The Catholic Roots of Religious Freedom
Robert Louis WilkenUniversity of Virginia
Co-sponsored by the St. Thomas More Society
The roots of modern ideas of religious freedom are as much religious as they are political and philosophical. The American political leaders who first championed these ideas were well aware of the religious sources supporting their views. This lecture explores how early Christian thinkers developed a theological understanding of religious freedom.
Robert Louis Wilken is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity Emeritus at the University of Virginia. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago and has taught at Gregorian University, Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Notre Dame, and Fordham University. A scholar of early Christianity, he is the author of numerous books, including The Christians as the Romans Saw Them, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God, and most recently The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity.
