We’ve Remembered Our First Freedom, Until Now.

Religious freedom is one of the most important freedoms that the American experiment has given the world. Sadly, many have forgotten not only the importance of our first freedom but also that its roots are founded in biblical principles that call us to champion religious freedom for all. As a result of inattention, the religious liberties we take for granted are now being challenged. Our response at this critical time in history will have a significant and lasting impact on the direction of the United States.

In Set Free, editors Art Lindsley and Anne R. Bradley explore the biblical underpinnings of religious freedom and how those biblical roots have been understood throughout history, the essential role of religious freedom in promoting human flourishing, and why this precious freedom must be restored at all costs, for people of all faiths, not just our own. With contributions from Christian theologians, historians, and public policy analysts, Set Free provides readers with a firm understanding of Christianity’s unique and essential contribution to religious freedom.

Art Lindsley is the vice president of theological initiatives at the Institute for Faith,
Work & Economics. Previously, he served as president and senior fellow at the C.S. Lewis Institute. He is also coeditor with Anne R. Bradley of For the Least of These: A Biblical Answer to Poverty and Counting the Cost: Christian Perspectives on Capitalism.

Anne R. Bradley is the vice president of economic initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics and a visiting professor at Georgetown University. She also teaches at The Institute for World Politics and George Mason University.

Dr. Anne R. Bradley is the George and Sally Mayer Fellow for Economic Education and academic director at The Fund for American Studies where she teaches economics at George Mason University. Dr. Bradley is also the vice president of Economic Initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics (IFWE). Dr. Bradley is coeditor of and contributor to IFWE’s Counting the Cost: Christian Perspectives on Capitalism and For the Least of These: A Biblical Answer to Poverty. She is a professor at the Institute for World Politics and adjunct professor at Grove City College. She is an affiliate scholar for the Acton Institute and a member of the Faculty Network at The Foundation for Economic Education. Previously, she taught at Charles University, Prague, and served as the associate director for the program in economics, politics, and the law at the James M. Buchanan Center at George Mason University. Dr. Bradley received her PhD in economics from George Mason University in 2006, during which time she was a James M. Buchanan Scholar. 

Stanley W. Carlson-Thies is founder and senior director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, a division of the Center for Public Justice, which promotes the religious freedoms that enable faith-based organizations to make their uncommon contributions to the common good. Carlson-Thies served on the initial staff of President Bush’s White House faith-based office (2001–2002) and in 2009–2010 served on the church-state taskforce of President Obama’s faithbased Advisory Council. He has advised federal departments and states on how to construct productive and respectful relationships with faith-based and secular community organizations. He is the organizer and long-time host of a monthly nonpartisan and multifaith gathering of religious freedom advocates and leaders of faith-based organizations, the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom, which monitors and educates Congress and the executive branch. 

Joseph Connors is an assistant professor of economics in the Barney Barnett School of Business and Free Enterprise at Florida Southern College where he is also a fellow of the Center for Free Enterprise. He teaches microeconomics, micro theory, and the philosophy of business. His research interests are how economic and political institutions impact the poor in the developing world and the political economy of rent-seeking. Dr. Connors is a research fellow for The Institute for Faith, Work & Economics. Before his career in economics, Dr. Connors was an electrical engineer and worked for various firms in Silicon Valley. 

Daniel L. Dreisbach is a professor of Legal Studies at American University in Washington, DC. He earned a doctor of philosophy degree from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a juris doctor degree from the University of Virginia. His research interests include constitutional law and history and the intersection of religion, politics, and law in American public life. He has authored or edited ten books, including Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation between Church and State (New York University Press, 2002) and Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is a past recipient of American University’s highest faculty award, “Scholar/Teacher of the Year.”  

Barrett Duke is the executive director and treasurer of the Montana Southern Baptist Convention. Prior to his current position, Dr. Duke was vice president for Public Policy and Research in the Washington, DC office of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Duke has worked with legislators and various government agencies on many legislative and public policy issues, including religious liberty. He speaks regularly on Christian worldview and related topics in many religious and civic settings. Duke earned his PhD in religious and theological studies from the joint PhD program of the University of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology, where he studied biblical interpretation. 

