Religion and Politics

The relation between religion and politics continues to be an important theme

in political philosophy, despite the emergent consensus (both among political theorists
and in practical political contexts, such as the United Nations) on the right to freedom of
conscience and on the need for some sort of separation between church and state. One
reason for the importance of this topic is that religions often make strong claims on
people’s allegiance, and universal religions make these claims on all people, rather than
just a particular community. For example, Islam has traditionally held that all people owe
obedience to Allah’s will. Thus, it is probably inevitable that religious commitments will
sometimes come into conflict with the demands of politics. But religious beliefs and
practices also potentially support politics in many ways. The extent and form of this
support is as important to political philosophers as is the possibility for conflict.
Moreover, there has been a growing interest in minority groups and the political rights
and entitlements they are due. One result of this interest is substantial attention given to
the particular concerns and needs of minority groups who are distinguished by their
religion, as opposed to ethnicity, gender, or wealth.
This article surveys some of the philosophical problems raised by the various ways
in which religion and politics may intersect. The first two main sections are devoted to
topics that have been important in previous eras, especially the early modern era,
although in both sections there is discussion of analogs to these topics that are more
pressing for contemporary political thought: (1) establishment of a church or faith versus
complete separation of church and state; and (2) toleration versus coercion of religious
belief, and current conflicts between religious practice and political authority. The
second pair of sections is devoted to problems that, for the most part, have come to the
fore of discussion only in recent times: (3) liberal citizenship and its demands on private
self-understanding; and (4) the role of religion in public deliberation.

1. Establishment and Separation of Church and State

While the topic of establishment has receded in importance at present, it has been
central to political thought in the West since at least the days of Constantine. In the wake
of the Protestant Reformation, European societies wrestled with determining exactly
what roles church and state should play in each other’s sphere, and so the topic of
establishment became especially pressing in the early modern era, although there was
also substantial discussion in the Middle Ages (Dante, 1995). The term “establishment”
can refer to any of several possible arrangements for a religion in a society’s political life.
These arrangements include the following:

1. A religious body may be a “state” church in the

sense that it has an exclusive right to practice
its faith.
2. A church may be supported through taxes and
subject to the direction of the government (for
example, the monarch is still officially the head
of the Church of England, and the Prime
Minister is responsible for selecting the
Archbishop of Canterbury).
 3. Particular ecclesiastical officials may have, in
virtue of their office, an established role in
political institutions.
4. A church may simply have a privileged role in
certain public, political ceremonies (for
example, inaugurations, opening of
parliament, etc.).
5. Instead of privileging a particular religious
group, a state could simply enshrine a
particular creed or belief system as its official
religion, much like the “official bird” or “official
flower.”
Note that these options are not mutually exclusive—a state could adopt some or
all of these measures. What is central to them is they each involve the conferral of some
sort of official status. A weaker form of an established church is what Robert Bellah
(1967: 3-4) calls “civil religion,” in which a particular church or religion does not exactly
have official status, and yet the state uses religious concepts in an explicitly public way.
For an example of civil religion, he points to Abraham Lincoln’s use of Christian imagery
of slavery and freedom in justifying the American Civil War.

Contemporary philosophical defenses of outright establishment of a church or

faith are few, but a famous defense of establishment was given by T. S. Eliot in the last
century (1936, 1967). Trained as a philosopher (he completed, but did not defend, a
dissertation at Harvard on the philosophy of F. H. Bradley) and deeply influenced
by Aristotle, Eliot believed that democratic societies rejected the influence of an
established church at their peril, for in doing so they cut themselves off from the kind of
ethical wisdom that can come only from participation in a tradition. As a result, he
argued, such a society would degenerate into tyranny and/or social and cultural
fragmentation.

