Press Release
God, Abortion & Religious Freedom:
Top Attorney Answers Hot-Button Religious Liberty Questions in New Book
Free to Believe: The Battle Over Religious Liberty in America by Luke Goodrich
+ Winner of the 2020 ECPA Book Award (Faith & Culture)
+ Named 2019 Best Book of the Year (Understanding America category) by WORLD Magazine
+ Selected as 2019 Book of the Year (Public Theology & Current Events) by The Gospel Coalition
Leading lawyer Luke Goodrich has spent over a decade winning religious freedom cases in courts across the country, including Supreme Court victories for the Little Sisters of the Poor and Hobby Lobby.
Now, in his debut book
Free to Believe: The Battle Over Religious Liberty in America, (available October 22, 2019; Multnomah/Penguin Random House)
Goodrich reveals how churches, schools, ministry leaders, business owners and everyday individuals can protect their religious freedom in a spirit of hope rather than fear. The result is a groundbreaking tool that shows all Americans:
-why religious freedom matters,
-how it is threatened and
-how they can protect it.
“Most Christians are very poorly informed about religious freedom,” writes Goodrich. “We have a vague sense that religious freedom conflicts are increasingly common and that maybe we should start paying more attention, but we don’t know where to start.”
Goodrich starts with “a theological understanding of religious freedom” based on Scripture. He argues that religious freedom “isn’t about maintaining Christian cultural dominance,” and it “isn’t just a culture-war issue.” Rather, it is “a basic issue of biblical justice, rooted in the nature of God and the nature of man.”
Next, Goodrich applies this view of religious freedom to “the five most pressing religious freedom challenges in modern culture: religious discrimination, abortion rights, gay rights, Islam and the public square.” Based on extensive experience handling cases in all five areas, and on behalf of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans and individuals of other faiths, Goodrich shows that “America is not about to become Communist China. But real and significant threats do exist—and they might not be quite what you think.”
Lastly, he draws from extensive courtroom experience and a deep personal faith to challenge the conventional wisdom on religious freedom, offering practical steps for Christians in living out their faith when religious liberty is under threat, while charging them to, “radically reorient our thinking about suffering and persecution.”
“Our ultimate hope is not in passing the right laws or winning in the Supreme Court,” writes Goodrich. “Our hope is in God. We participate in the political process not to win a culture war or to protect our rights but to seek justice and glorify God.”
To learn more about the book, visit https://www.lukegoodrich.com/free-to-believe.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:LUKE GOODRICH is vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty where he has won numerous precedent-setting cases in courts across the country, including multiple Supreme Court victories for clients like the Little Sisters of the Poor and Hobby Lobby. Goodrich appears frequently in the media to discuss religious freedom, including on
Fox News, CNN, PBS, NPR and in the
New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times,
Wall Street Journal,
Washington Post and
Time magazine. He also teaches an advanced course in constitutional law at the University of Utah law school. He lives in Utah, where he enjoys exploring canyon country with his wife and seven children and serving in their local church. For more information, visit lukegoodrich.com.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lukewgoodrich
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lukewgoodrich
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Praise for Free to Believe: “Religious liberty is too important to be just another culture war skirmish. If the soul is not free, every other freedom is in jeopardy. We live in a time when religious freedom is rarely discussed without either alarmism or dismissal. Luke Goodrich is one of the nation’s most respected thought leaders in the arena of liberty of conscience. In this book, he reframes our context, connecting us with generations past and prognosticating on the challenges of the future. I hope many people, both religious and secular, will read this volume and recommit to a society where all consciences are free to believe, to worship, to serve, and to live.”
—
Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention
“Religious freedom is one of the most important civil rights issues of our time, and Luke Goodrich is at the forefront of the battle. If you want to understand religious freedom and how to protect it, you need this book.”
—
Eric Metaxas, New York Times number one best-selling author of Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther, and If You Can Keep It
“As a top attorney with Becket, our nation’s premier religious liberty appellate advocacy law firm, Luke Goodrich has been on the front lines in the battle to protect the rights of people of every faith and shade of belief. With the basic human—and constitutional—right to religious freedom under assault from many different quarters, it is a difficult and ongoing struggle. As Goodrich recounts in his marvelous new book, there have of late been some important and exciting victories in the Supreme Court and other federal and state tribunals. But enormous challenges lie ahead. In meeting these challenges, having an informed and engaged citizenry is critical. That’s why Free to Believe is such a blessing.”
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Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University
“As a journalist who writes about religious liberty issues, I often despair over how little Christians know about dire looming threats to our most fundamental freedom. Luke Goodrich’s book is the smart, plainspoken, biblically literate, and legally sound guide that churches, Christian schools, and business-owning believers desperately need to read as the conflicts between the faith and its enemies intensify. Buy this book and read it closely: the institution you save may be your own.”
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Rod Dreher, author of The Benedict Option
“The first time I heard Luke Goodrich speak about religious freedom, I realized he was inviting me into a conversation I had never had before. Luke’s teachings on religious freedom are based not on fear, tradition, or partisanship but on Jesus. He has opened my eyes, as a pastor, to the reality that religious liberty is not something invented by our US Constitution but is deeply embedded in the Bible, the gospel of Jesus, and the heart of God. Pastors, this book is a gift to us! It’s a remarkable tool that helps us reimagine for ourselves and our congregations what it means to respond to the religious liberty conversation through the lens of the gospel.”
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Kyle Costello, lead pastor of Mariners Church Huntington Beach
“Today religious liberty is more likely to be carelessly disregarded as a special interest than faithfully upheld as a fundamental human right. People who love freedom need compelling arguments to offer in response—the kind of arguments that Luke Goodrich makes in Free to Believe. In addition to offering biblical and theological reasons that all people (not just Christians) should have freedom of religious conscience, Goodrich uses his experience as a lawyer with a winning record before the Supreme Court to address the most challenging religious liberty issues that our culture faces today.”
—
Philip Ryken, president of Wheaton College
Contact Publicist
Brett Benson