Why Religious Freedom Matters to Us

G.S. “Mack” McCarter III is founder and coordinator of Community Renewal International and an ordained minister of the Disciples of Christ denomination. The following post is based on his address at the ICLRS Religious Freedom Annual Review, 17 June 2025, at Brigham Young University.

Religious Freedom: An On-Ramp onto the Highway of God

I’ve been asked to speak about “Why Religious Freedom Matters to Me.” But in light of the conference, and with the organizers’ connivance, I simply have to change the title. And that is to move from me to we, and from I to us, because that really reflects the power of this conference.

So, why does religious freedom matter to us? And of course, we answer that religious freedom really is the regnant power that can change the direction of humanity and move us to a place talked about in Isaiah chapter 11—where peace, joy, and love can fill this entire globe and all of humanity; where the wolf lives with the lamb; where the bear eats hay with the cow; and where the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, even as the waters cover the sea.[1]

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By Sufferance, Not by Right: Indigenous Spirituality and Religious Freedom in Australia

Jeremy Patrick is a senior lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland School of Law and Justice. This post is based on a presentation given at the ICLRS 32nd Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, 7 October 2025.

The post is the part of the Religious Freedom and Indigenous Rights series

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have maintained a deep spiritual connection to the land and waterways of what we now call Australia for at least 65,000 years.[1] Although it is impossible to do justice to the importance and complexity of the legal protection of Indigenous spirituality in Australia, the short overview that follows is intended to articulate a key, if unfortunate, thesis: there is little in the way of constitutional safeguards for the religious freedom of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Instead, such protections must come through legislative and regulatory instruments, which can be, and sometimes are, withdrawn by the federal and state governments due to political considerations. As we will see, the precarious nature of these protections, which can ebb and flow with the political winds, are an unfortunate legacy of decades of unduly narrow interpretations of the Australian Constitution.

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Localizing Justice: Law and Legality on the State’s Periphery in Kyrgyzstan

Natalia Alenkina is an associate professor at the American University of Central Asia. This post is based on a presentation given at the ICLRS 32nd Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, 7 October 2025.

The post is a part of the Religious Law and Human Rights series.

In societies where formal institutions are weak, justice often depends less on the codified enforcement of laws and more on the ability of communities to sustain trust, moral responsibility, and social inclusion. The courts of aksakals in Kyrgyzstan—community-based bodies composed of respected elders—embody this ongoing search for balance between legality and morality, state authority and community cohesion, and secular justice and religiously informed values.

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