Os Guinness is an author and social critic. He is the great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer, and was born in China in World War Two where his parents were medical missionaries. A witness to the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949, he was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to Europe where he was educated in England. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford. Os has written or edited more than thirty books, including The Call, Time for Truth, Unspeakable, A Free People’s Suicide, and The Global Public Square. His latest book, Last Call for Liberty: How America’s Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat, was published in 2018. Since moving to the United States in 1984, Os has been a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies, a guest scholar and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, and senior fellow at the Trinity Forum and the EastWest Institute in New York. He was the lead drafter of the Williamsburg Charter in 1988, a celebration of the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, and later of “The Global Charter of Conscience,” which was published at the European Union Parliament in 2012. 

Mark David Hall is Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics and Faculty Fellow in the William Penn Honors Program at George Fox University. He is also associated faculty at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University and a senior fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. Hall has written, edited, or co-edited a dozen books, including Did America Have a Christian Founding?: Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth (Nelson Books, 2019); Great Christian Jurists in American History (Cambridge University Press, 2019); Faith and the Founders of the American Republic (Oxford University Press, 2014); The Forgotten Founders on Religion and Public Life (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009); and The Sacred Rights of Conscience: Selected Readings on Religious Liberty and Church-State Relations in the American Founding (Liberty Fund Press, 2009). 

Rev. Dr. Art Lindsley is the vice president of Theological Initiatives at IFWE, where he oversees the development of a theology that integrates faith, work, and economics. He joined the C.S. Lewis Institute as president in 1987 and remains a senior fellow there. Dr. Lindsley is coeditor of and contributor to IFWE’s Counting the Cost: Christian Perspectives on Capitalism and For the Least of These: A Biblical Answer to Poverty. Dr. Lindsley also authored C.S. Lewis’s Case for Christ, True Truth, Love: The Ultimate Apologetic, and IFWE booklets Free Indeed and Be Transformed (in English and Spanish). He has been a frequent guest on radio talk shows across the country, his articles have been featured in publications such as The Daily Signal and The Gospel Coalition, and his op-eds published nationwide by The Washington Times, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, and others. He is on the board of the Geneva Institute for Leadership and Public Policy and leads government outreach for Transform World 2020. Rev. Dr. Lindsley earned an MDiv from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. 

Jennifer Marshall Patterson is a senior visiting fellow for the Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation. She is also a visiting lecturer and directs the Institute of Theology and Public Life at Reformed Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. She holds a master’s degree in religion from Reformed Theological Seminary, a master’s degree in statecraft and world politics from the Washington-based Institute of World Politics, and a bachelor’s degree in French from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. She is pursuing doctoral studies in moral theology and ethics at the Catholic University of America. 

John S. Redd Jr. is the president and associate professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) in Washington, DC, as well as an ordained minister in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. He began his career in media consultation but left the business world to pursue a Master of Divinity at RTS Orlando. Dr. Redd completed his doctoral dissertation in the Department of Semitic Language and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at the Catholic University of America. Over the years, Dr. Redd has served in churches located in Washington, DC, Raleigh, NC, and Orlando, FL. He has also taught at Catholic University of America, the Augustine Theological Institute in Malta, the International Training Institute in the Mediterranean basin, and for Third Millennium Ministries. Dr. Redd has served as dean of students at RTS Orlando. His interests include literary approaches to the Bible, linguistics and biblical languages, ancient Near Eastern backgrounds to Scripture, and Old Testament theology. 

E. Gregory Wallace. As a professor of law at Campbell University School of Law, Wallace teaches constitutional law with an emphasis on religious freedom and the right to arms. He holds LLM and SJD degrees from the University of Virginia School of Law, a JD degree from the University of Arkansas (Little Rock) School of Law, and an MA degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. Professor Wallace’s doctoral dissertation is entitled “Higher Call: Foundations of Religious Freedom in American Constitutionalism.” He has taught on religious freedom at law schools in China and South Korea and was a discussant at the Federalist Society/Templeton Foundation 2016 colloquium on The Past and Future of Free Exercise. Wallace has published several academic articles on religious freedom, the right to arms, and cultural issues involving law and religion. 

