Church, State, and Religious Education: Explaining Different Shifts in Europe

Leni Franken is a senior researcher and teacher assistant at the University of Antwerp (Belgium)

This text is a summary of a recent article entitled “Church, State and RE in Europe: Past, Present and Future”, published in Religion & Education

Until the 1970s, Religious Education (RE) in Europe was mainly organized in a denominational and confessional way and aimed at religious socialization in one religious (Christian) tradition. For a long time, this model of mono-confessional RE was not disputed: even though non-Christian religions (for instance Judaism, Islam, and several Eastern traditions) and atheism had some presence in Europe before the 1960s, the majority of citizens belonged to a Christian denomination, and it was the norm to have Christian RE at school.

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Law, Religion, and Freedom: Conceptualizing a Common Right: A New Book Considers Issues Critical to Our Times

Donlu Thayer is a Senior Fellow at the International Center for Law and Religion Studies. Before her retirement at the end of 2019, she was the Center’s Publications Director. This blogpost is modified from Thayer’s Introduction to Law, Religion, and Freedom: Conceptualizing a Common Right, which she edited with Cole Durham and Javier Martínez-Torrón, recently released by Routledge as part of its ICLARS Series on Law and Religion.

In September 2016, some 150 international experts in law and religion from 37 countries met at St. Hugh’s College in Oxford for the fourth conference of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS). The event was co-sponsored by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) of BYU Law School, by the Religion, Law and International Relations Programme of the Centre for Christianity and Culture of Regent’s Park College, Oxford, and by the University of Milan.

The conference was organized with attention to the theme ‘Freedom of/for/from/within Religion: Differing Dimensions of a Common Right?’  Two books were developed from papers delivered at the conference and from subsequent conversations related to the theme: Religious Freedom and the Law: Emerging Contexts for Freedom for and from Religion, edited by Brett Scharffs, Asher Maoz, and Ashley Woolley, and the book introduced here, which provides conceptual frameworks for and queries aspects of the theme.

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‘Because of Sex’: The Coming Battle between the Free Exercise Clause and the Equality Act

Christine M. Venter is a Teaching Professor at Notre Dame Law School and Affiliated Faculty in Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame

The Equality Act has had a long and arduous history in its quest to become law. The Act was first introduced in 1974 by Congresswoman Bella Abzug, who was determined to end discrimination on account of “sex, marital status, and sexual orientation” in employment, housing, and public accommodations. Although that effort failed, the Act was reintroduced in 2019 and passed the House by a vote of 276 in favor to 173 opposed. Under the leadership of Mitch McConnell, the Senate declined to move it forward for a vote.

Enter the Supreme Court, and Justice Gorsuch’s majority opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, in June 2020, that Title VII’s prohibition on discrimination “because of … sex,” extended to sexual orientation and gender identity. Although the Court specifically limited its analysis to Title VII, focusing only on the employment discrimination claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity that were before the Court and not on any other area of federal law, both supporters and opponents of equality for the LGBTQ+ community were quick to question the case’s impact.

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