Religious Liberty Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This article seeks to demonstrate both the importance of expertise and scholarship in framing a religion’s claim of legitimacy in law, and how expertise can be harnessed by a religious group to gain this legitimacy. From a broad overview of the consequences of religious status in law, the article analyses the tests used to attribute the status, to show the crucial role that their application affords to experts and scholarship. It then argues that new religious movements, and Scientology, are ideal case studies to illustrate the importance of scholars and scholarship. Scientology is indeed the only major religion to have emerged in the twentieth century and is unique in that it has, over this period, gained, lost, re-gained, and grappled with ongoing challenges to its status in law. The article then illustrates these issues with an analysis of two key periods from Scientology’s history: its ultimately successful fight to gain tax-exempt status in the United States in the 1980s, and its response to modern-day challenges to this status. Both periods illustrate, in different ways, how Scientology has recognised the power of expertise and scholarship, and sought to harness it to frame its claim of legitimacy in law.

- by Phil Lord
- •
- Religion, New Religious Movements, Comparative Religion, Sociology of Religion

The case of Lautsi v. Italy, better known as the “Crucifix Case,” is a particularly significant case. Its significance is not only political and legal, but also religious. Never before in the history of the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe has a case raised so much public attention and debate. The debate regarding the legitimacy of the symbol of Christ’s presence in Italian schools is emblematic of the cultural crisis in Western Europe regarding religion. Twenty-one State parties to the European Convention on Human Rights, in an unprecedented move, joined Italy to reassert the legitimacy of the public display of Christian symbols in European society. The Court finally recognized, in substance, that in countries of Christian tradition, Christianity enjoys a special social legitimacy that distinguishes it from other philosophical and religious belief systems. In other words, because Italy is a country of Christian tradition, Christian symbols may legitimately enjoy greater visibility in Italian society than other religious or ideological symbols.

- by PUPPINCK Gregor
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- Human Rights Law, Human Rights, Law and Religion, International Human Rights Law

In this essay I argue that religion, understood as harmony with the transcendent source of existence and meaning, is a good that practical reason grasps as an objective, distinct and important aspect of human well-being, one which reasonably takes pride of place among the various aspects of a good human life due to its architectonic role in structuring and adding a transcendent meaning to all of the other goods that we pursue. On the basis of this view of religion, I go on to suggest that religious belief and practice deserve special protection in law, above and beyond mere preferences and even other conscientious commitments. I develop this view through a dialectical engagement with Dworkin, Barry, Eisgruber and Sager.

- by Melissa Moschella
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- Religion, Constitutional Law, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion and Politics

Conventional understandings of Catholicism, especially the claim that the pope held temporal power over all civil rulers, presented a signal challenge to early American Catholics’ civil and religious liberty. Yet reform-minded Catholics in the North Atlantic world asserted their independence from the temporal powers of external authorities, including the pope. Catholics who participated in the American founding, such as Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John Carroll, drew from an intellectual tradition of conciliarism that was rooted in Catholic thought yet compatible with republicanism. The Carrolls’ public support of the nation’s foundational documents and their development of the American Catholic Church presented to the broader political and religious public a Catholic tradition that advocated not only a republican view of temporal independence but also a juridical, nonhierarchical understanding of church and state. Catholics of this sort were not a foil to American religious and political arrangements; instead, they fit their beliefs within the ideologies of the American founding and thereby answered Protestant charges that Catholics should be legally penalized. These conclusions offer compelling reasons to include the conciliarist tradition within the “multiple traditions approach” of American founding historiography.

