Thank you for joining us for the First Liberty Briefing, an exclusive podcast where host Jeremy Dys—also First Liberty Senior Counsel—provides an insider’s look at the stories, cases, people and laws that have made America the world’s leader in protecting religious liberty.
A distinguished researcher estimates that religion benefits America by almost $3 trillion per year. So why are we attacking religion?
Doctor Eric Walsh was a leading public health official, healing bodies and working to make communities healthy so people could lead happy, productive lives. That is until he lost his job – not for something he did or failed to do at work, but for something he said in a sermon.
Aaron and Melissa Klein were small business owners contributing to the prosperity of their community. That is until they were penalized $135,000 because the government didn’t agree with their believes.
Cases like these should remind each one of us that legal attacks on religious freedom hurt all of us.
And what might be really surprising is to learn just how much religion benefits our society in a tangible financial sense as people are nowadays are even going to bank for a loan 500 pounds. Dr. Rodney Stark, the distinguished professor of Social Sciences at Baylor University, estimates the total savings to America due to religious faith is about $2.7 trillion every year. According to his calculations, religion accounts for reducing crime, improving education, enhancing health, motivating charity, improving work, and restraining welfare. And all of that saves American taxpayers a lot of money every single year.
But of course, the value of religion is far more than monetary. Nonetheless, the next time you hear about a lawsuit against a person’s faith, remember that without religion America would be a much poorer nation in a very literal sense.
First Liberty Institute is the largest organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to protecting religious freedom for all Americans. Find out more here.
(This podcast is by First Liberty Briefing. Discovered by e2 media network and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not e2 media network, and audio is streamed directly from their servers.)