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Religious Liberty and Human Rights: Their Origin, Their Development in the Anglo-American Legal Tradition, and Why They Are Still Needed - Discussed: The Blessings of Liberty: Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the Western Legal Tradition. By John WitteJr . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 316. $110.00 (cloth); $29.99 (paper); $24.00 (digital). ISBN: 9781108429207.
Review products
Discussed: The Blessings of Liberty: Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the Western Legal Tradition. By John WitteJr . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 316. $110.00 (cloth); $29.99 (paper); $24.00 (digital). ISBN: 9781108429207.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 January 2023
Abstract
John Witte, Jr.’s book The Blessings of Liberty contains an important message about the origins and continuing relevance of religious liberty. Based on careful historical analysis of the development of religious liberty in England and the US, Witte demonstrates the importance of Protestant thinking both to the right and to human rights more generally. In the process he refutes both Christian and post-Enlightenment sceptics. His discussion of contemporary US and European law shows how much the right is still needed today, despite the claims of contemporary scholars that freedom of religion and belief is a redundant right.
Keywords
- Type
- Book Review Symposium: John Witte, Jr.: The Past, Present and Future of a Law and Religion Trailblazer
- Information
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University
References
1 See in the United Kingdom the Conservative government’s Bill of Rights Bill 2022–23, HC Bill [117], https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0117/220117.pdf.
2 Readers familiar with Witte’s work will recognize a reprise of the some of the arguments from an earlier book that focuses on Calvin and his successors: Witte, John Jr., The Reformation of Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.
3 Adams, John, “Diary, with Passages from an Autobiography,” in The Works of John Adams, the Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustrations, ed. Adams, Charles Francis, 10 vols. (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1850)Google Scholar, 2:399, quoted in Witte, Blessings of Liberty, 10n5.
4 See Ahdar, Rex and Leigh, Ian, “Is Establishment Consistent with Religious Freedom?,” McGill Law Journal 49, no. 3 (2004): 635–81Google Scholar.
5 Witte, John, Jr., Nichols, Joel A., and Garnett, Richard W., Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment, 5th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Nathan Chapman’s discussion of Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment elsewhere in this review symposium. Nathan S. Chapman, “American Religious Liberty without (Much) Theory,” Journal of Law and Religion 38, no. 1 (2022) (this issue).
6 Referring to the work of Steven D. Smith, Winnifred Sullivan, Phillip Hamburger, and Brian Leiter among others.
7 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc, 573 U.S. 682 (2014) (allowing a closely held corporation protection under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act); Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 138 S. Ct. 1719 (2018).
8 Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 172 (2012); Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, 140 S. Ct. 2246 (2020); Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, 563 U.S. 125 (2011); Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, 137 S. Ct. 2012 (2017); Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020).
9 The chapter constitutes a modified version, in response to the arguments of critics, of Witte, John Jr., “Tax Exemption of Church Property: Historical Anomaly or Valid Constitutional Practice?,” Southern California Law Review 64, no. 2 (1991): 363–415Google Scholar.
10 Kokkinakis v. Greece, 17 Eur. H.R. Rep. 397 (1993) (holding that the applicant’s conviction under a law prohibiting religious proselytism violated Article 9).
11 97 Members of the Gldani Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and 4 Others v. Georgia, 46 Eur. H.R. Rep. 30 (2008).
12 Also animal welfare and ritual slaughter, state aid, and free movement of persons.
13 Discussing two decisions on animal slaughter: Case C-426/16, Liga van Moskeeën en Islamatische Provincie Antwerpen and Others, ECLI-EU:C:2018:335 (May 29, 2018); and Centraal Israëlitisch Consistorie van België and Others v. Vlaamse Regering, ECLI-EU:C:2020:1031 (Dec. 17, 2020).
14 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Nov. 4, 1950, as amended by Protocol 11, European Treaty Series, no. 5 [hereafter, ECHR].
15 See further Leigh, Ian and Masterman, Roger, Making Rights Real: The Human Rights Act in Its First Decade (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008)Google Scholar; the contributions in Masterman, Roger and Leigh, Ian, eds., The UK’s Statutory Bill of Rights: Constitutional and Comparative Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).
16 “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” ECHR, article 9(1).
17 2005-XI Eur. Ct. H.R. 173 (2005) (Grand Chamber) (holding that a prohibition on wearing the Islamic headscarf at a Turkish university did not violate Article 9).
18 2014-III Eur. Ct. H.R. 341 (Grand Chamber) (finding that French legislation prohibiting the wearing of face coverings in public places legitimately pursued the objective of vivre ensemble).
19 2011-III Eur. Ct. H.R. 61 (Grand Chamber) (holding that the display of crucifixes in Italian state schools did not violate the right of a parent to have her children educated in accordance with her religious and philosophical convictions (taken in conjunction with Article 9)). See Ahdar, Rex and Leigh, Ian, “Post-secularism and the European Court of Human Rights; or How God Never Really Went Away,” Modern Law Review 75, no. 6 (2012): 1064–98Google Scholar.