Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium
Europe and America define religious liberty through very
different approaches. The European atheist, harking back to
the French Revolution, seeks to dispel religion from all aspects of
the greater public society, while the American Revolution strove to
protect the liberty of conscience and to uphold the right to decide
for oneself how to practice one's faith. Freedom of religion
- America's "first freedom" - is enshrined in the First Amendment
of our Bill of Rights and has been one of our foremost liberties
from the birth of our nation to the present day. The spirit
of religious liberty works in American public life, less in the way
of a stark "separation" of church and state, but much more as an
accommodation between the two.
Join us as theologian and author Michael Novak - a leading
advocate of democracy and human rights, and former U.S. Ambassador
to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights - discusses the importance
of religious liberty and freedom of conscience as crucial
components of a free and democratic society. Mr. Novak has
written 26 influential books on the philosophy and theology of
culture, especially the essential elements of a free society, and
is the 1994 recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in
Religion. His masterpiece, The Spirit of Democratic
Capitalism, was published underground in Poland in 1984, and
after 1989 in Czechoslovakia, Germany, China, Hungary, and
Bangladesh. His latest book is Washington's God:
Religion, Liberty, and the Father of our Country.
More About the Speakers
Michael Novak
George Frederick Jewett
Chair in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy,
American Enterprise Institute