Constitutional Privilege and Constituting Pluralism

Religious Freedom in National, Global, and Legal Context

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2256108
AutoresP Beyer (0000-0003-4168-8668, University of Ottawa, autor correspondente)
Ano2003
Volume42
Fascículo3
Páginas333-339
Data de publicação2003-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal for the Scientific Study of Religion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0021-8294 • E-ISSN: 1468-5906
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1468-5906.00185
OpenAlexW2000356121
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas12
Referências citadas11

Lori Beaman argues that religious freedom in Canada and the United States is well established in theory (or myth) but limited in practice, privileging Protestantism in particular and varieties of Christianity in general. Focusing on the treatment of other religions in the courts of the two countries, she defends the hypothesis that these legal systems tend to reinforce the hegemony of Christianity, using this as an implicit model of what constitutes a religion, and thereby maintaining the marginalization and restricting the freedom of other religions. The present article sets Beaman's arguments in a wider global context, exploring the extent to which Christianity does and does not serve as a global standard for religion; and addressing the question of why issues of religious freedom so frequently end up being the subject of legal judgment and political decision. The main conclusions drawn from this global contextualization are that maintenance of some kind of religious hegemony is the rule all across global society, not just in Canada and the United States, and that unfettered freedom of religion or genuine religious pluralization is correspondingly rare, if it exists anywhere. Moreover, it is argued that such limitations, frequently expressed in legal judgments and political decisions, are more or less to be expected because they flow from the peculiar way that religion has been constructed in the modern and global era as both a privileged and privatized, as both an encompassing and marginalized social domain. The article thereby simultaneously reinforces and takes issue with Beaman's position: the modern and global reconstruction of religion invites its infinite pluralization at the same time as it encourages its politicization and practical restriction. Religions act as important resources both for claims to inclusion and for strategies of relative exclusion

Christianity · Epistemology · Freedom of Religion · Hegemony · Human rights · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies