Almost everyone today affirms the importance and merit of religious liberty. But religious liberty is being challenged by new questions (for example, use of the niqab or church adoption services for same-sex couples) and new forces (such as globalization and Islamism). Combined, these make the meaning of religious liberty in the twenty-first century uncertain. This collection of essays by ten of the world's leading scholars on religious liberty takes aim at these issues. The book is arranged around five specific challenges to religious liberty today: the state's responsibility to prevent coercion and intimidation of believers by others within the same faith community; the US's basic moral responsibilities to promote religious liberty abroad; how to understand and apply the traditional right of conscientious objection in today's circumstances; the distinctive problems presented by globalization; and the viability today of an 'originalist' interpretation of the First Amendment religion clauses.

“This is a remarkable set of essays, deftly designed: each essay does deliver something distinctive; each one offers a clear account of the field, or that part of the problem that it is marking off for a concentrated inquiry. Each one delivers news—it alerts even the professional reader to things he might not have known, articles or books he might not have seen, and connections that might not have struck him while he was awaiting epiphanies on his own. And each one, in its own way, has some sober, sound judgments to register on different parts of the problem of religion, the law and politics. Gerard Bradley has assembled an all-star ensemble of writers and teachers, older and younger, all bringing the experience of reflection matured over many years on the vexing issues of revelation and reason, religion and the law.” — Hadley Arkes, Amherst College

“With religious freedom facing new threats from many directions, this collection of essays comes at an opportune moment. Its ten essays by distinguished experts are packed with fresh insights into the principal challenges at home and abroad.” — Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University

“This splendid collection of essays could not be more timely. At home and abroad, important religious freedoms are in jeopardy. In some cases, the threats are from aggressive forms of secularism; in others, they are from theocratic forces. So now is the time for careful, critical, sober reflection on the nature and proper scope of religious liberty and how to protect it. In Challenges to Religious Liberty in the 21st Century, Gerard V. Bradley—himself an eminent theorist of religious freedom—brings together some of our nation’s most gifted political philosophers and constitutional law scholars to offer such reflection.” — Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University

“A stimulating, accessible, and valuable volume on some of the increasingly important questions surrounding religious freedom.” — John Keown, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University

“Religious freedom is still a fundamental cornerstone of civilization. Some treatments of this subject excel in the depth of their legal awareness, judicial casuistry, and historical sophistication. Others excel in breadth of understanding about the world at large. This fine book does both. Its patient, searching, grounded, and exceedingly well informed chapters reach an unusually high level of legal, historical, and moral reasoning on a subject as historically significant as it is globally relevant.” — Mark A. Noll, University of Notre Dame; co-editor, Religion and American Politics