Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-rkxrd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T14:01:49.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The New Religious Freedom: Secular Fictions and Church Autonomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2015

Matthew Scherer
Matthew Scherer*
Affiliation:
George Mason University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Matthew Scherer, School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs, George Mason University, MSN 3F4, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030. E-mail: mschere2@gmu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that a new form of religious freedom is emerging within the contentious field of United States politics today. Despite the commitment to separating church and state that is characteristic of American secularism, implementation of the new religious freedom appears likely to contribute to processes that are actively reshaping religious and political landscapes. Recent US Supreme Court cases such as Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Inc. present clear examples and this article uses the former case to bring the dynamics of the new religious freedom to light. The push for religious freedom in contemporary United States law and politics should be assessed in terms of its transformative consequences in both “religious” and “political” spheres. These consequences include refashioning religious communities as increasingly hierarchical and isolated enclaves, undermining the rights and freedoms of citizens, and further fracturing the public sphere.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 544 - 564
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anidjar, Gil. 2006. “Secularism.” Critical Inquiry 33:52–77.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 2006. On Revolution. New York, NY: Penguin.Google Scholar
Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Berger, Peter. 2007. “Pluralism, Protestantization, and the Voluntary Principle.” In Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism, ed. Banchoff, Thomas. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bowen, John. 2010. “Secularism: Conceptual Genealogy or Political Dilemma?” Comparative Studies in Society and History 52:680–694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blumenberg, Hans. 1983. The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Inc. 2014. 573 U.S. ____, Docket No. 13–354.Google Scholar
Casanova, José. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Evangelicals Catholics Together. 2012. “In Defense of Religious Freedom.” http://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/02/in-defense-of-religious-freedom (Accessed on Month Day, Year).Google Scholar
Commission on Theology and Church Relations. 1981. “The Ministry: Offices, Procedures and Nomenclature.” http://www.lcms.org/Document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=423 (Accessed on Month Day, Year).Google Scholar
Connolly, William E. 2000. Why I Am Not a Secularist. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Frank, Matthew J. 2012. “What Comes After Hosanna-Tabor.” First Things, January 12.Google Scholar
Garnett, Richard W. 2012. “Column: Hosanna-Tabor ruling a Win for Religious Freedom.” USA Today, January 11.Google Scholar
Garsten, Bryan. 2010. “Religion and the Case against Ancient Liberty: Benjamin Constant's Other Lectures.” Political Theory 38:4–33.Google Scholar
Gunn, T. Jeremy. 2003. “The Complexity of Religion and Definition of ‘Religion’ in International Law.” Harvard Human Rights Journal 16.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 2008. Between Naturalism and Religion. Cambridge, MA: Polity.Google Scholar
Hamburger, Philip. 2002. Separation of Church and State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Marci. 2004. “Religious Institutions, the No-Harm Doctrine, and the Public Good.” NYU Law Review 4:1099–1216.Google Scholar
Hirschl, Ran. 2010. Constitutional Theocracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Evangelical Church and School v. EEOC. 2012. 565 U.S. ____, Docket No. 10-553.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Thomas. 1802. “A Letter to the Danbury Baptists.” In From Many, One: Readings in American Political and Social Thought, ed. Sinopoli, Richard C. Georgetown, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Kahn, Victoria. 2013. The Future of an Illusion: Political Theology and Early Modern Texts. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koselleck, Reinhart. 1998. Critique and Crises: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Laycock, Douglas. 1981. “Towards a General Theory of the Religion Clauses: The Case of Church Labor Relations and the Right to Church Autonomy.” Columbia Law Review 81.Google Scholar
Liptak, Adam. 2012. “Religious Groups Given ‘Exception’ to Work Bias Law.” The New York Times, January 11.Google Scholar
Löwith, Karl. 2011. Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lund, Christopher C. 2011. “In Defense of the Ministerial Exception.” North Carolina Law Review 90.Google Scholar
Milbank, John. 1991. Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mahmood, Saba. 2012. “Religious Freedom, the Minority Question, and Geopolitics in the Middle East.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 54:418–446.Google Scholar
McAlister, Melani. 2012. “The Persecuted Body: Evangelical Internationalism, Islam, and the Politics of Fear.” In Facing Fear: The History of an Emotion in Global Perspective, eds. Laffan, Michael, and Weiss, Max. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McConnell, Michael. 1990. “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion” Harvard Law Review 103.Google Scholar
Morgan, Edmund S. 1989. Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America. New York, NY: Norton.Google Scholar
Mufti, Aamir R. ed. 2013. “Why I am not a Post-Secularist” special issue boundary 2 volume 40 number 1.Google Scholar
Olsen, Ted. 2012. “Church Wins Firing Case at Supreme Court: Unanimous Decision in Closely Watched Case Strengthens ‘Ministerial Exception.”’ Christianity Today, January 11.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Roy, Olivier. 2010. Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Scherer, Matthew. 2013. Beyond Church and State: Democracy, Secularism, and Conversion. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Carl. 1985. Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Skeel, David. “On Religious Freedom, Years of Battles Ahead: The High Court Calls for Accommodating Religion. The White House Pushes Back.” The Wall Street Journal, January 27.Google Scholar
Smith, Jonathan Z. 1982. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Winnifred Fallers. 2005. The Impossibility of Religious Freedom. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 2007. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.Google Scholar
Tully, James. 2009. “On Local and Global Citizenship: An Apprenticeship Manual.” In Public Philosophy in a New Key. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1:243-310.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 2012. In God's Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew Bible. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael, et al. , eds. 2010. The Jewish Political Tradition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar