Religion & Democracy:
Interactions, Tensions, Possibilities
Robert Audi
M uch of the world is seeing conflict between people whose views per
mit basing political actions and lawmaking on religious convictions
and people whose democratic values oppose this. Democratic societ
ies are in principle open to the free exercise of religion and, in constitution, they
are characteristically pluralistic in both culture and religion. Religions are highly
variable in their stance toward government, but many of the world’s most popu
lous religions, including Christianity and Islam, are commonly taken to embody
standards of conduct, such as certain prohibitions, that cannot be endorsed by
democratic governments committed to preserving liberty for the religious and the
nonreligious alike. The present age is seeing much discussion of just how far re
ligious liberty should extend in democratic societies and just what role religion
should play in the conduct of citizens.
The most prominent range of problems concerning the tensions between re
ligion–or certain religions or interpretations thereof–and democracy are insti
tutional. They concern the relations that do or should obtain between “church”
and state: between religious institutions or organized religious groups and govern
ment or its agencies. Institutional matters, however, are not the only ones impor
tant for understanding the relation between religion and democracy. Ethics and po
litical theory also extend to standards appropriate to the conduct of individual cit
izens. Here the ethics of citizenship, as it is now sometimes called, focuses on how
individual citizens should understand the role, in civic affairs, of religious convic
tions, especially their own convictions about how human life should be lived. This
concerns not only deciding what to support by one’s votes and public advocacy,
but also how to conduct civic discourse. The essays in this issue of Dædalus–most
of them based on contributions to a seminar sponsored by the Australian Catholic
University in March of 2019–address both institutional questions concerning re
ligion and democracy and the ethics of citizenship as bearing on how individuals,
religious or not, may best regard their role in the political system in which they live.
A n entire book could be devoted to conceptual exploration of either de
mocracy or religion. None of the essays in this issue undertakes that task,
but all of them implicitly conceive religion in a way that avoids narrow
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© 2020 by Robert Audi https://doi.org/10.1162/DAED_a_01800
ness. For instance, none of the authors assumes that a religion must be theistic or
that a democracy must use a particular system for selecting government officials.
This is appropriate, and here the explorations of religion in relation to democra
cy apply to all the commonly accepted instances of both religion and democracy.
One minimal assumption about democracy shared by the authors is that the term
properly applies only where political offices are held on the basis of free elections.
It is more difficult to identify a minimal assumption about religion that is compa
rably shared. But an important assumption for the question of how a given reli
gion is related to democracy is that it has an ethic: a set of standards indicating how
one is to live. This assumption holds for the religions that have been and continue
to be central in discussions concerning democratic governance. It holds for all the
various religions referred to in the essays included here, and its importance is evi
dent throughout the volume.
Stating the ethic of a religion is often very difficult. Even if it seems explicitly
stated in scripture, the relevant texts are likely to exhibit ineliminable vagueness.
It has often been noted, to be sure, that “Do unto others as you would have them
do unto you” has equivalent or roughly equivalent forms in many religions; but it
is highly vague. So is “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which appears in (among
other religious sources) both the Hebrew and the Christian testaments of the Bible.
It is also true that there is no sharp distinction between ethical and religious direc
tives, such as those prescribing certain rituals. Even where their content is overtly
religious, however, directives enshrined in a religion have normative authority for
its practitioners. For at least the orthodox practitioners of certain kinds of reli
gion, it is wrong to act otherwise and to do so is criticizable or even punishable.
Some religious directives–arguably all those that are genuinely moral–are meant
to apply to everyone, including people outside the religion. This holds for the pro
hibitions of killing, lying, and theft that are prominent in many religions.
Inevitably, there will be conflicts between what, for some religions, is obliga
tory or impermissible and what, for some democratic governments, may not be
enforced or prohibited. Prohibitions of divorce and abortion are examples, since
both are considered morally wrong in some religions and a legal right in some
democracies. These conflicts raise two important kinds of questions: first, insti
tutional questions about what laws and practices should bind government and,
second, individual questions about what we, as citizens not holding public office,
should support, either through persuading dissenters to join us or through voting
for laws requiring their conformity to the standard.
