As Elizabeth Shakman Hurd’s and Saba Mahmood’s earlier contributions to this discussion remind us, the received wisdom in Western policy…
Varieties of religious freedom and governance
religious freedom
Catholic bishops on religious liberty
Last week the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and its Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty released a lengthy statement…
Contradictions of religious freedom and religious repression
The collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of seventy years of anti-religious policies---of a period in which religious…
Freeing religion at the birth of South Sudan
If you had the opportunity to start from scratch, without the burden of a permanent constitution or an entrenched legal…
The power of pluralist thinking
It is hard to remember, but religious pluralism meant something quite different fifty years ago. We have, I would argue,…
Democracy, diplomacy, and religious freedom
Over at Foreign Affairs, Andrew Preston has written an article exploring the paradox of religion in U.S. foreign policy.
The problem with the history of toleration
The problem with the history of toleration is not that no one is studying it. There is now a rapidly…
Christian genealogies of religious freedom
As a historian of religion, much of my recent work has focused on tracing the genealogy of what we call…
What is religious freedom supposed to free?
What is religious freedom supposed to free? That is, what is the operant understanding of “religion” behind the claims of…
Religious freedom between truth and tactic
In the last issue of First Things, a self-described coalition of “Catholics and Evangelicals together” defends religious freedom. The coalition…