Challenges to Religious Liberty in the Twenty-First Century

Scholars in law, theology and political theory exchange views on five specific challenges to religious liberty in the twenty-first century.

Gerard V. Bradley (Edited by)

9781107012448, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 March 2012

230 pages, 1 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.7 cm, 0.4 kg

“Religious freedom is still a fundamental cornerstone of civilization. Some treatments of this subject excel in the depth of their legal awareness, judicial casuistry, and historical sophistication. Others excel in breadth of understanding about the world at large. This fine book does both. Its patient, searching, grounded, and exceedingly well informed chapters reach an unusually high level of legal, historical, and moral reasoning on a subject as historically significant as it is globally relevant.” — Mark A. Noll, University of Notre Dame; co-editor, Religion and American Politics

Almost everyone today affirms the importance and merit of religious liberty. But religious liberty is being challenged by new questions (for example, use of the niqab or church adoption services for same-sex couples) and new forces (such as globalization and Islamism). Combined, these make the meaning of religious liberty in the twenty-first century uncertain. This collection of essays by ten of the world's leading scholars on religious liberty takes aim at these issues. The book is arranged around five specific challenges to religious liberty today: the state's responsibility to prevent coercion and intimidation of believers by others within the same faith community; the US's basic moral responsibilities to promote religious liberty abroad; how to understand and apply the traditional right of conscientious objection in today's circumstances; the distinctive problems presented by globalization; and the viability today of an 'originalist' interpretation of the First Amendment religion clauses.

Part I: 1. The establishment clause and the 'problem of the church' Steven D. Smith
2. Dueling Clios: Stevens and Scalia on the original meaning of the establishment clause Gerard V. Bradley
Part II: 3. Coercian and religious exercises Kent Greenawalt
4. Religious freedom and (and in) institutions Richard W. Garnett
Part III: 5. Free exercise, religious conscience, and the common good Christopher Wolfe
6. Conscience, religion, and the state Christopher Tollefsen
Part IV: 7. Globalization and the free exercise of religion worldwide José Casanova
8. The irony of a globalizing future: economics, technology, identity, and religious liberty William Inboden
Part V: 9. A foreign policy of religious freedom: theoretical and evidentiary foundation Daniel Philpott
10. International religious freedom and moral responsibility Thomas Farr.

Subject Areas: Comparative law [LAM], Politics & government [JP]