Acton Institute Powerblog

Promoting free societies characterized by liberty & religious principles

Don’t Buy The Lie: ‘Freedom To Worship’ Not The Same As Religious Liberty

It seems such a subtle distinction: “freedom to worship” as opposed to “religious freedom.” The phrase, “freedom to worship,” started appearing in 2010, and in 2013, President Obama made the following remarks in his address for the annual Proclamation for Religious Freedom Day: Foremost among the rights Americans hold sacred is the freedom to worship as we choose.” Continue Reading...

Can We Separate Church And State? Or Church From Anything?

Thomas Jefferson believed that the practice of one’s faith should not be impinged upon by one’s government. He wrote of this in a letter or address to the Danbury Baptist Association: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions,” he wrote, “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.” Continue Reading...