The 'Conscience of the State': Religion's Role as an Independent Check on Governmnet

Authors

Melissa Rogers

Document Type

Lecture

Abstract

Melissa Rogers is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, and a distinguished church-state lawyer who served as a special assistant to President Obama and led the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships from 2013-2017 as well as chairing the inaugural Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. In her lecture, Rogers asserted that to serve as the conscience of the state, religion must be meaningfully independent of government and thus able to preserve autonomy and religion's ability to call the state to "the better angels of our nature."

Publication Date

2-21-2018

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