Academic

Conkle on Locke & Religious Liberty

By Lawrence Solum

Daniel O. Conkle (Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington) has posted Religious Truth, Pluralism, and Secularization: The Shaking Foundations of American Religious Liberty (Cardozo Law Review, Vol. 32, 2011) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

In this Essay, I recount John Locke?s 1689 Letter Concerning Toleration and explain how religious liberty continues to rest on Lockean and related justifications. These various justifications depend in part on religious-moral reasoning (both Christian and non-Christian) and in part on political-pragmatic considerations. I then discuss recent and ongoing developments in the American religious landscape, including a radical increase in religious diversity, the modernization of traditional faiths, the individualization or "spiritualization" of religion, and the increasing secularization of individual belief structures. I suggest that these developments, over time, may seriously threaten the underlying religious-moral and political-pragmatic foundations of religious liberty and therefore America?s commitment to religious liberty as a fundamental value. If I am correct, the long-term future of American religious liberty may be in peril.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on January 14, 2011 (boomark / email).