Throughout Western developed nations, there is dawning recognition that robust protections for religious liberty can no longer be taken for granted. Less understood are the ways in which infringements of other political, civil and commercial forms of freedom can subtly undermine religious liberty: but also vice-versa. Businesses and other institutions of civil society now need to consider how the restrictions of religious freedom by governments throughout the Western world is likely to affect them. What then is the relationship of religious liberty to other expressions of freedom?
Saving the First Freedom: Religious Liberty in the Age of Big Government brings together leading clergy and scholars—theologians, philosophers, economists—to discuss this increasingly important issue, and the manner in which is affecting institutions ranging from business to church organizations.
Grand Rapids audience members will be able to participate in the event and ask questions during alloted Q&A time.
This conference is the second in the five-part series One and Indivisible? The Relationship Between Religious and Economic Freedom.
Robert Sarah was born in Ourous in the archdiocese of Conakry in Guinea, on June 15, 1945. He was ordained priest on July 20, 1969 and was then sent to Rome, where he obtained a licentiate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He also studied at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and obtained a licentiate in Sacred Scriptures from the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem. He returned to Guinea where he served as a parish priest and then rector of the junior seminary of Kindia. He was appointed archbishop of Conakry on August 13, 1979, where he served until October 2001 when he was appointed secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. On October 7, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him president of the ‘Cor Unum’ Pontifical Council and was created cardinal in the consistory of November 20, 2010. ‘Cor Unum’ is the agency of the Holy See responsible for coordinating the organizations and charitable activities promoted by the Catholic Church. On December 29, 2010, Cardinal Sarah was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Pontifical Council for the Laity, and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., is Assistant Research Professor in the School of Business and Economics at The Catholic University of America, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, and Executive Editor of The Stream. He has authored and co-authored many books, including the New York Times bestsellers Infiltrated and Indivisible, as well as Money, Greed, and God, The Privileged Planet and The Untamed God.