S o far, one might think that the relation between religion and democracy is
important only because conflicts are inevitable. That is not so. But is reli
gion of special concern for democratic societies for any similarly important
reasons? There are at least three kinds of consideration indicating that it is.
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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesReligion & Democracy: Interactions, Tensions, Possibilities
Suppose we take seriously the idea that democracy is a form of government
that is, as Abraham Lincoln put it in the Gettysburg address, “of the people, by
the people, for the people.” Surely the “for” here is normative: in any sound dem
ocratic theory, government must serve the people in a sense that entails caring
about their good. This is distinct from, though it entails, caring about their rights.
It also concerns their wellbeing. No specific view of the “common good” is re
quired by the minimal conception of the good of the people in question here, but
support of material wellbeing, at least minimal education, maintenance of cer
tain public goods, and preservation of the conditions for free elections are uncon
troversially included. If we add to this that many pursuits people deeply feel to be
part of their sense of identity deserve protection, then it appears evident that pro
tection of religious liberty may be of special concern for a democracy.1 This is not
to say that only religion can have this status. That seems a mistake. But historically,
few pervasive, interpersonally significant commitments–at least if institutional
ly identifiable–have the role in one’s sense of identity that religion has for those
who are genuinely religious. This is most evident where the religion in question
has an ethic and, with it, a welldeveloped vision of the good life.
A second consideration supporting a special place for religion in democracy
concerns its potentially positive role, by contrast with its need for protection. In
stitutional religions are social and indeed often participatory in the sense that they
provide social roles and call for their fulfillment by groups of people. Some reli
gions are, to be sure, strongly hierarchical in their authority structure; but even
those can encourage or require a measure of partial or local governance. This can
involve planning and directing parish activities, maintaining schools, serving
the poor in or beyond one’s community, and overseas missions with educational
or health care purposes. Such activities may be to some degree democratic, and
they can provide training in, among other things, civic discourse, leadership, and
policyformation.
A third consideration is that religious institutions–and indeed, individuals
representing religiously based ideas and ideals–can be a counterpoise to the pow
er of the state. They can also be a source of diverse elements that can bring to civ
il society ideas and values that might not otherwise be recognized or given due
consideration. If religions have sometimes been coopted by dictatorships, they
have also sometimes been powerful counterforces against tyrannical government,
institutional oppression, and forced conformity to governmentapproved social
norms. Secular ethics and political leadership can yield many of the same valuable
contributions; but particularly where democratic governments are–quite prop
erly–maintaining religious neutrality in their official actions, it is not difficult for
government officials to overlook needs, policies, or normative issues that may be
well articulated by religious citizens constructively participating in civic life. One
issue here is the content of public education; another is the basis and appropri
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149 (3) Summer 2020Robert Audi
ate extent of religious accommodation, from tax exemption to waivers of inocula
tions to freedom from military conscription.
None of these points entails that a special concern with religion is necessary
in every democracy. But the points do strongly support a case for that concern in
the actual world as we have known it since the birth of democracy and, so far as
one can tell, are likely to know it in the foreseeable future. We should be mindful,
however, of nonreligious modes of life that may have or gain a similar status in
democratic thinking. Certainly, we should bear in mind that protections of liber
ty and the general benefits of citizenship should be equally extensive for both the
religious and the nonreligious. But here, too, as in the case of conscientious objec
tion to military conscription in America, accommodating the religious can be the
basis on which the need for broadening liberty rights is realized.
Exemption from military conscription is an accommodation of what is of
ten considered a matter of conscience: religiously based pacifism. If democracies
should not automatically give more weight to religiously based conscientious ob
jections to what would otherwise be a legally enforced burden, should they give
equal weight to all sincere claims of “conscientious” objections? Those who em
phasize “freedom of conscience” as a human right can easily give that impression,
but we should not conclude, nor should democracy presuppose, that there is a
special insightful faculty–whether it is called conscience or something else–that
has high moral authority in its own right. A moral judgment may represent gen
uine insight or deeply felt commitment whether or not it rests on a deliverance
of conscience. Democracy respects our right to hold views of our own regardless
of whether they come from a moral sense that apparently bespeaks conscience,
a coolly reasoned position, a persisting intuition, or a religious view held in def
erence to authority. Democracy does, however, limit what we may do–or be ex
cused from doing–on the basis of our views. This brings us to the delicate matter
of the limits of liberty in democratic societies.
N o simple formula can tell us exactly what liberties a democracy should
protect. In at least the AngloAmerican tradition, however, the “harm
principle,” proposed by J. S. Mill in On Liberty, published in 1859, sketches
one of the most influential standards:
The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern
absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and
control. . . . That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, indi-
vidually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number,
is self-protection . . . to prevent harm to others.2
In relation to religion and democracy, a plausible application of this might be
called the liberty principle: Government should protect religious liberty to the high
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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesReligion & Democracy: Interactions, Tensions, Possibilities
est level possible within a reasonable interpretation of the harm principle.3 Liber
ty in general, and not just religious liberty, is a constitutive standard in any sound
democracy, but, for reasons such as the need to protect citizens’ sense of identity,
this religious liberty principle is one deserving a distinct place in framing demo
cratic constitutions or crafting legislation affecting religion.
The liberty principle is not the only general standard important for churchstate
relations in democratic societies. A government that upholds the liberty principle
may consistently treat different religions differently, at least in countenancing an
established church. This is commonly taken to be undesirable for democracies, if
democratically permissible at all, and there is wide acceptance of an equality princi-
ple. This principle requires that government must treat different religions equally.
The principle thus implies nonestablishment as ordinarily understood: minimally,
as prohibiting official state endorsement or favoritism of any religion or church.
Particularly in a democratic society whose citizens do or would approve of such
establishment, such a principle needs justification, as indeed it does in democratic
theory. The strength of the case for the equality principle heavily depends on the
kind and sociopolitical significance of the establishment in question.4
The multitude of relevant considerations supporting either the liberty princi
ple or, especially, the equality principle cannot be considered here, but in my view
both democracy and religion are better served if the liberty principle is integrat
ed with an equality principle to the effect that (other things equal) government
should treat different religions equally. Other things are not equal if a religion
practices human sacrifice or violates basic human rights. These rights prominent
ly include not only protection from bodily injury but also liberty rights. This is an
indication that the liberty principle is a constraint on the application of the equal
ity principle, as the latter principle may be on the former.
Neutrality among religions does not guarantee neutrality toward religion. If
democratic societies should treat different religions equally, it does not follow
that they endorse governmental neutrality toward religion. Preference for the re
ligious over the secular, for instance, in granting exemptions or determining pub
lic school curricula, would still be possible. Nonetheless, there is a strong case for
a neutrality principle, to the effect that government should not prefer the religious
as such to the secular as such. Such neutrality is commonly understood to rule out
public funding for religious institutions but not for comparable secular ones; but
it does not rule out tax exemptions for religious institutions qua charitable, so long
as secular counterparts receive the same exemption.
T he broad topic of religion and democracy extends not just to standards
for governmental policy in relation to religion but also to normative stan
dards appropriate for religious institutions that aspire to a kind of con
structive citizenship in a democratic society. In broad terms, if the state should
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149 (3) Summer 2020Robert Audi
not interfere with the church, is there a comparable case against the church’s in
terfering in the state? This is a controversial matter. It cannot be supposed that
moral instruction and indeed moral leadership and rolemodeling are outside
the scope of religion–and of childrearing. Indeed, the kinds of rights the liberty
principle must respect–rights prohibiting harms and government policies that
threaten personal development and free expression–protect churches, parents,
and, within limits, educators in public schools from restrictions on (peaceably)
expressing and teaching their moral views.
Nothing said here is meant to imply that moral views are sharply distinguish
able from political views, but, apart from reasonable interpretations of the harm
principle, democratic governments should not prejudge citizens’ moral views by
framing policies that limit the (peaceable) free expression of churches, parents,
teachers, and others. Given this commitment to free expression, and given the
possibility of moral views having political implications, democratic governments
cannot prohibit churches, parents, or, within limits, educators from expressing
and arguing for their moral views. Where these become clearly political in the
sense illustrated by supporting specific candidates for office, government may
withdraw tax exemptions justified by charitable status, but the liberty principle
protects free expression even in cases of this kind.
This conclusion concerning democracy conceived institutionally does not in
the least oppose the idea that ethics constrains churches in relation to govern
ment. A major general point here is that not everything unethical should be ille
gal. If that were not so, the long arm and rough hands of the law could reach into
private life to restrict individuals’ personal behavior toward one another. Grant
ed, that behavior is far too often marred by perfectly legal conduct that exhibits
immorally broken promises or morally reprehensible domination of the weak or
vulnerable in marriage and childhood. For much of this, comprehensive legal en
forcement of morality is not the remedy.
A different example of how ethics may oppose or limit what law must tolerate,
this time in the political realm, is assisted suicide. Suppose a church supports the
view that it is morally wrong to assist in suicide. Preaching that view does not entail
telling people to vote for illegalization, since that adds the threat of legal coercion
to the already protected use of forceful public argument that may dissuade people
from asking for or supporting assisted suicide as a practice. Preaching that view in
moral terms also does not imply that those who accept the view should treat a po
litical position on it as decisive in determining whom to vote for. A political candi
date with whom you disagree on this issue may share your positions on other issues
of at least equal importance to you. The overall conclusion here is that moral po
sitions come in many forms, differ greatly in political scope, and, especially taken
in isolation, may or may not reasonably determine a political stance. The moral
right of free expression limits governmental coercion, but it leaves open how cit
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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesReligion & Democracy: Interactions, Tensions, Possibilities
izens should exercise that right in relation to political matters. Here clergy have
both liberty as individuals and responsibilities as members of a profession: role
obligations that set limits on their official conduct. These two elements can create
conflicts, but surely the clerical responsibility to exercise moral leadership can be
fulfilled without embodying or communicating political directives to parishioners
and others who, in democracies, must exercise their freedom at the ballot box.
E ven a good account of how religion and democracy should be related insti
tutionally leaves much open regarding the ethics of citizenship: the standards
appropriate to guide citizens in their sociopolitical conduct, particularly
where their religious convictions favor some specific legislation affecting citizens
with opposing views. A central question here is what kinds of reasons citizens in
democracies should take as a basis of political decisions and, especially, for votes
favoring laws or public policies that restrict liberty. Some principles most widely
known in recent decades come from John Rawls. Among his many formulations
of broad standards constitutive of political liberalism is this judicial principle:
[T]he court’s role is not merely defensive but to give due and continuing effect to pub-
lic reason by serving as its institutional exemplar. Public reason is the sole reason the
court exercises. It is the only branch of government that is visibly on its face the crea-
ture of that reason and that alone.5
Immediately following this he clarifies its scope by proposing a more permis
sive principle for nonjudicial citizens: “Citizens and legislators may properly vote
their more comprehensive [e.g., religious] views when constitutional essentials
and basic justice are not at stake.”6
Commentators have found it difficult to determine what should constitute pub
lic reason, but there is no doubt that–both in Rawls and in much work using the
term in discussing him or pursuing political theory more generally–public rea
son represents a mode of thought and argumentation that, negatively, does not
depend on either religion or some particular ideological or philosophical theory
and, positively, is governed by standards appropriate to constructing and inter
preting constitutions. Rawls’s notion of a “comprehensive” view is also in need
of analysis not possible here; but it is safe to say that it includes the worldviews of
such major religions as the “Abrahamic” triad of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
It presumably need not exclude positions that are simply comprehensive in scope,
in a descriptive sense, provided they do not embody commitments to highly spe
cific standards of conduct, such as standards for divorce, dietary restrictions, ar
chitectural patterns, and dress codes.
