Item Detail
-
20023
-
0
-
0
-
English
-
The Relevance of Religious Freedom
-
Clark Memorandum
-
Spring 2008
-
15-19
-
This article is adapted from a talk presented at Campus Education Week at Brigham Young University, August 21, 2007. Michael K. Young discusses his experiences working in various government agencies, and notes that in all these experiences he found religion to be an important component on a world-wide scale. He also found that religious liberties are often the first rights to be suppressed by an authoritarian government. He discusses the different political viewpoints of governments that suppress religious freedom, other governments where one religious faith is imposed on all the people, and the problems of missionary work by any religion in such a climate. He discusses how difficult it can be to get faith-based and secular human rights groups to cooperate because the viewpoints between the two groups can vary greatly. He feels that the academic world does not recognize the influence of religion on people and history as it should. He concludes with a story from the Book of Mormon which equates agency and the Spirit of God with freedom.