Hugh C. Whelchel is the executive director of the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics (IFWE), a Christian research organization advancing a free and flourishing society by revolutionizing the way people view their work. Previously, Hugh served as director of Reformed Theological Seminary’s (RTS) Washington, DC, campus. Whelchel has been published by a variety of media outlets from The Washington Post to Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, and ByFaith magazine. He has also been a guest on Moody Radio Network’s “In the Market with Janet Parshall,” Salem Radio Network, IRN/USA Radio Network, and Truth in Action Ministries’ “Truth That Transforms,” and the “Jack Riccardi Show,” among other shows. Additionally, Hugh has over thirty years of experience in the business world. He graduated from the University of Florida, earned a master’s in theology from RTS, and is completing his Doctor of Ministry at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. Hugh authored How Then Should We Work? Rediscovering the Biblical Doctrine of Work. He sits on several nonprofit boards, including The Fellows Initiative, an umbrella organization supporting and establishing church-based fellows programs designed to help young adults understand God’s vocational calling on their lives as they enter their careers. He also serves as an elder at McLean Presbyterian Church (PCA). 

Acknowledgments 

Introduction | Art Lindsley 

Religious Freedom Overview 

Chapter 1 | First Freedom First: Christin Advocacy for Freedom of Religion and Conscience | Os Guinness 

Chapter 2 | The Earth Is the Lord's: A Biblical Theology of Religious Liberty | John S. Redd Jr. 

Chapter 3 | The Bible and the Three Spheres of Religious Freedom | Barrett Duke 

Chapter 4 | Freedom to Flourish: The New Testament, Conscience, and Religious Freedom | Hugh C. Whelchel 

The History of Religious Freedom 

Chapter 5 | The Religious Origins of Religious Freedom in Western Thought | E. Gregory Wallace 

Chapter 6 | The Pursuit of Religious Liberty in the Amerian Constitutional Tradition | Daniel L. Dreisbach 

The Relationship between Religious, Economic, and Political Freedom

Chapter 7 | Foundations of Freedom | Art Lindsley 

Chapter 8 | The Bricks and Mortar of Civil Society: An Empirical Analysis of Economic and Religious Freedoms | Joseph Connors and Anne R. Bradley 

Why Is Religious Freedom at Risk in Today's Culture and What Can Be Done about It? 

Chapter 9 | Preserving Religious Freedom, Pursuing the Common Good | Jennifer Marshall Patterson 

Chapter 10 | Religious Accommodations and the Common Good | Mark David Hall 

Chapter 11 | Free to Serve: Safeguarding Churches and Ministries as They Contribute to Justice and the Common Good | Stanley W. Carlson-Thies 

Conclusion | Anne R. Bradley 

Contributors

Index 

"Here is a collection of superb essays speaking to one of the most pressing moral and civil issues of our time. Religious freedom, once taken for granted in our culture, is increasingly under threat today, at home as well as abroad. Set Free is a welcomed resource in a struggle all persons of conscience must embrace— for eternal vigilance is still the price for religious liberty."
—Timothy George, Beeson Divinity School of Samford University, General editor of the Reformation Commentary on Scripture

"Religious liberty is the root of every other human right and duty. Without soul freedom, there can be no freedom at all worthy of the name. This First Freedom is grounded in the ​i​​​mago Dei​​ reflected in every human being and in the gospel of Jesus Christ itself. Set Free guides the reader through the importance of religious liberty with an eye to developments in the culture around us. This  book is worthy of deep reflection and conscientious consideration." 
—Russell Moore, President, The Ethics & Religious Liberty of the Southern Baptist Convention

"Religious freedom is under assault to various degrees throughout the world and this timely book, with contributions by leading experts, explains the principles, reasoning, and laws that underpin America's unique understanding of religious freedom. It explains why religious freedom is the foundation of our free society; how it is not limited to the confines of one's home or the four walls of a building; and the significance of "reasonable accommodation" for religious practice in a religiously pluralistic society like our own. Set Free offers an important primer for defending the precious right of religious freedom for all Americans."
—Nina Shea, Director, Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom, Former Commissioner, US Commission on International Religious Freedom