Even today, there are strains of conservatism that argue for establishment by
emphasizing the benefits that will accrue to the political system or society at large
(Scruton, 1980). According to this line of thought, the healthy polis requires a substantial
amount of pre- or extra-political social cohesion. More specifically, a certain amount of
social cohesion is necessary both to ensure that citizens see themselves as sufficiently
connected to each other (so that they will want to cooperate politically), and to ensure
that they have a common framework within which they can make coherent collective
political decisions. This cohesion in turn is dependent on a substantial amount of cultural
homogeneity, especially with respect to adherence to certain values. One way of
ensuring this kind of homogeneity is to enact one of the forms of establishment
mentioned above, such as displaying religious symbols in political buildings and
monuments, or by including references to a particular religion in political ceremonies.
Rather than emphasizing the distinctively political benefits of establishment, a different
version of this argument could appeal to the ethical benefits that would accrue to
citizens themselves as private individuals. For example, on many understandings of
politics, one of the purposes of the polis is to ensure that citizens have the resources
necessary for living a choiceworthy, flourishing life. One such resource is a sense of
belonging to a common culture that is rooted in a tradition, as opposed to a sense of
rootlessness and social fragmentation (Sandel, 1998; MacIntyre, 1984). Thus, in order to
ensure that citizens have this sense of cultural cohesion, the state must (or at least may)
in some way privilege a religious institution or creed. Of course, a different version of this
argument could simply appeal to the truth of a particular religion and to the good of
obtaining salvation, but given the persistent intractability of settling such questions, this
would be a much more difficult argument to make.
Against these positions, the liberal tradition has generally opposed establishment
in all of the aforementioned forms. Contemporary liberals typically appeal to the value of
fairness. It is claimed, for example, that the state should remain neutral among religions
because it is unfair—especially for a democratic government that is supposed to
represent all of the people composing its demos—to intentionally disadvantage (or
unequally favor) any group of citizens in their pursuit of the good as they understand it,
religious or otherwise (Rawls, 1971). Similarly, liberals often argue that fairness precludes
devoting tax revenues to religious groups because doing so amounts to forcing non-
believers to subsidize religions that they reject. A different approach for liberals is to
appeal directly to the right to practice one’s religion, which is derivable from a more
general right to freedom of conscience. If all people have such a right, then it is morally
wrong for the state to force them to participate in religious practices and institutions
that they would otherwise oppose, such as forcing them to take part in public prayer. It is
also wrong, for the same reason, to force people to support financially (via taxation)
religious institutions and communities that they would not otherwise wish to support.
In addition, there are liberal consequentialist concerns about establishment, such as the
possibility that it will result in or increase the likelihood of religious repression and
curtailment of liberty (Audi, 2000: 37-41). While protections and advantages given to one
faith may be accompanied by promises to refrain from persecuting adherents of rival
faiths, the introduction of political power into religion moves the state closer to
interferences which are clearly unjust, and it creates perverse incentives for religious
groups to seek more political power in order to get the upper hand over their rivals.
From the perspective of many religious people themselves, moreover, there are worries
that a political role for their religion may well corrupt their faith community and its
mission.

