When the US Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998, it recognized that religious liberty and the freedom of conscience are in the front rank of the essenti
Although the Bill of Rights does not establish a hierarchy among the values it seeks to protect, Supreme Court decisions over time have classified certain rights as essential to a
This address to a conference in Princeton on religious liberty in the contemporary situation engages in a critical review of the main thesis of Christopher Eisgruber and Lawrence S
When the well-known political theorist Leo Strauss introduced the topic of politics and religion in his reflections, he presented it as a problem—the “theologico-political problem”
Two different strands in Enlightenment thought, influencing France and the United States respectively, have seen religion either as opposed to reason or allied to it, as the enemy
Political philosophy began in Athens, but the large-scale impact of religion upon it had to await Christianity. Biblical Christianity portrays human beings as subjects of a kingdom
This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or o
In the first place, religious freedom, an essential requirement of the dignity of every person, is a cornerstone of the structure of human rights, and for this reason an irreplacea
Freedom of religious belief and practice has come to be seen as a basic moral and political right. It features in the 1791 First Amendment of the US Constitution: “Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]” and in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 18): “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” The background to these declaration was the experience of religious persecution as in that of the English non-conformists who emigrated to North America, and of the Jews who were persecuted by the Nazis. The prominence of the issue of religious freedom in the present period is again due to the feeling that religious belief and practice are threatened. Prominent in contemporary discussions is the treatment by the Chinese Government of the Muslim Uyghur peoples, and the claims of some Christians that anti-discrimination legislation is limiting their right to express and practice their moral beliefs about such matters as homosexuality. Religious freedom is sometimes thought to be more fundamental than some other liberties because of its centrality to believers understanding of themselves and of reality.