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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The Rules of Engagement: Identifying the Defining Features of the European Union’s Sui Generis Model of Religion-State Relations

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Fearghas O’Beara is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Religion, Human Values, and International Relations at Dublin City University and is head of the European Parliament Liaison Office in Ireland. This post is based on chapter 5 of his book The European Union and Religion: The Supranational Meets the Supernatural (Routledge 2026).

On 1 July 2026, Ireland took over from Cyprus the six-monthly rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, convening and presiding over the governments of the 27 EU member states until the end of 2026. On 7 July, Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin, presented his government’s legislative program to the plenary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, under three broad themes indicative of the current challenges facing the Union in an increasingly volatile geo-political context: competitiveness, security, and values. Two days later Prime Minister Martin met at Government Buildings in Dublin to discuss this program with representatives of Europe’s main Christian churches.

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