2. Toleration and Accommodation of Religious Belief and Practice

As European and American societies faced the growing plurality of religious
beliefs, communities, and institutions in the early modern era, one of the paramount
social problems was determining whether and to what extent they should be tolerated.
One of the hallmark treatises on this topic remains John Locke’s A Letter Concerning
Toleration. A political exile himself at the time of its composition, Locke argues (a) that it
is futile to attempt to coerce belief because it does not fall to the will to accept or reject
propositions, (b) that it is wrong to restrict religious practice so long as it does not
interfere with the rights of others, and (c) that allowing a wide range of religious groups
will likely prevent any one of them from becoming so powerful as to threaten the peace.
Central to his arguments is a Protestant view of a religious body as a voluntary society
composed only of those people who choose to join it, a view that is in sharp contrast to
the earlier medieval view of the church as having authority over all people within a
particular geographic domain. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the limits of Locke’s
toleration are coextensive with Protestantism; atheists and Catholics cannot be trusted
to take part in society peacefully because the former do not see themselves as bound by
divine law and the latter are beholden to a foreign sovereign (the Pope). Still,
Locke’s Letter makes an important step forward toward a more tolerant and pluralistic
world. In contrast to Locke, Thomas Hobbes sees religion and its divisiveness as a source
of political instability, and so he argues that the sovereign has the right to determine
which opinions may be publicly espoused and disseminated, a power necessary for
maintaining civil peace (see Leviathanxviii, 9).
Like the issue of establishment, the general issue of whether people should be
allowed to decide for themselves which religion to believe in has not received much
attention in recent times, again because of the wide consensus on the right of all people
to liberty of conscience. However, despite this agreement on liberty of belief, modern
states nevertheless face challenging questions of toleration and accommodation
pertaining to religious practice, and these questions are made more difficult by the fact
that they often involve multiple ideals which pull in different directions. Some of these
questions concern actions which are inspired by religion and are either obviously or
typically unjust. For example, violent fundamentalists feel justified in killing and
persecuting infidels—how should society respond to them? While no one seriously
defends the right to repress other people, it is less clear to what extent, say, religious
speech that calls for such actions should be tolerated in the name of a right to free
speech. A similar challenge concerns religious objections to certain medical procedures
that are necessary to save a life. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that their
religion precludes their accepting blood transfusions, even to save their lives. While it
seems clearly wrong to force someone to undergo even lifesaving treatment if she
objects to it (at least with sufficient rationality, which of course is a difficult topic in
itself), and it seems equally wrong to deny lifesaving treatment to someone who needs it
and is not refusing it, the issue becomes less clear when parents have religious objections
to lifesaving treatment for their children. In such a case, there are at least three values
that ordinarily demand great respect and latitude: (a) the right to follow one’s own
religion, not simply in affirming its tenets but in living the lifestyle it prescribes; (b) the
state’s legitimate interest in protecting its citizens (especially vulnerable ones like
children) from being harmed; and (c) the right of parents to raise their children as they
see fit and in a way that expresses their values.
A second kind of challenge for a society that generally values toleration and
accommodation of difference pertains to a religious minority’s actions and commitments
which are not themselves unjust, and yet are threatened by the pursuit of other goals on
the part of the larger society, or are directly forbidden by law. For example, Quakers and
other religious groups are committed to pacifism, and yet many of them live in societies
that expect all male citizens to serve in the military or register for the draft. Other groups
perform religious rituals that involve the use of illegal substances, such as peyote. Does
the right to practice one’s faith exempt one from the requirement to serve in the military
or obey one’s country’s drug policies? Is it fair to exempt such people from the burdens
other citizens must bear?

Many examples of this second kind of challenge are addressed in the literature on
education and schooling. In developed societies (and developing ones, for that matter), a
substantial education is necessary for citizens to be able to achieve a decent life for
themselves. In addition, many states see education as a process by which children can
learn values that the state deems important for active citizenship and/or for social life.
However, the pursuit of this latter goal raises certain issues for religious parents. In the
famous case of Mozert v. Hawkins, some parents objected for religious reasons to their
children being taught from a reading curriculum that presented alternative beliefs and
ways of life in a favorable way, and consequently the parents asked that their children be
excused from class when that curriculum was being taught. Against the wishes of these
parents, some liberals believe that the importance of teaching children to respect the
value of gender equality overrides the merit of such objections, even if they appeal
directly to the parents’ religious rights (Macedo, 2000).

Similarly, many proposals for educational curricula are aimed at developing a

measure of autonomy in children, which often involves having them achieve a certain
critical distance from their family background, with its traditions, beliefs, and ways of life
(Callan, 1997; Brighouse, 2000). The idea is that only then can children autonomously
choose a way of life for themselves, free of undue influence of upbringing and custom. A
related argument holds that this critical distance will allow children to develop a
sufficient sense of respect for different social groups, a respect that is necessary for the
practice of democratic citizenship. However, this critical distance is antithetical to
authentic religious commitment, at least on some accounts (see the following section).
Also, religious parents typically wish to pass on their faith to their children, and doing so
involves cultivating religious devotion through practices and rituals, rather than
presenting their faith as just one among many equally good (or true) ones. For such
parents, passing on their religious faith is central to good parenting, and in this respect it
does not differ from passing on good moral values, for instance. Thus, politically
mandated education that is aimed at developing autonomy runs up against the right of
some parents to practice their religion and the right to raise their children as they
choose. Many, though not all, liberals argue that autonomy is such an important good
that its promotion justifies using techniques that make it harder for such parents to pass
on their faith—such a result is an unfortunate side-effect of a desirable or necessary
policy.

