The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Philosophically Pragmatic Account of Church-State Constitutional Arrangements

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David Kenny is Professor in Law and Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. This post is based on a presentation given at “The Role of Religion in Constitutional Identity,” a workshop cosponsored by the ICLRS, Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Law, and the Journal of Law, Religion and State at Christ Church, University of Oxford, 15–16 July 2026.

This post explores the question of whether, and in what conditions, a state might establish an official religion while still guaranteeing freedom for minority religions. I address this question by advancing a (very brief) case for an approach to church-state arrangements and religious freedom based on philosophical pragmatism that offers a clear—if not necessarily immediately helpful—answer. The please excuse the fact that the arguments presented below are necessarily succinct, due to the constraints of the blog format.

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Is Bosnia and Herzegovina Discriminating Against Its Largest Religious Group by Refusing to Sign an Agreement with the Islamic Community?

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Harun Išerić is a senior teaching and research assistant at the University of Sarajevo—Faculty of Law. He is also a member of the Freedom of Religion Commission established by the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

When Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) adopted its Law on Freedom of Religion in 2004, it established the principles of separation between the state and religious communities, state neutrality toward all religious communities, equal treatment of religious communities before the law, and cooperation through agreements between the state (including its subnational units) and religious communities. The latter agreements are intended to regulate “issues of common interest.” This framework has led scholars to describe the relationship between the state and religious communities as one of “separation with cooperation.”

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Constitutional Rights Symmetry: Thomas Berg’s Evolution of Opinion on Obergefell v. Hodges

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In the video, Thomas Berg, the author of Religious Liberty in a Polarized Age and professor of law at University of St. Thomas School of Law, explains his evolution of opinion on same-sex marriage. While initially he supported same-sex marriage as a matter of policy important for both conservatives and liberals, he eventually began viewing it as a constitutional right—the recognition of which is important not only for same-sex couples but also for symmetrical religious freedom protection.

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