Varieties of Religious Establishment (Ashgate Ahrc/Esrc Religion and Society)

During the past decade attention to the topic of religious freedom has grown exponentially. Examining the various forms religious establishment takes globally, from both theoretical and practical perspectives, this book argues that legal protections for religious freedom only make sense in a context of socially and culturally specific constraints. Leading international scholars from a diverse range of disciplines explore how countries today manage religious diversity. Rather than adopting the common assumption that religious freedom is incompletely realized, the authors argue that the starting point should be what has historically been seen in the United States as freedom's evil twin - religious establishment. In the hyper-globalized world of the politics of religious freedom today, a focus on establishment brings into view background cultural assumptions, cosmologies, anthropologies, and institutions which are used to manage religion, as well as internal and external religious diversity. Establishment further reveals the limitations of universal, multicultural, and interfaith models. Disestablishment is impossible, as is religious freedom.