Yet a different source of political conflict for religious students in recent years
concerns the teaching of evolution in science classes. Some religious parents of children
in public schools see the teaching of evolution as a direct threat to their faith, insofar as it
implies the falsity of their biblical-literalist understanding of the origins of life. They argue
that it is unfair to expect them to expose their children to teaching that directly
challenges their religion (and to fund it with their taxes). Among these parents, some
want schools to include discussions of intelligent design and creationism (some who
write on this issue see intelligent design and creationism as conceptually distinct
positions; others see no significant difference between them), while others would be
content if schools skirted the issue altogether, refusing to teach anything at all about the
origin of life or the evolution of species. Their opponents see the former proposal as an
attempt to introduce an explicitly religious worldview into the classroom, hence one that
runs afoul of the separation of church and state. Nor would they be satisfied with
ignoring the issue altogether, for evolution is an integral part of the framework of
modern biology and a well-established scientific theory.
 Conflicts concerning religion and politics arise outside of curricular contexts, as
well. For example, in France, a law was recently passed that made it illegal for students
to wear clothing and adornments that are explicitly associated with a religion. This law
was especially opposed by students whose religion explicitly requires them to wear
particular clothing, such as a hijab or a turban. The justification given by the French
government was that such a measure was necessary to honor the separation of church
and state, and useful for ensuring that the French citizenry is united into a whole, rather
than divided by religion. However, it is also possible to see this law as an unwarranted
interference of the state in religious practice. If liberty of conscience includes not simply
a right to believe what one chooses, but also to give public expression to that belief, then
it seems that people should be free to wear clothing consistent with their religious
beliefs.

Crucial to this discussion of the effect of public policy on religious groups is an

important distinction regarding neutrality. The liberal state is supposed to remain neutral
with regard to religion (as well as race, sexual orientation, physical status, age, etc.).
However, as Charles Larmore points out in Patterns of Moral Complexity (1987: 42ff),
there are different senses of neutrality, and some policies may fare well with respect to
one sense and poorly with respect to another. In one sense, neutrality can be understood
in terms of a procedure that is justified without appeal to any conception of the human
good. In this sense, it is wrong for the state to intend to disadvantage one group of
citizens, at least for its own sake and with respect to practices that are not otherwise
unjust or politically undesirable. Thus it would be a violation of neutrality in this sense
(and therefore wrong) for the state simply to outlaw the worship of Allah. Alternatively,
neutrality can be understood in terms of effect. The state abides by this sense of
neutrality by not taking actions whose consequences are such that some individuals or
groups in society are disadvantaged in their pursuit of the good. For a state committed to
neutrality thus understood, even if it were not explicitly intending to disadvantage a
particular group, any such disadvantage that may result is a prima facie reason to revoke
the policy that causes it. Thus, if the government requires school attendance on a
religious group’s holy days, for example, and doing so makes it harder for them to
practice their faith, such a requirement counts as a failure of neutrality. The attendance
requirement may nevertheless be unavoidable, but as it stands, it is less than optimal.
Obviously, this is a more demanding standard, for it requires the state to consider
possible consequences—both short term and long term—on a wide range of social
groups and then choose from those policies that do not have bad consequences (or the
one that has the fewest and least bad). For most, and arguably all, societies, it is a
standard that cannot feasibly be met. Consequently, most liberals argue that the state
should be neutral in the first sense, but it need not be neutral in the second sense. Thus,
if the institutions and practices of a basically just society make it more challenging for
some religious people to preserve their ways of life, it is perhaps regrettable, but not
unjust, so long as these institutions and practices are justified impartially.

3. Liberalism and Its Demands on Private Self-Understanding

In addition to examining issues of toleration and accommodation on the level
of praxis, there has also been much recent work about the extent to which particular
political theories themselves are acceptable or unacceptable from religious perspectives.
One reason for this emphasis comes from the emergence of the school of thought
known as “political liberalism.” In his book of that name, John Rawls (1996) signaled a
new way of thinking about liberalism that is captured by the idea of an “overlapping
consensus.” An overlapping consensus refers to reasoned agreement on principles of
justice by citizens who hold a plurality of mutually exclusive comprehensive doctrines (a
term that includes religious beliefs, metaphysical positions, theories of morality and of
the good life, etc., and may also include beliefs such as theories of epistemic
justification). Rather than requiring citizens to accept any particular comprehensive
doctrine of liberalism, a theory of justice should aim at deriving principles that each
citizen may reasonably accept from his or her own comprehensive doctrine. Thus, the
consensus is on the principles themselves, rather than the justification for those
principles, and as such the conception of justice offered is “political” rather than
“metaphysical.” This view of liberal justice marked a break with Rawls’s earlier
“metaphysical” liberalism as expressed in A Theory of Justice, although debate continues
among commentators about just how sharp a break political liberalism is and whether or
not it is an improvement over the earlier view. The aim, then, for a political conception of
justice is for all reasonable citizens to be able to affirm principles of justice without
having to weaken their hold on their own private comprehensive views. However, some
writers have argued that this is impossible—even a “thin” political conception of justice
places strains on some comprehensive doctrines, and these strains might be acute for
religious citizens. One such argument comes from Eomann Callan, in his book Creating
Citizens. Callan points to the role played in Rawls’ theory of “the burdens of judgment”
(see Rawls, 1996: § 2): fundamentalists will not be able to accept the burdens of
judgment in their private lives, because doing so requires them to view rival faiths and
other beliefs as having roughly equal epistemic worth. If Rawlsian liberalism requires
acceptance of the burdens of judgment, then the overlapping consensus will not include
some kinds of religious citizens.
A different way that liberal citizenship might conflict with a religious person’s self-
understanding is if the former requires a commitment to a kind of fallibilism while the
latter requires (or at least encourages) certitude in one’s religious belief. Richard
Rorty has been read as arguing for the need for liberal democratic citizens to privatize
their faith (1999) and to hold their beliefs at an “ironic” distance—that is, provisionally,
and with a healthy skepticism about the extent to which they decisively capture reality
(1989). But this kind of irony is not possible to maintain along with authentic faith, at
least as the latter is understood in many religious traditions that emphasize the
importance of certitude in one’s belief and totality of one’s commitment to God.
Thus, a religious citizen could feel an acute conflict between her
identity qua citizen and quareligious adherent. One way of resolving the conflict is to
argue that one aspect of her identity should take priority over the other. Witness the
conflict experienced by the protagonist in Sophocles’ Antigone, as she buries her brother
in defiance of Creon’s decree; in doing so, she acknowledges that her religious duties
supersede her civic duties, at least in that context. For many religious citizens, political
authority is subservient to—and perhaps even derived from—divine authority, and
therefore they see their religious commitments as taking precedence over their civic
ones. On the other hand, civic republicanism has tended to view a person’s civic role as
paramount because it has seen participation in politics as partly constitutive of the
human good (Dagger, 1997).
 In contrast to these approaches, the liberal tradition has tended to refuse to
prioritize one aspect of an individual’s identity over any other, holding that it is the
individual’s task to determine which is most important or significant to her; this task is
often seen as the reason for the importance of personal autonomy (Kymlicka, 2002). But
this tendency makes it more challenging for liberals to adjudicate conflicts between
religion and politics. One possibility is for the liberal to argue that the demands of justice
are prior to the pursuit of the good (which would include religious practice). If so, and if
the demands of justice require one to honor duties of citizenship, then one might argue
that people should not allow their religious beliefs and practices to restrict or interfere
with their roles as citizens. However, not even all liberals accept the claim that justice is
prior to the good, nor is it a settled issue in the literature on political obligation that
norms of justice can successfully ground universal duties of citizenship (see “The
Obligation to Obey Law” and “Political Obligation”).

4. Religious Reasons in Public Deliberation

One recent trend in democratic theory is an emphasis on the need for democratic
decisions to emerge from processes that are informed by deliberation on the part of the
citizenry, rather than from a mere aggregation of preferences. As a result, there has been
much attention devoted to the kinds of reasons that may or may not be appropriate for
public deliberation in a pluralistic society. While responses to this issue have made
reference to all kinds of beliefs, much of the discussion has centered on religious beliefs.
One reason for this emphasis is that, both historically and in contemporary societies,
religion has played a central role in political life, and often it has done so for the worse
(witness the wars of religion in Europe that came in the wake of the Protestant
Reformation, for example). As such, it is a powerful political force, and it strikes many
who write about this issue as a source of social instability and repression. Another reason
is that, due to the nature of religious belief itself, if any kind of belief is inappropriate for
public deliberation, then religious beliefs will be the prime candidate, either because they
are irrational, or immune to critique, or unverifiable, etc. In other words, religion provides
a useful test case in evaluating theories of public deliberation.

Much of the literature in this area has been prompted by Rawls’ development of
his notion of public reason, which he introduced in Political Liberalism and offered (in
somewhat revised form) in his essay “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited.” His view is
not as clearly expressed as one would wish, and it evolved after the publication
of Political Liberalism, but the idea is something like this: when reasonable citizens
engage in public deliberation on constitutional essentials, they must do so by offering
reasons that do not appeal to any comprehensive doctrine. Since citizens have sharp
disagreements on comprehensive doctrines, any law or policy that necessarily depends
on such a doctrine could not be reasonably accepted by those who reject the doctrine. A
prime example of a justification for a law that is publicly inaccessible in this way is one
that is explicitly religious. For example, if the rationale for a law that outlawed working
on Sunday was simply that it displeases the Christian God, non-Christians could not
reasonably accept it.
Rawls makes important exceptions to this norm of public discourse, and he seems
to have gradually softened its requirements somewhat as he developed his views on
public reason, but his intention was to ensure that democratic outcomes could be
reasonably accepted by all citizens, and even in his theory’s latest manifestations he
seemed to view “public” reasons as those which could reasonably be accepted by
everyone rather than explicitly drawing on comprehensive views.

A different explanation of “reasons which could be reasonably accepted by

everyone” comes from Robert Audi, who argues that the set of such reasons is restricted
to secular reasons. Since only secular reasons are publicly accessible in this way, civic
virtue requires offering secular reasons and being sufficiently motivated by them to
support or oppose the law or policy under debate. Religious reasons are not suitable for
public deliberation since they are not shared by the non-religious (or people of differing
religions) and people who reject these reasons would justifiably resent being coerced on
the basis of them. However, secular reasons can include non-religious comprehensive
doctrines, such as particular moral theories or conceptions of the human good, and so
Audi’s conception of public deliberation allows some views to play a role that would be
excluded by conceptions that restrict all comprehensive doctrines.

Proponents of the idea that the set of suitable reasons for public deliberation
does not include certain or all comprehensive doctrines have come to be known as
“exclusivists,” and their opponents as “inclusivists.” The latter group sometimes focuses
on weaknesses of exclusivism—if exclusivism is false, then inclusivism is true by default.
Others try to show that religious justifications can contribute positively to democratic
polities; the two most common examples in support of this position are the nineteenth-
century abolitionist movement and the twentieth-century civil rights movement, both of
which achieved desirable political change in large part by appealing directly to the
Christian beliefs prevalent in Great Britain and the United States.

A third inclusivist argument is that it is unfair to hamstring certain groups in their

attempts to effect change that they believe is required by justice. Consider the case of
abortion, an example Rawls discusses in a famous footnote in Political Liberalism (243-
244) and again in “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” (169). Many—though not all—
who defend the pro-life position do so by appealing to the actual or potential
personhood of fetuses. But “person” is a conceptually “thick” metaphysical concept, and
as such it is one that is subject to reasonable disagreement. Consequently, on some
versions of exclusivism, citizens who wish to argue against abortion should do so without
claiming that fetuses are persons. But for these citizens, personhood is the most
important part of the abortion issue, for the ascription of “person” is not simply a
metaphysical issue—it is a moral issue, as well, insofar as it is an attempt to discern the
bounds of the moral community. To ask them to refrain from focusing on this aspect of
the issue looks like an attempt to settle the issue by default, then. Instead, inclusivists
argue that citizens should feel free to introduce any considerations whatsoever that they
think are relevant to the topic under public discussion.

5. Conclusion
Although secularism is proceeding rapidly in many of the world’s societies, and
although this trend seems connected in some way to the process of economic
development, nevertheless religion continues to be an important political phenomenon
throughout the world, for multiple reasons. Even the most secularized countries
(Sweden is typically cited as a prime example) include substantial numbers of people
who still identify themselves as religious. Moreover, many of these societies are currently
experiencing immigration from groups who are more religious than native-born
populations and who follow religions that are alien to the host countries’ cultural
heritage. These people are often given substantial democratic rights, sometimes
including formal citizenship. And the confrontation between radical Islam and the West
shows few signs of abating anytime soon. Consequently, the problems discussed above
will likely continue to be important ones for political philosophers in the foreseeable
future.

