Wed Forum: In Defense of Religious Freedom

ABSTRACT
One of the major fears about religious freedom, especially in a country, that values harmony, such as Indonesia, is that there is a conflict between religious freedom, on one hand, and social harmony and economic prosperity, on the other. The latest scientific research offers strong reason to allay this fear: it indicates that religious freedom strengthens other human right, leads to better economic outcomes, and lowers social conflict.”

SPEAKER
Paul Marshall is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and the author and editor of more than twenty books on religion and politics, especially religious freedom. The most recent out of many books he wrote are Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (2013, with Lela Gilbert and Nina Shea), Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (2011, with Nina Shea), and Religious Freedom in the World (2007). His writings have been translated into many languages from Russian, German, to Japanese, Malay, Korean, Arabic, Farsi, and Chinese. He appears in television programs in ABC Evening News; CNN; PBS; Japanese Broadcasting Corporations; and Al Jazeera. His work has been published in the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, Washington Post, and many others. Marshall is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Religion at Baylor University; Senior Fellow at the Leimena Institute, Jakarta; and Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Syarif Hidayatullah State I​slamic University (UIN) Jakarta.