Christians often need economists to remind them that work, profit, and property are part of God’s created order to bring flourishing and direction to people. But sometimes economists need Christians to remind them that economic freedom, though often undervalued, does not cover the whole scope of human activity. The Religious Liberty in the States (RLS) project brings an important dimension to the broader conversation about good public policy.

The Increasing Need to Protect Religions Liberty

Religious liberty has long been the guiding star for our constitutional order. Early European immigration to America was driven by religious persecution. Catholics, Quakers, and Puritans all founded new colonies where they could freely exercise their religious beliefs and convictions. The First Amendment to the Bill of Rights expressly protects the free exercise of religion.

But while religious liberty has a long heritage in the United States, and many federal protections, new encroachments and threats continue to arise. Thirty years ago, medical professionals didn’t have to worry about being asked to engage in sterilization activities. Now they do. Twenty years ago, counseling providers did not need to worry about having to provide counseling against their religious convictions. Today they do. And ten years ago, organizations did not need to worry about their bank denying them service based upon their religious activities. Today, that’s an issue.

State statutes serve as an additional bulwark for people to live freely according to their religious convictions. Most of these protections shield people of faith from government requirements and consequences, but a few protect people from concentrated economic power (often enabled by heavy government regulation and subsidies) such as being debanked.

Tracking the Growth of Religious Liberty Protections

The RLS project, which I serve as associate director for, continues to expand each year as we find new religious liberty protections being added by state legislators. The project began with twenty protections grouped onto fourteen safeguards. Now the project has forty-seven protections grouped into twenty safeguards.

In RLS 2025, we found several things. First, there is a lot of room for improvement. The highest scoring state, Florida, only had 75% of our religious liberty safeguards, while across the states the average score was 42%. And a wide disparity exists (over 50%) between the top and the bottom states.

Second, religious liberty is not a matter of “red” versus “blue” states. Some blue states score highly, such as Illinois and Washington. They do so because they were more conservative in the past and because Democrats used to be much less hostile to religious liberty. On the other hand, many Republican states have done relatively little to protect people of faith in their states. West Virginia, Wyoming, and Nebraska all score in the bottom five on our index.

Why This Matters Today

There can be no clear bright line between faith and economic activity. How we worship should not be divorced from how we work. Yet people of faith face growing hostility and marginalization in the broader American culture. The current president’s administration may offer a welcome respite, but nothing in politics lasts forever. Those who want to make more lasting change should look to their state legislatures to implement religious liberty protections. 

Colorado and Illinois are instructive here. Illinois passed fairly extensive religious liberty protections (especially for medical practitioners) in the 1980s and 1990s when the state had greater political balance and a sizable group of Catholic Democrats cared about protecting religious practice. Even though the Illinois state government and legislature have become quite hostile to religious liberty, these protections remain on the books and so Illinois has always scored well on our index.

Colorado, by contrast, serves as a cautionary tale for red states. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Republicans often controlled all three branches of state government. Yet they passed very little legislation protecting religious liberty. Now that Colorado has become a blue state, people of faith feel the absence of broad religious liberty protections acutely, such as the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop who was dragged to court over not wanting to create a custom cake for a same-sex wedding.

The lesson here is that Christians should take legal protections seriously and not assume that a friendly local or state culture will protect religious liberty. Those in red states, especially, have a golden opportunity to make hay while the sun is shining.