Rawls has qualified the quoted (nonjudicial) permissive standard in many
ways. The same lecture countenances exceptions to this standard (for nonjudicial
citizens) provided they “vote their comprehensive views” “in ways that strength
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149 (3) Summer 2020Robert Audi
en the ideal of public reason itself,” as might be illustrated by using a religion’s
ethical texts to fight injustice of a kind definable in nonreligious terms, such as
unfair restrictions on voter registration.7 Indeed, in the preface to a later edition
of the same book, Political Liberalism, Rawls says (in what he considers a significant
revision of an earlier formulation) that reasonable comprehensive doctrines “may
be introduced in public reason [including decisionmaking in at least nonjudicial
governmental contexts] at any time provided that in due course public reasons,
given by a reasonable political conception, are presented sufficient to support
whatever the comprehensive doctrines are introduced to support.”8
A plausible and quite different standard, proposed by Kent Greenawalt (but
perhaps in some ways anticipating Rawls’s most permissive formulation) is that
Legislation must be justified in terms of secular objectives, but when people reason-
ably think that shared premises of justice and criteria for determining truth cannot
resolve critical questions of fact, fundamental questions of value, or the weighing of
competing benefits and harms, they do properly rely on religious convictions that help
them answer these questions.9
Given how common such judgments of irresolubility are, this principle is quite
permissive in sometimes allowing religious convictions to determine law and pol
icy without explicit restrictions on content or source. The principle does, however,
require a reasonable judgment that shared premises cannot resolve the relevant ques
tion; and it apparently requires that actual legislation “be justified in terms of secu
lar reasons.” This overall standard fits well both with Rawls’s emphasis on the need
for nonpublic reasons to be introduced in a way that will “strengthen the ideal of”
public reason, and with his later requirement that public reasons be introduced “in
due course” for what might be legislated on the basis of other kinds of reasons. The
question remains how far–if at all–Greenawalt’s position would allow lawmaking
that is supported by religious reasons and not clearly justifiable by secular reasons.
A still more permissive position on basing political decisions on religious consid
erations is philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff’s view that citizens may “use whatev
er reasons they find appropriate,” though he endorses three kinds of restraints:
When I say “Let citizens use whatever reasons they find appropriate,” I do not by any
means want to be understood as implying that no restraints whatever are appropriate.
. . . [F]irst . . . on the manner of discussion and debate in the public square. . . . Second, the
debates, except for extreme circumstances, are to be conducted in accord with the rules
provided by the laws of the land. . . . Third, there is a restraint on the overall goal of debates
and discussion. . . . [It is] political justice, not the achievement of one’s own interests.10
This view allows that legislators might not have any secular reason for passing
a law–unless, perhaps, the goal of political justice requires their having some sec
ular reason, as one might reasonably think. Certainly Wolterstorff intends that
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civility and respect in the manner of political discussion and in political justice as
its goal will rule out much that other thinkers would rule out more directly. But he
leaves open that there are kinds of religious reasons that might be an appropriate
basis for lawmaking with no restrictions beyond those of this wideranging sort.
