• Religious Freedom and the Habits of the Heart
  • Elder Bruce C. Hafen
  • Conference on “Magna Carta and Freedom of Religion” at Oxford University, BYU International Center for Law and Religious Studies, Sunday Evening, June 21, 2015

So here we are, having clearly established in the 800 years since Magna Carta, that civilized religion has played an indispensable role in creating and sustaining the freest democratic societies ever known. And yet democracy’s core values of civilized religion and religious freedom are now under siege—partly because of violent criminals who claim to have religious motives; partly because the wellsprings of stable social norms once transmitted naturally by religion and marriage-based family life are being polluted by complex social forces; and partly because the advocates of some causes today have marshaled enough political and financial capital to impose by intimidation, rather than by reason, their anti-religion strategy of “might makes right.”