"Many Americans treat political, economic, and religious freedom separate, and separable, things. Some defend political and economic freedom while ignoring religious freedom. Some ardent religious believers are dismissive of economic freedom. And even some Christians believe the idea of religious freedom is the product of the secular enlightenment. This important book shows why these ways of thinking are deeply mistaken and ultimately self-destructive. Religious freedom is our first freedom, and it is deeply rooted in Scripture and Christian history. No society that ignores it can long enjoy freedom in the political and economic spheres."
—Jay Richards, Research Assistant, Professor in the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute

"Religious freedom is more than America's first freedom, it is God's gift to humanity, a beacon of hope, and a blessing for all faiths in every corner of the world. People that care about preserving and protecting religious freedom domestically and abroad should read this book and become more than articulate about its history, its Biblical foundations, its importance to all other freedoms, and the looming dangers of losing it."
—David Nammo, Executive Director and CEO, Christian Legal Society

"In a world of increasing incivility in the public square, it is essential that people of goodwill embrace religious liberty. After all, no one has the ability to force another human being to believe anything that he or she does not believe. The liberty of conscience is in desperate need of affirmation in our day. Toward this end, Set Free is an important read. The book grapples with the relevant issues and should help the reader engage others in a thoughtful and civil manner."
—Paul A. Cleveland, Ph.D. Professor of Economics and Finance, Department of Business, Birmingham-Southern College

"Set Free is a must-read for those who care about the linkage between religious freedom and human flourishing. It is refreshing to see an outstanding group of scholars use Biblical principles, history, ethics, and empirical analysis to examine the role of religious freedom and its importance as a source of personal liberty, sound institutions, and human progress."
—James Gwartney, Professor of Economics, Florida State University

"With a diverse cast of powerhouse contributors, Set Free makes a stirring biblical, historical, and practical case for defending religious freedom for all. Every Christian who cares about religious freedom will learn from this valuable book."
—Luke Goodrich, Vice President and Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and author of Free to Believe: The Battle Over Religious Liberty in America

"Thomas Jefferson admonished us that our liberties are a gift from God. One of those liberties—religious freedom—enables us to worship God, or not, as we see fit. With this important freedom under sustained threat today, Set Free could not be timelier. The chapters will provoke discussions that we as a nation must undertake in our churches, our schools, and in the public square if we hope to preserve liberty for our posterity."
—Roger Ream, President, Fund for American Studies

"Set Free charts its course from a first principle that far too many Western economists and political theorists have forgotten: that a Setter for our political-religious-economic conundrum actually exists. This book skillfully advances through a dozen scholarly arguments the conviction that religious freedom is essential for true political and economic liberty—and why, if we want the latter, we should recommit to the former."
—Josh Good, Director, Faith Angle Forum

"What is freedom? What does it take to be free? Heavily grounded in materialism that downplays or denies free, rational action and ultimate truths, many modern views focus simply on freedom from external constraints to largely do as one wants. In contrast, real freedom requires free will and reason internally, and, externally, a setting for personal development to learn virtues and the truths on which to act. This synthesis of free will, civil society, and the implications for freedom is the sophisticated account of human freedom needed today. Set Free provides a fantastic overview of that inspirational vision."
—John Larrivee, Associate Professor of Economics, Director, BB&T Center for the Study of the Moral Foundations of Capitalism ​

The Stream

"So in all, the book explains where religious freedom came from, why it matters, and how you can explain it using both biblical and secular reasoning.

I needed this book. I needed it as part of my preparation for what we’re facing. But do not think I needed it just because I write columns at The Stream. I needed it because friends in our church small group have had questions. I run into questions and debates on Facebook and other social media. And these questions will only grow louder and more insistent over time.

I needed it, and I’m quite sure you need it, too. I’m very serious — in fact, our circumstances are very serious. You and I both need to get equipped for this battle. Set Free is a start — a very good one."

ISBN 9781684264209
Pages 272
Dimensions (inches) 6 X 9