Why Religious Coercion Matters
For centuries, even millennia, great thinkers have made assertions about the dangers of coercion in matters of religion, along with claims about why people should enjoy the right to peacefully exercise transcendent duties. We now have global data and empirical means to test these conjectures. Mounting research demonstrates that religious coercion undermines democracy, human rights, interreligious amity, women's empowerment, economic growth, and peace. Related research shows that religious freedom is deeply woven into, and depends upon, the fate of Christianity. By documenting how pivotal religious freedom is for human flourishing, especially in the 21st century, this scholarly enterprise represents a liminal moment in human history.
Allen Hertzke
Allen Hertzke is David Ross Boyd Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma, where he is also Faculty Fellow in Religious Freedom at the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage...
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