Religious Freedom: Historical Perspectives

Religious Freedom:Historical Perspectives

Gary B. DoxeyInternational Center for Law and Religion

Studies at BYU

June 23, 2011

Lord Acton, 1834-1902

[F]ree government . . . can only be the fruit of long, manifold, and painful experience.Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

What is Religious Freedom?

Tension between Competing Ideas

• A dynamic of history since ancient times.

• Often in the form of old versus new ideas.

• Tension greatest when ideas challenge authority.

• E.g., Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642.

Quick Personal Observations

• Religious freedom is a very rare thing in human history.• Its price has usually been very high.

Religious Freedom in History: Four Patterns of Evolution

1. Conversion of a ruler who proclaims freedom of belief and practice for the new religion – often replaced in the next generation by intolerance for the old religion.

2. Religious conflict (really exhaustion from conflict) leading to a modus vivendi of some tolerance.

3. Introduction of new ideas through trade, proselytism, conquest, or immigration, resulting in attitudes of pluralism.

4. Intellectual and political commitment to freedom.

The Traditional Narrative of Freedom:The Reformation

Luther Calvin

Miquel Servet, 1511-1553

Sebastian Castellio, 1515-1563

• His ideas on tolerance resonate positively today

• “To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man.”

The Division of Christendom

1530-1648—A Century of War

Schuilkerk or “Hidden Church”

Treaties: the original Western European form of religious freedom law

• Peace of Augsburg (1555)• Union of Utrecht (1579)• Peace of Westphalia (1648)

Peace of Westphalia, 1648

The Rule

Cuius regio, eius religioWhose region, his religion

The Age of Enlightenment

The Enlightenment and Revolution

Locke Jefferson Madison

Colonial American Pluralism

Old Prejudices Slow to Give Way

Anne Hutchinson on Trial

A Revolutionary Break

Since the Constitution

Declaration of the Rights of Man, 1789

“No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.”

Modern International Human Rights

The Universal Declarationof Human Rights,

1948

Toward a Competent Historyof Religious Freedom

• Elements of “myth,” in a positive sense, are in the historical narrative

• Careful and thoughtful, more nuanced study and analysis are needed

• The need for appreciation and understanding of religious freedom is great “Lest we forget.”