- by Gianmaria Zamagni
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- Canon Law, Natural Law, Philosophy Of Law, Freedom of Religion

Reviews "Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms: Images that inspire a nation" by Stuart Murray and James McCabe (Berkshire House, 1993; Grammercy, 1998). Nearly every Norman Rockwell coffee table book includes his famous "Four Freedoms" paintings. Most tell the basic story behind the works-how the artist was inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt's State of the Union speech of 1941, how he sought without success to find sponsorship by a government agency, and how the paintings were originally published in four issues of Saturday Evening Post magazine in 1943. This generously illustrated volume by Stuart Murray and James McCabe tells a much more complete-and much more fascinating-story. The book also includes the four essays published with the four paintings when they appeared in the Saturday Evening Post magazine in 1943 -- by Booth Tarkington, Carlos Bulosan, Stephen Vincent Benet, and Will Durant -- and five more essays by John Frohnmayer, Theodore H. Evans, James MacGregor Burns, Brian Urquhart, and William J. vanden Heuvel.

- by Donald M Bishop
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- Human Rights, Fascism, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech
- by Garrett W Potts
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- Religious Liberty, Religion and Work

Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Middle Ages were divided in many ways. But one thing they shared in common was the fear that God was offended by wrong belief. Medieval Heresies: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam is the first comparative survey of heresy and its response throughout the medieval world. Spanning England to Persia, it examines heresy, error, and religious dissent - and efforts to end them through correction, persuasion, or punishment - among Latin Christians, Greek Christians, Jews, and Muslims. With a lively narrative that begins in the late fourth century and ends in the early sixteenth century, Medieval Heresies is an unprecedented history of how the three great monotheistic religions of the Middle Ages resembled, differed from, and even interrelated with each other in defining heresy and orthodoxy.

- by Christine Caldwell Ames
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- Christianity, High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, Medieval History

Background: This paper provides a summary and analysis of the regulation of ayahuasca in Brazil, from its prohibition in the mid-eighties to the recent adoption of CONAD's (Conselho Nacional de Políticas sobre Drogas) 2010 Resolution, which established a set of rules, norms and ethical principles to be applied to religious and ritual uses of ayahuasca. Brazil's regulatory process is used as a starting point to explore emerging international regulatory themes as various nations respond to the global expansion of the Santo Daime and UDV (União do Vegetal) ayahuasca religions. Methods: The text reviews the primary legislative and court documents, academic literature, as well as solicited expert opinions. Results: Three prominent themes have emerged internationally. The first concerns the scope of international treaties regarding plant-based psychoactive substances, as well as the responsibilities of individual nations to adhere to said treaties. The second concerns the scope of religious liberty and how to determine religious legitimacy. The final theme addresses the potential dangers of ayahuasca to health and public safety. Conclusion: Over the past 20 years the Brazilian ayahuasca religions have established a global presence, with congregations in the USA, Canada, Japan, South Africa, Australia, and throughout Europe and Latin America. As a result, many nations are faced with the predicament of balancing the interests of these religious minorities with the international "war on drugs." The regulatory process applied in Brazil exemplifies a progressive approach, one which considered issues of anthropology and involved representatives of ayahuasca religions, and which provided a degree of deference to the principle of religious liberty. The Brazilian process has influenced judicial and administrative decisions internationally, and stands as a model worthy of further consideration.

- by Beatriz Caiuby Labate
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- Religion, Brazil, International Cooperation, Santo Daime
- by Dimitris Goulas
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- Labour Law, Antidiscrimination Law, European Labour Law, Religious Symbols

El presente libro supone la primera colaboración entre académicos brasileños y españoles en el ámbito de las Ciencias de las Religiones. En los últimos años estos estudios están viviendo un boom en España. Prueba de ello es la existencia de varios estudios de postgrado en Ciencias de las Religiones. Además, a partir del curso 2021-2022 se ha comenzado a impartir también en la UCM un Grado en Ciencias de las Religiones, el primero de esta temática en español. Tiempo atrás, Brasil fue pionero en la implantación de estudios superiores en Ciencias de las Religiones desde una perspectiva científica, aconfesional y multidisciplinar. Esta monografía celebra la implantación del primer Grado en Ciencias de las Religiones en España, cubriendo una carencia en los países de habla hispana. La obra permite, por una parte, repasar la historia de estos estudios en España y, por otra, mostrar el trabajo que realizan tanto en Brasil como en España destacados especialistas en el ámbito de las Ciencias de las Religiones.

- by Enrique Santos Marinas and +2
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- Religion, Sociology of Religion, History of Religion, Theory of Religion

After more than ten years of continued restrictions on religious freedom, in 1926 the Mexican bishops declared that since there were no minimum conditions for the priests to continue ministering. In this moment, many Mexican Catholics, because they had no choice to defend their religious freedom, they chose the path of arms: this is what is known as “Cristero War”. This brief paper provides the most important features to examine this stage in the history of Mexico.

- by Juan Gonzalez Morfin
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- History, Liberty, History of Mexico, Religious Liberty
- by Liviu Bordas
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- Religion, Hinduism, New Religious Movements, Comparative Religion

בשני המאמרים "פעולות כפייתיות וטקסים דתיים" ו"אבל ומלנכוליה" באה לידי ביטוי המגמה שהלכה והתגברה בעבודתו התיאורטית של פרויד במרוצת השנים בניתוח פסיכולוגי-חברתי של מערכות תרבותיות, כגון דת וריטואל. הצמדתם של שני הטקסטים בכרך שלפנינו נועדה להציג את הקשר בין סוג כזה של ניתוח לבין האנליזה של האני ואת ההשפעה הדו-כיוונית שלהם, וכן להפגיש את הקורא עם מקורותיו התרבותיים והתיאורטיים של המושג הפרוידיאני החשוב כל כך של העל-אני, אותו חלק בנפש המפנים את הציווי החיצוני. נבקש על כן להציג להלן את ההקשר התרבותי לכתיבה הפרוידיאנית, הקשר שצבע את הסיטואציה הקלינית שעמה פרויד נפגש יום-יום.

- by Itzhak Benyamini
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- Pathology, Psychology, Archaeology, Ritual

In June 2018 the Supreme Court of the United States decided the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, in which baker Jack Phillips refused to provide a cake for a same-sex wedding. The Court decided the case on fairly narrow grounds; in particular, it set aside the question of whether Phillips illegally discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation by refusing to sell the same cake to a gay couple that he would sell to a heterosexual couple. Concurring opinions by Justices Kagan and Gorsuch do address that question, however, and in this paper I explore the debate between them. By distinguishing between design-based and use-based refusals of service and then arguing that some use-based refusals are tantamount to discrimination on the basis of protected traits, I argue that Jack Phillips did indeed discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. I also argue that another baker, who refused to create a “Leviticus 18:22 ‘Homosexuality is a detestable sin’” cake, did not discriminate on the basis of religion. I thus side with Justice Kagan against Justice Gorsuch on the question of whether the Colorado commission treated the two bakers inconsistently.

- by John Corvino
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- First Amendment Law (USA), Discrimination, Sexual Orientation, Homosexuality

This report assesses legal and regulatory responses to the practice of ritual male circumcision in the United Kingdom (UK). Within the UK, England and Wales is the primary focus for discussion: this jurisdiction represents the main legal site in which matters of ritual male circumcision have been considered. Comparatively, there is little, if any, legal guidance on the practice in Scotland and Northern Ireland, although brief reference is made to these separate jurisdictions, where relevant. The report contains three parts. Part II analyses the ways in which criminal law tackles ritual male circumcision. It argues that this arena is an inappropriate vehicle for legal control given the criminal law's incoherence in framing consent as a defence to bodily harm. Moreover, criminal law is unable to address the range of parental and children's rights issues that pervade the procedure. Next, Part III evaluates how family law engages with ritual male circumcision. It contends that this area offers a more conducive setting for discussion of the cultural and social factors relevant to parents and children in determining the legality of the practice. Subsequently, Part IV assesses the role of health law in providing effective guidance on ritual male circumcision. Finally, Part V concludes by arguing that if the procedure is to be legally permitted in specific situations, such guidance should be more detailed in constructing regulation that better protects the interests of parents, children and doctors.

- by Matthew Gibson
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- Criminal Law, Medical Law, Family Law, Male Circumcision
- by blair hoxby
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- John Milton, Freedom of Speech, Civil liberties, Religious Liberty

Samuel Moyn in his ‘Christian Human Rights’ argues that the Catholic Church’s endorsement of human rights in 20th century was a tactical appropriation of an ideology alien to Catholicism – and it was designed to stop Communism. In a 2016 symposium with him, I took a different view. Belief in human rights, this paper argues, was central to traditional Catholic moral and political theology – in particular, the Church’s use of human rights to oppose religious coercion by states had a clear basis within the Catholic tradition. The new factor was not simply fear of Communism, but a central feature of Vatican II - a novel complacency about the effects on human nature of the Fall. Published in King's Law Journal, 2017

- by Thomas Pink
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- Human Rights Law, Human Rights, Philosophy Of Law, Theology and History of Vatican II

According to a famous story, when Giordano Bruno (ca. 1548 –1600), an Italian monist philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet, who, following an Inquisition for heresy and the denial of several Catholic doctrines, was about to be burned at a stake in Rome, an old woman came near to the fire, mentioned the name of God and threw a stick inside. Bruno said there: “Oh holy asinity! holy ignorance! Holy foolishness and pious devotion!...” . This story brought the historic term of “holy ignorance”. When a person or a group get into such an ignorance, it leads to some unacceptable horrible mistakes, of which one can point to a kind of “violence” consecrated by its committers. In fact, there is a very close connection between such an ignorance and religious radicalism. Nowadays in four corners of the world, we observe some groups rising and violating human dignities and social orders by the name of religion. Such beliefs are only due to misconceptions about religion, especially when speaking of Islam versus the West. On the other side, the concept of “tolerance” (tasāhul/tasāmoḥ) here manifests itself with its particular terminology, meaning “a behavior that not only tolerates the opponents, but allows them to express their beliefs, speech, and practices”. Such behavior occurs in a society wherein different social groups and parties live together with different beliefs and customs. Hence, tolerance is a policy from the state for reducing contradictions and crises in society. Nevertheless, different ideas regarding the sound meaning of this term, which basically in Islam comes from the Qur’an and Hadith literature, led to contradict practices by different religious sects. The present paper, based on the analytical descriptive method and through Quranic notions, traditional and Islamic teachings and thinkers’ views, aims to discuss the extent and limits of tolerance in Islam, particularly concerning freedom, and how misconceptions about it brings about the tragic phenomenon of “holy ignorance”. It also criticizes both Muslim and Western opinions in this regard. Finally, it will show the connection between intolerance, holy ignorance, radicalism, and lack of sound understanding about religion.

- by Ali Hasannia
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- Social Sciences, Islamic Studies, Religious Liberty

La philosophie politique se contente habituellement d'élaborer abstraitement des principes généraux qu'elle laisse aux juristes le soin de réaliser dans la forme de normes juridiques particulières. Or, comme l'a bien montré Habermas à la suite de Hegel 1 , il existe un décrochage des théories abstraites de la justice par rapport à la réalité institutionnelle et sociale : il ne suffit pas d'élaborer un contenu rationnel abstrait pour qu'il devienne effectif. Sans la médiation du droit, le rationnel politique reste un idéal pauvre en déterminations. Aussi l'interprétation juridique est-elle indispensable pour donner un contenu effectif aux principes normatifs énoncés par les théories de la justice. Mais cette interprétation ne saurait être comprise comme l'acte de réflexion raisonnée et solitaire du juge, mais comme le produit d'une négociation entre des agents institutionnels très différents : juges aux compétences diverses, législateurs, membres de l'exécutif, et nombre d'experts. A travers le prisme des compromis entre institutions, les principes politiques abstraits révèlent leur complexité et se dispersent. 1 Cf. Jürgen Habermas, Droit et démocratie (1992), trad. R. Rochlitz et C. Bouchindhomme, Paris, Gallimard, 1997, p. 71. politique ». La formule est en partie citée par Buisson, dans l'article « Neutralité scolaire », dans Dictionnaire de pédagogie et d'Instruction primaire, op. cit. Sur l'interprétation de la laïcité comme neutralité, cf. Cécile Laborde, « On Republican Toleration » , op. cit., p. 168-171. 4 Jean Rivero, La notion juridique de laïcité, Paris, Dalloz, chronique XXXIII, 1949, p 137. 5 La distinction entre politique ordinaire et politique constitutionnelle est formulée par Bruce Ackerman dans Au nom du peuple, mais elle déjà opérante chez John Rawls qui l'esquisse dans Théorie de la justice ( § 31) et l'explicite dans Libéralisme politique après avoir pris connaissance des textes d'Ackerman. Cf. Bruce Ackerman, Au nom du peuple (1991), trad. 44 La crédibilité d'une présomption (par exemple que le port du voile est a priori un acte de prosélytisme) dérive de la probabilité que « port du voile » et « acte de prosélytisme » coïncide effectivement. Les présomptions sont liées au vraisemblable. Cf. C. Perelman, L. op. cit., Chaïm Perelman, Logique juridique, Paris, Dalloz, 1979, p. 176.

This article presents the under-studied contribution of Charles Cardinal Journet to the final debate over Dignitatis Humanae (DH) at the last session of the Second Vatican Council. The article places Journet's decisive speech from the floor of the Council within the broader context of his ecclesiology, and it engages Journet's position with some prominent contemporary scholarship on DH.

- by Roger Nutt
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- Calculus, Catholic Theology, Thomas Aquinas, Ecclesiology
- by Robert D Woodberry
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- Christianity, Social Movements, Sociology of Religion, Historical Sociology

According to some estimates, there are more than 20 different variations floating around but the deviation from one variation to another is on average around 5% or less. With every new mutation the already low mortality rate decreases further. Of course, the latest Rockefeller Foundation's plan-see above, and again here-to create a "Pandemic Prevention Institute"-all out of the goodness of their hearts-is like a bad joke, not to call it full-fledged hypocrisy, when one knows the background to this story-this monster plan of controlling humankind's genome. While the Rockefeller Foundation's Master Plan officially is to prevent viral diseases, all the activities described in their website (above) are targeting research into genome manipulation, not to control viral diseases, but potentially to control humanity WITH viral and other diseases. Thus, the contrary to what they say is the purpose of their 20-million-dollar plan. Once their worldwide genome / DNA inventory is complete-or even before-they would theoretically "be able to decide who is to live and who is to die". Algorithms and AI will help. All the while, the Rockefeller Foundation's monster plan is working to expand global genomic sequencing capacity in collaboration with a range of organizations across several key geographies, such as sub-Saharan Africa, the US, and Asia, all officially in view of preventing Covid-the benign flu-like disease from spreading farther and to contain it. The plan, they pretend to be the official objective, includes several institutions with which to collaborate to eventually stop the "deadly" disease: GISAID Initiative-Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data-from vision to reality. It is an initiative created by the Rockefeller and Gates Foundations in 2008, to "counter" the Avian flu. "GISAID's role today is to accelerate the advancement of its pathogen data sharing platform and to further incentivize the global community of data generators to rapidly share outbreak data to enable real-time public health responses. " Clearly, the real agenda is DNA data collection, on a global basis. It's the Globalists at work with every activity they undertake. CSIR-Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology-is working "on behalf of a consortium of pathogen genomics sequencing centers to develop targeted sampling strategies, optimize bioinformatics tools, and enable real-time understanding of viral evolution, while building a long-term pathogen genomics and surveillance platform across India". This discloses openly their intention, if people are getting as far as reading the details into it. Stellenbosch University "to refine sampling, expand bioinformatics pipelines, catalyze surveillance-informed public health decision-making, and expand local knowledge through fellowships and workforce development programs throughout Africa. " Here too, no secrets. A program of DNA research throughout Africa, focusing on tribal differences. This may be important when it comes to who is who in exploiting natural resources for the northern elite and who is apt to grow food for the remaining western societies. Knowing their genome, may make it easy to discard the considered "useless" eaters. U.S. Regional Accelerators for Genomic Surveillance to provide strategic coordination and operational support towards improved and diversified regional surveillance efforts across a network of institutions, including the

- by Scott Stafne
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- Liberty, Corruption, Religious Liberty, Vaccination

The paper, published by The Josias, argues that whether or not Vatican II introduced inconsistency into magisterial teaching, it has led to a crisis in official theology. Official theology is asserted by Church office holders in execution of their roles while not meeting conditions for counting as magisterial teaching. The nature of official theology is explored, and the problematic nature of the post-conciliar official theology of baptism examined. This theology is inconsistent with the historical magisterium, and affects the liturgy and views of grace, the role of sacraments in salvation, Church and state, Jewish salvation, marriage and family teaching, and conditions for communion as debated in relation to Amoris Laetitia.

- by Thomas Pink
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- Canon Law, Thomas Aquinas, Jewish - Christian Relations, Baptism

This chapter examines some central features to liberal conceptions of toleration and liberty of conscience. The first section briefly examines conceptions of toleration and liberty of conscience in the traditions of Locke, Rawls, and Mill. The second section considers contemporary controversies surrounding toleration and liberty of conscience with a focus on neutrality and equality. The third section examines several challenges, including whether non-religious values should be afforded the same degree of accommodation as religious values, whether liberty of conscience requires a secular state, and how bias impedes understandings of toleration and liberty of conscience. The chapter concludes with brief comments on future directions for research on toleration and liberty of conscience. One is exploring toleration and liberty of conscience in non-Western contexts; another is exploring ways that varieties of religious and political identity impact conceptions of toleration and liberty of conscience. Liberty of conscience is central to liberal conceptions of toleration. One tradition that runs from John Locke (1983) through John Rawls (2005) holds that liberty of conscience is a fundamental right. A conception of the person as free and equal is a primary moral basis for toleration on this view. John Stuart Mill (1978) represents another tradition. On his view, utility is the moral basis for toleration and liberty of conscience. Both collective and individual interests are best promoted by a policy of toleration that extends to religious among other value commitments. The limits to liberty are set by the harm principle: toleration extends to beliefs and actions that do not cause or pose a significant risk of harm to others. Political philosophers in both traditions claim that liberty of conscience is a fundamental feature to a liberal conception of toleration.

Published in The Thomist vol 79, 2015, pp1-42. This paper, originally a lecture given at Mundelein in October 2013, examines Jacques Maritain's "Man and the State' and its impact on Vatican II's Dignitatis Humanae. Maritain helped contribute to a post-concilar 'official theology' endorsing Church-state separation. This official theology is not magisterially taught in Dignitatis Humanae, and is (a) internally incoherent, and (b) in clear conflict with Leo XIII's endorsement as an ideal of a soul-body union of Church and state. The official theology drastically underestimates the gulf that lies between secular political theory and the view of religion and the state taken by Dignitatis Humanae. Far from initiating a more harmonious concord with the secular world, Dignitatis Humanae marks the initiation of profound conflict between the secular state and the Church.

- by Thomas Pink
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- Second Vatican Council, Jacques Maritain, Church and State, Religious Liberty

In a reply to me in his festschrift 'Reason, Morality, and Law' (Oxford 2013) John Finnis claimed that the Council of Trent never taught doctrinally in support of the legal coercion of heretical baptised back into fidelity. This paper shows that in condemning Erasmus in its decree on baptism Trent did indeed do just that - doctrinally endorse coercion of faith in the baptised. The paper shows that Finnis's argument is a mixture of anachronism and serious misinterpretation of the Council Acta. Finnis' 'alternative history' is linked to a wider tendency in 'conservative' Catholicism since Vatican II to rewrite the Church's past.

- by Thomas Pink
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- Canon Law, Erasmus, Second Vatican Council, John Finnis

Cross-national empirical research consistently suggests that, on average, former British colonies are both more democratic and have more stable democratic transitions. I argue that former British colonies are distinct not because Great Britain was a democracy – so were France and Belgium during the late 19th and early 20th century. Nor were the British more altruistic. However, British colonial elites were more divided and thus more constrained. In particular, religious groups were more independent from state control in British colonies than in historically-Catholic colonies (i.e., colonies of France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and Italy). Initially the British restricted missions in their colonies, but Evangelical Protestants forced the British to allow religious liberty in 1813. Protestants were not able to win religious liberty in most other European colonizers during the entire period of colonization.
Protestant missionaries were central to expanding formal education in the colonies because they wanted people to read the Bible in their own language. Governments wanted a small educated elite that they could control. Other religious groups invested in mass vernacular education primarily when competing with Protestants.
Missionaries also constrained colonial abuses when they were independent from state control (i.e., chose their own leaders and raised their own funds). If colonial exploitation was extreme, it angered indigenous people against the West and made mission work difficult. Thus missionaries had incentive to fight abuses. Other colonial elites had no incentive to expose their abuses, and indigenous people had little power in the colonizing state. This left missionaries in a unique bridging position. Non-state missionaries also fostered institutions outside state control, institutions that nationalist leaders later used to challenge British colonization and birth political parties.
Statistical analysis confirms the centrality of missions in expanding education and fostering democracy. Controlling for Protestant missions removes the association between democracy and British colonization, other “Protestant” colonization, percent European, percent Muslim, being an island nation, and being a landlocked nation. Other controls (such as current GDP, and current education enrollments) do not remove the strong positive association between Protestant missions and democracy.

- by Robert D Woodberry
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- Economic History, Political Sociology, Social Movements, Sociology of Religion

Martin Rhonheimer has argued that in condemning religious coercion by the state, Vatican II's Dignitatis Humanae was a reform of previous Catholic teaching on the authority of the state. The paper argues, by contrast, that past... more

- by Thomas Pink
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- Canon Law, Liberty, Vatican II, Church and State

Religious freedom, and the status of religion in the public square, is presently a matter of worldwide debate. However, it is necessary to clarify the terms of the debate. This dissertation will offer a challenging invitation to deepen our understanding of the fundamental meaning of religious freedom by analyzing and challenging the notions of "religion," "freedom," and the "public square" as they have been commonly employed in discussions related to religious freedom and the place of religion in the public square in the works of Richard John Neuhaus, John Rawls, Robert Audi, José Casanovas, Jürgen Habermas, and Charles Taylor. It will also challenge the notion of "religious freedom" employed by international and legal documents, and in the work of David Schlinder, John Courtney Murray, and Martha Nussbaum. Following the work of Rainer Forst, it will also show why religious freedom should not be understood as "tolerance."
The goal of the book, then, is to provide a more effective way of dealing with issues of religious freedom and the place of religion in the public square. My investigation will be centered on Thomas Aquinas' notion of religion as a moral virtue, and Hanna Arendt's notion of political freedom. The novelty of this investigation will be in that the virtue of religion will be analyzed in connection to the proper place for the performance of its acts, namely, the private or the public sphere. The book will also show how Aquinas' notion of religion and its deviations (vices) offers a valuable guideline insofar as the public is concerned.
As a consequence, a new meaning will be offered on the notion of religious freedom, based on Aquinas' view of religion as virtue, and Arendt's notion of political freedom as a stage for virtue, which will help clarify the debate on religious freedom and the place of religion in the public square.

