Challenges to Religious Liberty in the Twenty-First Century

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.

Different and sometimes irreconcilable conceptions of religious liberty have emerged in our world, often as responses to specific challenges (for example, globalization or Islamic immigration). In this book, scholars in law, theology and political theory exchange views on five specific challenges to religious liberty in the twenty-first century.

Gerard V. Bradley has been a Professor of Law at Notre Dame since 1992. He was previously a Professor of Law at the University of Illinois. He is a co-editor of The American Journal of Jurisprudence and author of Church-State Relations in America. He has been a Senior Fellow at the Witherspoon Institute and a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.