6. References and Further Reading

Audi, Robert. Religious Commitment and Secular Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2000.
Much of this book is an expression of Audi’s position on public deliberation, but there is
also discussion of the separation of church and state.
Audi, Robert, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Religion in the Public Square: The Place of
Religious Reasons in Political Debate. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997.
An accessible, well-reasoned exchange between an inclusivist (Wolterstorff) and an
exclusivist (Audi), with rebuttals.
Bellah, Robert N. “American Civil Religion.” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences96.1 (1967): 1-21.
Brighouse, Harry. School Choice and Social Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Portions of this book deal with education for autonomy and religious opposition to such
proposals.
Burtt, Shelley, “Religious Parents, Secular Schools: A Liberal Defense of Illiberal
Education” The Review of Politics 56.1 (1994): 51-70.
Callan, Eomann, Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1997.
An exploration of civic education in light of Rawlsian political liberalism.
Carter, Stephen L. The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize
Religious Devotion. New York: Basic Books, 1993.
Clanton, J. Caleb. Religion and Democratic Citizenship: Inquiry and Conviction in the
American Public Square. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007.
Coleman, John A., ed. Christian Political Ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2007.
A collection of essays on political topics from a wide array of Christian traditions.
Cuneo, Terence, ed. Religion in the Liberal Polity. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 2005.
A collection of essays on religion, rights, public deliberation, and related topics.
Dagger, Richard. Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1997.
Dante. De monarchia. Tr. Prue Shaw. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Book 3 of this work concerns the relation (and division) between Church and State.
Eberle, Christopher J. Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002
A thorough critique of the varieties of exclusivism.
Eliot, T. S. “Catholicism and International Order.” Essays, Ancient and Modern. London:
Faber and Faber, 1936.
Eliot, T. S. “The Idea of a Christian Society” and “Notes Toward the Definition of
Culture.” Christianity and Culture. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1967.
Gaus, Gerald F. Justificatory Liberalism: An Essay on Epistemology and Political Theory.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Gaus, Gerald F. “The Place of Religious Belief in Liberal Politics.” In Multiculturalism and
Moral Conflict, edited by Maria Dimova-Cookson. London: Routledge, 2008.
Greenawalt, Kent. Religious Convictions and Political Choice. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1991.
Greenawalt, Kent. Private Consciences and Public Reasons. Oxford: Oxford University
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Gutmann, Amy. Democratic Education. Rev. ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
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Gutmann, Amy. Identity in Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Includes a helpful chapter on religious identity in politics.
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co.,
1994.
Kymlicka, Will. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995.
Kymlicka, Will. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford
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A fine introduction to the field, useful for beginners but detailed enough to interest
experienced readers.
Larmore, Charles. Patterns of Moral Complexity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987.
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Contains extensive discussion of religion and liberal civic education.
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University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.
An influential critique of modernity and the philosophies which (he argues) have given
rise to it.
Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education. Nos. 86-6144, 86-6179, and 87-5024.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. July 9, 1987.
Landmark federal case concerning parental religious objections to particular forms of
education.
Neuhaus, Richard John. The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America.
Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B Eerdmans, 1986.
An influential book among religious conservatives and neoconservatives.
Okin, Susan Moller, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Ed. Joshua Cohen, Matthew
Howard, and Martha C. Nussbaum. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Parts of the discussion in this book concern the status of women in religious minorities.
Perry, Michael J. Under God?: Religious Faith and Liberal Democracy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1971.
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Rorty, Richard. “Religion as Conversation-stopper.” Philosophy and Social Hope. New
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Sandel, Michael J. Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998.
A thorough critique of Rawlsian liberalism from a broadly communitarian perspective,
although Sandel has tended to resist that label.
Scruton, Roger. The Meaning of Conservatism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980.
Stout, Jeffrey. Democracy and Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Talisse, Robert B. Democracy After Liberalism: Pragmatism and Deliberative Politics.
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Weithman, Paul J., ed. Religion and Contemporary Liberalism. Notre Dame, IN: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1997.
This collection of essays concerns many aspects of the intersection of religion and
politics.
Weithman, Paul J.. Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002.
Argues that religion has positive contributions to make toward civic ends.
Wisconsin v. Yoder. Nos. 70-110. United States Supreme Court. May 15, 1972.
An important case concerning the right of Amish parents to exempt their children from
the requirement to attend school up to a specified age.

Author Information
Christopher Callaway
Email: ccallaway@sjcme.edu
Saint Joseph’s College of Maine
U. S. A.