Religion is a prominent legal force despite the premise constructed and promoted by Western constitutionalism that it must be separated from the State in democracies. Education constitutes an area of human life that leaves ample scope for the expression of religious identity and shapes the citizens of the future. It is also the place of origin of a considerable number of normative conflicts involving religious identity that arise today in multicultural settings. The book deals with the interplay of law and religion in education through the versatility of religious law and legal pluralism, as well as religion’s possible adaptation and reconciliation with modernity, in order to consider and reflect on normative conflicts. It adopts the angle of the constitutional dimension of religion narrated in a comparative perspective and critically reflects on regulatory attempts by the State and the international community to promote new ways of living together.

This book is devoted to the study of the interplay between religious rules and State law. It explores how State recognition of religious rules can affect the degree of legal diversity that is available to citizens and why such recognition sometime results in more individual and collective freedom and sometime in a threat to equality of citizens before the law. The first part of the book contains a few contributions that place this discussion within the wider debate on legal pluralism. While State law and religious rules are two normative systems among many others, the specific characteristics of the latter are at the heart of tensions that emerge with increasing frequency in many countries. The second part is devoted to the analysis of about twenty national cases that provide an overview of the different tools and strategies that are employed to manage the relationship between State law and religious rules all over the world.

Although it is often charged with hostility toward religion, First Amendment doctrine in fact treats religion as a distinctive human good. It insists, however, that this good be understood abstractly, without the state taking sides on any theological question. Here, a leading scholar of constitutional law explains the logic of this uniquely American form of neutrality—more religion-centered than liberal theorists propose, and less overtly theistic than conservatives advocate. The First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion is under threat. Growing numbers of critics, including a near-majority of the Supreme Court, seem ready to cast aside the ideal of American religious neutrality. Andrew Koppelman defends that ideal and explains why protecting religion from political manipulation is imperative in an America of growing religious diversity. Understanding American religious neutrality, Koppelman shows, can explain some familiar puzzles. How can Bible reading in public schools be impermissible while legislative sessions begin with prayers, Christmas is an official holiday, and the words “under God” appear in the Pledge of Allegiance? Are faith-based social services, public financing of religious schools, or the teaching of intelligent design constitutional? Combining legal, historical, and philosophical analysis, Koppelman shows how law coherently navigates these conundrums. He explains why laws must have a secular legislative purpose, why old, but not new, ceremonial acknowledgments of religion are permitted, and why it is fair to give religion special treatment.

Contemporary nation-states have seen the rise of religious pluralism within their borders, brought about by global migration and the challenge of radical religious movements. Secular States and Religious Diversity explores the meaning of secularism and religious freedom in these new contexts. The contributors chart the impact of globalization, the varying forms of secularism in Western states, and the different kinds of relations between states and religious institutions in the historical traditions and contemporary politics of Islamic, Indic, and Chinese societies. They also examine the limitations and dilemmas of governmental responses to religious diversity, and grapple with the question of how secular states deal (and should deal) with such pluralism. This volume brings in perspectives from the non-Western world and engages with viewpoints that might increase states’ capacities to accommodate religious diversity positively.

Issues of religious diversity in the workplace have become very topical and have been raised before domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights. Examining the controversial and constantly evolving position of religion in the workplace, this collection brings together chapters by legal and social science scholars and provides a wealth of information on legal responses across Europe, Turkey and the United States to conflicts between professional and religious obligations involving employees and employers. The contributors examine how case law from the European Court of Human Rights, domestic experiences and comparative analyses can indicate trends and reveal established and innovative approaches. This multi-perspective volume will be relevant for legal practitioners, researchers, academics and policy-makers interested in human rights law, discrimination law, labour law and the intersection of law and religion.

This book explores the recent trend toward the transformation of religious symbols and practices into culture in Western democracies. Analyses of three legal cases involving religion in the public sphere are used to illuminate this trend: a municipal council chamber; a town hall; and town board meetings. Each case involves a different national context—Canada, France and the United States—and each illustrates something interesting about the shape-shifting nature of religion, specifically its flexibility and dexterity in the face of the secular, the religious and the plural. Despite the differences in national contexts, in each instance religion is transformed into culture or heritage by the courts to justify or excuse its presence and to distance the state from the possibility that it is violating legal norms of distance from religion. The cultural practice or symbol is represented as a shared national value or activity. Transforming the ‘Other’ into ‘Us’ through reconstitution is also possible. Finally, anxiety about the ‘Other’ becomes part of the story of rendering religion as culture, resulting in the impugning of anyone who dares to question the putative shared culture. The book will be essential reading for students, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of sociology of religion, religious studies, socio-legal studies, law and public policy, constitutional law, religion and politics, and cultural studies.

One of the great tasks, perhaps the greatest, weighing on modern international lawyers is to craft a universal law and legal process capable of ordering relations among diverse people with differing religions, histories, cultures, laws, and languages. In so doing, we need to take the world's peoples as we find them and not pretend out of existence their wide variety. This volume builds on the eleven essaysedited by Mark Janis in 1991 in The Influence of Religion and the Development of International Law, more than doubling its authors and essays and covering more religious traditions. Now included are studies of the interface between international law and ancient religions, Confucianism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as essays addressing the impact of religious thought on the literature and sources of international law, international courts, and human rights law.

This book examines major conceptual challenges confronting freedom of religion or belief in contemporary settings. It will be a valuable resource for students, academics, and policy-makers with an interest in law, religion, and human rights.

In recent years, law and religion scholarship in Canada has grown significantly. This distinctive collection of 18 papers addresses, from a variety of angles, the jurisdiction and the limits of law ¿ an important but often overlooked aspect of settling the boundaries of church and state, religion and law. The volume draws the insights of 19 authoritative contributors of diverse background and examines changes in the role and meaning of religion in society, the dimensions of law and religion and finally, the conflicts between freedom of religion and other freedoms as looked upon as fundamental rights of a liberal society.

This book provides a multidisciplinary and comparative look at the contemporary phenomenon of conscientious objection or contestation in the name of religion and examines the key issues that emerge in terms of citizenship and democracy. These are analysed by looking at the different ways of challenging or contesting a legal obligation on the grounds of religious beliefs and convictions. The authors focus on the meaning of conscientious objection which asserts the legitimacy of convictions — in particular religious convictions — in determining the personal or collective relevance of the law and of public action. The book begins by examining the main theoretical issues underlying conscientious objection, exploring the implications of the protection of freedom of conscience, the place of religion in the secular public sphere, and the recognition and respect of ethical pluralism in society. It then focuses on the question of exemptions and contestations of civil norms, using a multidisciplinary approach to highlight the multiple and diverse issues surrounding them, as well as the motives behind them. This book will be of great interest to scholars, specialists, and graduate and advanced undergraduate students who are interested in issues of religious diversity. Researchers and policymakers in think-tanks, NGOs and government units will find the volume useful in helping to identify key issues in understanding the phenomenon of conscientious objection and its implications in managing ethical diversity in contemporary societies.