What Is Religious Freedom Good For?

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Published on: March 18, 2014

A Confucian Approach

What Is Religious Freedom Good For? Peter Berger

Saying that religious freedom is important because it leads to economic prosperity may strike some as unnecessarily amoral. But we should not be overly disturbed by narrow interests bringing about morally desirable consequences.

On March 13, 2014, Asia News, a Roman Catholic periodical, published an interview with Brian Grim, who for many years was Director of Cross-National Data for the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project and is now president of the Business and Religious Freedom Foundation. Grim is one of the most trustworthy religious demographers in the world—ask him how many Buddhists there are in Venezuela and he’ll right away give you the best available numbers. Quite apart from counting religious noses, one of Grim’s professional as well as personal major concerns has been the condition of religious freedom in...

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