If You Take Away Religion by William Federer
On February 8, 2011, Harvard Professor Clay Christensen, the Robert & Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, observed:
“Sometime ago I had a conversation with a Marxist economist from China.
He was coming to the end of a Fulbright Fellowship here in Boston, and I asked him if he had learned anything that was surprising or unexpected.
And without any hesitation he said 'Yes, I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy ...'"
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Christensen continued:
"'The reason why democracy works,' he said, 'is not because the government was designed to oversee what everybody does.
But rather democracy works because most people, most of the time, voluntarily choose to obey the law.
And in your past, most Americans attended a church or synagogue every week. And they were taught there by people who they respected.' |
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... My friend went on to say that
'Americans followed these rules because they had come to believe that they weren't just accountable to society, they were accountable to God.'"
Professor Christensen continued:
"My Chinese friend heightened a vague but nagging concern I harbored inside that as religion loses its influence over the lives of Americans, what will happen to our democracy? |
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... Where are the institutions that are going to teach the next generation of Americans that they too need to voluntarily choose to obey the laws?
Because "If you take away religion, you cannot hire enough police.” |
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