Nicholas Aroney is a professor of constitutional law at The University of Queensland, a senior fellow of the Centre for Law and Religion at Emory University, and a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of Law. The following post is based on his remarks during the panel “Understanding Religious Freedom: Why Does It Matter?” at the ICLRS 31st Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, 7 October 2024.

We live in a time when it is especially important to understand religious freedom and why it matters. There are places today where religious freedom is not regarded as a constitutional principle either because the official policy of the state is to enforce a form of secular atheism or because the official policy is to enforce a particular religion to the exclusion of all others.

There are also many places where the principle of religious freedom is acknowledged in principle but undermined in practice. In many such countries, there remain high levels of government or social discrimination on the basis of religion, including in the liberal democracies of the modern West, as Jonathan Fox has shown.[1]

In these countries, as in others, freedom of religion faces challenges when human rights appear to be in tension with each other, particularly when other human rights are given priority over religious freedom, either in the law, in the enforcement of the law, or in the resolution of rights conflicts by human rights agencies or courts.[2]

In the world of scholarship, some voices argue that religious freedom is a redundant right on the basis that rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association provide sufficient protection to the interests of religious believers.[3]

In these varying contexts, religious freedom is under threat. We need to understand religious freedom and why it matters.

This question of religious freedom can be addressed in three ways. We can ask why religious freedom matters for individuals, why it matters for religious groups, and why it matters for societies. This threefold set of questions gives rise to three key theses about freedom of religion.

Why Religious Freedom Matters for Individuals

The first of the three theses is that freedom of religion is an essential condition of individual human flourishing.

The key premise underlying this thesis is that human beings are rational and responsible agents. This is a widely shared proposition.

As rational and responsible agents, human beings have an interest in pursuing truths about the world and their place and purpose within it. King David of Israel gave eloquent expression to this universal human longing when he exclaimed:

When I look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

(Psalm 8:3–8, ESV).

These profound reflections call us to a personal commitment to live in accord with our place and purpose in the world.

International human rights law has long recognized that religious belief is necessarily associated with religious practice. Religious believers manifest their faith in worship, teaching, and observance (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18).

As rational and responsible agents, human beings can only pursue such truths about the world and our place and purpose within it under conditions of freedom of thought, belief, observance, and practice. When individuals are coerced, their capacity to exercise agency is a fortiori compromised. This coercion can occur when individuals are obliged to act in a manner that violates their conscience, as well as when they are prohibited from acting as their conscience requires.

Why Religious Freedom Matters for Religious Groups

The second of the three theses is that freedom of religion is ordinarily exercised in community with others. At least three premises support this conclusion.

First, the pursuit of truths about the world and our place and purpose within it is a common human enterprise. All human beings share a common human nature as rational and responsible agents. It is a feature of our shared humanity that we are intrigued by the mystery of this world and of our place and purpose within it. The pursuit of the truth about these matters is a shared human enterprise in which we engage together.

Second, truths about our place and purpose within the world concern our relationships and interactions with one another. Human beings are not only rational and responsible but also social and political. As social and political creatures, our place and purpose within the world is accordingly communal in nature. We pursue truths about the world and our place and purpose within it in community with others.

Third, and as a consequence of the foregoing, human beings form communities based on shared commitments to truths about these matters. As rational and responsible agents, we make commitments to the truths of which we are convinced and convicted. As social and political creatures, we do so in relationship and community with others.

These premises point to the importance and necessity of collective freedom of thought, belief, and practice. Just as individuals can only pursue truths about the world and our place and purpose within it under conditions of freedom of religion, so likewise religious groups can only do so under conditions of collective freedom of thought, belief, observance, and practice. This collective freedom means that religious communities can govern themselves according to their religious convictions, exercising a kind of collective religious autonomy concerning the management of their religious affairs.

Communities of faith are united around shared convictions that they seek to put into practice. They do this by establishing organizations of a certain character. The capacity of religious communities to maintain the integrity and character of their institutions and organizations is an essential element of their religious freedom. In this way, religious freedom is an associational and collective right, enabling religious communities to govern themselves according to their religious convictions.

Why Religious Freedom Matters for Societies

The third thesis is that societies benefit from the free exercise of religion.

Again, a series of interrelated reasons explains why this is the case.

The underlying premise is that societies flourish when the individuals and groups within them flourish. Because individuals and groups flourish under conditions of religious freedom, it follows that societies flourish under conditions of religious freedom. The point here is not that mere diversity of belief is in itself a public good. Indeed, there are limits to which a society can hold together under conditions of religious diversity if there are no common commitments by which the society is held together.

The point, rather, is that just as genuine religious belief cannot be coerced, so do societies benefit from the free pursuit of truths about the world and our place and purpose within it. These truths concern our relationships and interactions with one another. The pursuit of these truths thus contributes to how we live together: in families, neighborhoods, villages, towns, cities, and nations. In this way, societies benefit from the religious freedom that enables this multidimensional societal flourishing to occur.

References:

[1] Jonathan Fox, Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me: Why Governments Discriminate Against Religious Minorities (Cambridge Univ. Press 2020).

[2] E.g., Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. Civil Rights Comm’n, 584 U.S. 617 (2018).

[3] Brian Leiter, Why Tolerate Religion? (Princeton Univ. Press, rev. ed. 2012).