- by Pablo Munoz Iturrieta
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- Religion, Political Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Theory
- by Jasper Doomen
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- Religion, Constitutional Law, Political Philosophy, Human Rights Law

In Western liberal democracies religion has a special status. For example, the law allows a religious adherent to leave work for a holy day though not for a football match. Why is it that religion has been so privileged? It was the “why” that Bussey wanted to find an answer to.’During his research he found that the current accommodation of religion in the law is being robustly challenged – and even disregarded – by government actors, legal academics, and the media. The case study is the Trinity Western University case in Canada. This private, evangelical institution proposed to open a law school, but three provincial law societies refused accreditation because they deemed the admission’s requirement (which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman) discriminatory against the LGBTQ community. In 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of the law societies.Religious institutions that maintain traditional beliefs and practices are increasingly characterized as discriminatory. The extent to which this criticism is being accepted by the courts and the legal community is new. Using Thomas S. Kuhn’s theory, Bussey calls this development a legal revolution against religious accommodation.

- by Barry W. Bussey
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- Religion, Constitutional Law, Human Rights Law, Religious Liberty

Das jährliche Standardwerk zur Religionsfreiheit 2019 und das jährliche Standardwerk zur Verfolgung von Christen 2019 in einem Wendebuch zusammen gebunden – jedes Jahrbuch beginnt auf einer Seite des Umschlages. Herausgegeben für den Arbeitskreis für Religionsfreiheit der Deutschen und Österreichischen Evangelischen Allianz und die Arbeitsgemeinschaft Religionsfreiheit der Schweizerischen Evangelischen Allianz, das Internationale Institut für Religionsfreiheit und die Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte von Thomas Schirrmacher, Max Klingberg und Martin Warnecke.

Swahili translation of “The Persecution of Christians Concerns Us All”

- by Thomas Paul Schirrmacher
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- Swahili, Religious Persecution, Religious Liberty, Religious Freedom

The seventeenth-century English Revolution was pulsing with new democratic ideas of civil rights, marital freedom, freedom of speech and press, religious liberty, separation of church-state, and disestablishment of religion. The English philosopher and poet, John Milton was among the most radical and articulate advocate of these ideas, which he set out in hundreds of pages of brilliant and trenchant prose. This Article offers a full account of Milton's reformist agenda and uncovers some of the genesis and genius of his ideas in earlier Christian and classical traditions. It also documents the enduring significance of Milton's ideas for later Anglo-American writers like John Locke, and later common law and constitutional reforms on both sides of the Atlantic.

- by John Witte, Jr.
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- Censorship, Family Law, English Reformation, Civil Rights
- by Steven P. Millies
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- Charles Taylor, Second Vatican Council, Jacques Maritain, John Courtney Murray

The long-standing contest over a 1500 square yard plot of land, situated in the city of Ayodhya, located in the district of Faizabad in the state of Uttar Pradesh in north India, has become a site where religious groups, pilgrims, lawyers, and even gods are battling to establish their claims of rightful ownership. The issue has been simmering in independent India since its birth in 1947 and arose well before that time. The courts have been called upon time and again to adjudicate on this fraught issue, where their decisions are not only defining the parameters of the right to freedom of religion, but are implicated in the very construction of faith and belief. In this article, I examine how the right to freedom of religion has emerged in law, focusing on the 125-year-old property dispute in Ayodhya. I discuss how the reasoning of the 2010 Allahabad High Court judgement partly resulted in reproducing and reinforcing Hindu majoritarianism through its interpretation of the right to freedom of religion and the broader implications of the decision on the meaning and definition of secularism in Indian constitutional discourse. I also underscore how the law and judicial discourse has played a central role in enabling the Hindu Right, a right wing political and ideological movement intent on establishing India as a Hindu State and a key player in the Ayodhya dispute, to successfully pursue its agenda through the right to freedom of religion.

- by Ratna Kapur
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- Religion, Constitutional Law, International Law, International Human Rights Law