by Daniel Philpott
Notre Dame University | Center for Civil & Human Rights
Some of the most important arguments for religious freedom come from the work of scholar Brian Grim and his collaborators. Grim teamed up with sociologist Roger Finke to write The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century. One of the most interesting arguments there is that religious freedom is correlated with a whole range of other good things. They make a strong argument, for instance, that the restriction of religious freedom is correlated with violence.
Now, Grim is making the case that religious freedom is good for business — and hence for economic growth, which in turns encourages stability and peace in a virtuous cycle. He has founded the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation to promote the idea. Explore the links here to see what he is up to.
by Dylan Pahman
In a recent article in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, Brian Grim, Greg Clark, and Robert Edward Snyder published their findings that “religious freedom contributes to better economic and business outcomes and that advances in religious freedom are in the self-interest of businesses, government, and societies by contributing to successful and sustainable enterprises that benefit societies and individuals.” Grim et al. demonstrate a strong connection between religious freedom and economic growth. This raises another question: does religious freedom also correlate with economic liberty?
In this essay, I compare data from the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal’s 2014 Index of Economic Freedom with the Pew 2012 Government Restrictions on Religion Index and the 2012 Social Hostilities Toward Religion Index … read the entire article.