Preserving Religious Cultural Heritage: Invoking Perspectives on Human Dignity and the Virtues of Religious Freedom

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Brett G. Scharffs is Director of the International Center of Law and Religion Studies and Rex E. Lee Chair and Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University. This post is based on a presentation given at the conference “Promoting Pluralism Through Religious Cultural Heritage Preservation” held at Exeter College, University of Oxford, 18 March 2026.

Religious cultural heritage preservation can be viewed as a human rights issue. But taking a purely human rights approach to religious cultural heritage preservation can be somewhat awkward since human rights are primarily recognized and protected for individuals. Preservation can also be viewed as a property right, but scratch the surface, and you realize it goes much deeper, in part because the property at issue resonates so deeply within communities. And so a rights-based approach may not be the end-all be-all when justifying preservation of religious sites.

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Three Aims of Sociology of Religious Freedom: Toward a New Paradigm of Religious Change

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Giuseppe Giordan is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology at University of Padua (Italy).

This post is a part of a series on the sociology of religious freedom.

The book A Sociology of Religious Freedom coauthored by Olga Breskaya, Giuseppe Giordan, and James T. Richardson invites readers to explore how individuals understand and practice their personal freedom of choice in matters of religion or belief. At its core, the volume looks at how social institutions either create or fail to create the conditions that allow individuals and groups to exercise religious freedom, and what kind of conditions make this freedom easier or harder to realize. For instance, can greater religious pluralism lead to more equitable ways for individuals to perceive and exercise their religious freedom? What roles do religious and judicial institutions play in shaping individuals’ perception and religious exercise, and how do relationships between religion and the state influence them? And perhaps the most complex question of all: how can we measure religious freedom across societies, when it means such different things to different people and groups?

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Why Religious Freedom Matters to Us

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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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