This volume offers theoretical, historical, and legal perspectives on religious freedom, as an experience, value, and right. Drawing on examples from around the world, its essays show how the terrain of religious freedom has never been smooth and how in recent years the landscape of religious freedom has shifted.
The concept of religious freedom is the favoured modern human rights concept, with which the modern world hopes to tackle the phenomenon of religious pluralism, as our modern existence in an electronically shrinking globe comes to be increasingly characterised by this phenomenon. To begin with, the concept of religious freedom, as embodied in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, seems self-evident in nature. It is the claim of this book, however, that although emblematic on the one hand, the concept is also problematic on the other, and the implications of the concept of religious freedom are far from self-evident, despite the ready acceptance the term receives as embodying a worthwhile goal. This book therefore problematizes the concept along legal, constitutional, ethical and theological lines, and especially from the perspective of religious studies, so that religious freedom in the world could be enlarged in a way which promotes human flourishing.
The Constitution may guarantee it. But religious freedom in America is, in fact, impossible. So argues this timely and iconoclastic work by law and religion scholar Winnifred Sullivan. Sullivan uses as the backdrop for the book the trial of Warner vs. Boca Raton, a recent case concerning the laws that protect the free exercise of religion in America. The trial, for which the author served as an expert witness, concerned regulations banning certain memorials from a multiconfessional nondenominational cemetery in Boca Raton, Florida. The book portrays the unsuccessful struggle of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish families in Boca Raton to preserve the practice of placing such religious artifacts as crosses and stars of David on the graves of the city-owned burial ground. Sullivan demonstrates how, during the course of the proceeding, citizens from all walks of life and religious backgrounds were harassed to define just what their religion is. She argues that their plight points up a shocking truth: religion cannot be coherently defined for the purposes of American law, because everyone has different definitions of what religion is. Indeed, while religious freedom as a political idea was arguably once a force for tolerance, it has now become a force for intolerance, she maintains. A clear-eyed look at the laws created to protect religious freedom, this vigorously argued book offers a new take on a right deemed by many to be necessary for a free democratic society. It will have broad appeal not only for religion scholars, but also for anyone interested in law and the Constitution. Featuring a new preface by the author, The Impossibility of Religious Freedom offers a new take on a right deemed by many to be necessary for a free democratic society.
This volume presents a timely analysis of some of the current controversies relating to freedom for religion and freedom from religion that have dominated headlines worldwide. The collection trains the lens closely on select issues and contexts to provide detailed snapshots of the ways in which freedom for and from religion are conceptualized, protected, neglected, and negotiated in diverse situations and locations. A broad range of issues including migration, education, the public space, prisons and healthcare are discussed drawing examples from Europe, the US, Asia, Africa and South America. Including contributions from leading experts in the field, the book will be essential reading for researchers and policy-makers interested in Law and Religion.
This is the most thorough philosophical analysis available of the principle of religious freedom. It draws on the thought of philosophers and political theorists (Rawls, Habermas, Murray, Rorty, Greenawalt, and Mead) rather than on the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
As the world enters the 21st Century, the challenges in implementing freedom of religion or belief grow more complex and more acute. How can the internationally recognized norms regarding freedom of religion or belief be meaningful for all – women and men, majorities and minorities, established religions and new religious movements, parents and children? How can tolerance, mutual respect and understanding be globally expanded? How does freedom of religion or belief relate to other human rights? Launched by the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief, this deskbook anthology is designed as a single-volume resource for all who are concerned with facilitating improved global compliance with international standards in this vital area. The varied and diverse topics addressed by over fifty global experts in the field provide a rich weave of many threads. The book addresses historical and philosophical background on religious human rights, applicable international norms and the international procedural mechanisms for safeguarding these norms. It surveys central areas of controversy, including registration of religious and belief organizations, emerging debates on religion and gender, parental and children’s rights, new religious movements, proselytism, and conscientious objection. Other chapters describe practical approaches to promoting tolerance and understanding through education, inter-religious dialogue, joint religious efforts addressing shared social problems, and conflict resolution initiatives. The volume also provides practical information regarding networking and other background issues that can help translate understanding of the applicable norms and procedures into action. Appendices provide texts of major international instruments on freedom of religion or belief.
When it comes to questions of religion, legal scholars face a predicament. They often expect to resolve dilemmas according to general principles of equality, neutrality, or the separation of church and state. But such abstractions fail to do justice to the untidy welter of values at stake. Offering new views of how to understand and protect religious freedom in a democracy, The Tragedy of Religious Freedom challenges the idea that matters of law and religion should be referred to far-flung theories about the First Amendment. Examining a broad array of contemporary and more established Supreme Court rulings, Marc DeGirolami explains why conflicts implicating religious liberty are so emotionally fraught and deeply contested. Twenty-first-century realities of pluralism have outrun how scholars think about religious freedom, DeGirolami asserts. Scholars have not been candid enough about the tragic nature of the conflicts over religious liberty—the clash of opposing interests and aspirations they entail, and the limits of human reason to resolve intractable differences. The Tragedy of Religious Freedom seeks to turn our attention from abstracted, absolute values to concrete, historical realities. Social history, characterized by the struggles of lawyers engaged in the details of irreducible conflicts, represents the most promising avenue to negotiate legal conflicts over religion. In this volume, DeGirolami offers an approach to understanding religious liberty that is neither rigidly systematic nor ad hoc, but a middle path grounded in a pluralistic and historically informed perspective.
It is often assumed that the judiciary—especially the Supreme Court—provides the best protection of our religious freedom. Louis Fisher, however, argues that only on occasion does the Court lead the charge for minority rights. More likely it is seen pulling up the rear. By contrast, Congress frequently acts to protect religious groups by exempting them from general laws on taxation, social security, military service, labor, and countless other statutes. Indeed, legislative action on behalf of religious freedom is an American success story, but one that renowned constitutional authority Fisher argues has been poorly understood by most of us. Taking in the full span of American history, Fisher demonstrates that over the course of two centuries of American government Congress has often been in the forefront of establishing and protecting rights that have been neglected, denied, or unrecognized by the Court-and that statutory provisions far outstrip, in both number and importance, the court cases that have expanded religious rights. In this concise and insightful book, Fisher presents a series of important case studies that explain how Supreme Court rulings on religious liberty have been challenged and countermanded by public pressures, legislation, and independent state action. He tells how religious groups interested in securing the rights of conscientious objectors received satisfaction by taking their cases to Congress, not the courts; how public uproar over a 1940 Supreme Court ruling sustaining compulsory flag-salutes resulted in a court reversal; and how Congress intervened in a 1986 ruling upholding a military prohibition of skullcaps for Jews. By describing other controversies such as school prayer, Indian religious freedom, the religious use of peyote, and statutory exemptions for religious organizations, Fisher convincingly demonstrates that we must understand the political and not just the judicial context for the safeguards that protect religious minorities. As this book shows, the origin and growth of an individual's right to believe or not believe—and the securing of that right—has occurred almost entirely outside the courtroom. Religious Liberty in America persuasively challenges judicial supremacists on church-state issues and provides a highly readable introduction for all students and citizens concerned with their right to believe as they wish.
