Making sense of the contemporary politics of religious freedom

What is it about?

In my chapter, I place contemporary debates over religious liberty into a broader historical and philosophical context. I survey the early modern discourse of toleration that gave rise to the American founding debates, and explore the ways in which the contemporary politics of religious liberty draws on, and departs from, those historical foundations. At root, I argue, are deep disagreements about the nature of religion itself (and, therefore, the freedom of religious exercise), between two quite different ways of understanding what religion is and how it animates human behavior.

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Why is it important?

Religious liberty remains an intensely contested topic in contemporary politics. The paper traces the long tradition of toleration and religious liberty from the early modern period down to the present day, and shows how our debates both draw on, and depart from, their historical predecessors