Which FReeper has the Internet has "dibs" on the answer to the question above? Seeing Anyone who can provide the best degree of scriptural substantiation for their answer. Note that while there are valid admin offices of both civil and religious which souls are conditionally to be subject to, yet none are infallible, regardless if they declare themselves to being conditionally so.

And the NT church began actually began in dissent from those who were the supreme judges of what was of God, who sat in the seat of Moses over Israel as the historical instruments and stewards of Scripture.

Instead the NT church followed an itinerant Preacher whom the magisterium rejected, and whom the Messiah reproved from Scripture as being supreme, (Mk. 7:2-16) and established His Truth claims upon scriptural substantiation in word and in power, which word provided the doctrinal and prophetic epistemological foundation for the NT church, for Scripture came before the church, Mt. 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Jn. 5:36,39; Acts 2:14-35; 4:33; 5:12; 15:6-21;17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23; Rm. 15:19; 2Cor. 12:12, etc.) via men who could speak and write as wholly God-inspired, unlike prelates who claim they are infallible.

To God be the glory, and of such testimony we (and I) need to show more of.

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