Is it possible to frame a principle in the ethics of citizenship that is more per
missive than some formulations by Rawls but less permissive than Wolterstorff’s
and significantly different from Greenawalt’s, even if only slightly less permis
sive than his? I have myself proposed a standard that has some kinship with all of
those but contains elements they do not embody. Originally called “the principle
of secular rationale,” it can also be called “the principle of natural reason” to em
phasize that, even if natural reasons are secular, they need not be anchored in a
secular worldview and–on the positive side–they represent crossculturally rec
ognized standards of what has been called natural reason. It is illustrated both by
judgments that are properly responsive to the evidence of the senses (such as evi
dence regarding what is seen or heard) and elementary logic, and by reasoning of
the deductive and inductive kinds essential in both scientific inquiry and everyday
life. This principle of natural reason expresses a kind of civic obligation:
Citizens in a democracy have a prima facie obligation not to advocate or support any
law or public policy that restricts human conduct, unless they have, and are willing to
offer, adequate secular reason for this advocacy or support (e.g. for a vote).11
This principle has been widely misunderstood and should be briefly clarified.
A secular reason is one that does not evidentially depend for its normative
force on religion or theology, but it may of course coincide with a religious reason
in content, say in affirming the wrongness of killing and a right of free expression.
That enslaving, silencing, and lying are wrong is common ground among the mor
al requirements of many religions and of an ethics anchored in natural reason.
Moreover, prima facie here is not to be defined in terms of evidential plausibility:
as an obligation to have adequate secular reason that is apparent but need not be
real. The term indicates defeasiblity. The standard posits a genuine obligation suf
ficient to justify the act in question if there is no conflicting reason of at least equal
weight, but a prima facie reason is not absolute and can be overridden. Suppose
only a governor’s appeal to religious considerations could stop terrorists’ attacks
on stadiums filled with people. This could justify appealing to them.
A more subtle point is that the prima facie obligation in question is compatible
with a right to act otherwise. There are, however, wrongs within rights: it may be
wrong to exercise a right, for instance giving no charitable donations even though
one can easily afford to do so and has no competing need. The principle of secular
rationale (thus natural reason) is meant to reduce the range of legal coercions like
ly in a society that abides by the principle, and it should be supported by good rea
sons drawn from the ethics of citizenship, rather than instituted by law. The prin
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ciple represents a kind of moral responsibility of citizens as such, but their liberty
rights enable them to reject the responsibility. Others have a normative claim to
their adherence, as charities may have a claim to contributions, but the ethical
domain in question is that of civic virtue and optimal respect for others, not the
realm of rights we may claim against others. In religious language with a meaning
translatable into the terms of natural reason, if perhaps not clearly “public rea
son,” the realm of the principle of natural reason is that of “Do unto others,” not
that of “Thou shalt not kill.”
This principle of secular rationale is (despite this name for it) also doubly inclu-
sive: Although it calls for adequate secular reason to justify coercion, it in no way
rules out religious or idiosyncratic reasons. It does not ask citizens to abstain from
expressing these, nor imply that such reasons can never appropriately motivate
political action, nor even imply that religious reasons cannot be evidentially co
gent. The requirement is simply that some set of reasons for passing a law or public
policy be both secular and adequate. This is not a limitation on the content of civic
discourse itself. It may indeed be an admirable kind of civility to indicate publicly
both one’s religious and one’s secular reasons: the former to be forthright about
who one is, and the latter to assure others that one’s case does not depend on stan
dards they do not or may not share, but on considerations appraisable using natu
ral reason as (with some idealization) shared among all adult citizens.
To be sure, in giving reasons for a proposed law or policy, we are not being forth
right about who we are if we are not significantly motivated by those reasons. Suppose
one gives only secular reasons regarding the common good but is actually motivated
by, for instance, a religious reason or considerations of selfinterest. Civic virtue–
even ordinary sincerity, some would say–calls for giving one’s “real” (motivating)
reasons rather than rationalizing for purposes of persuasion. This point seems plausi
ble, but alignment of one’s motivation with one’s proffered justification–even when
lawmaking is at stake–is secondary to the need for having adequate (secular) rea
sons in the first place. As some cases of democratic compromise illustrate, it is more
important that there be adequate reasons (thereby justification) for laws that restrict
liberty (as most laws do) than that they be enacted on the basis of appropriate moti
vation.12 Inadequate reasons, even from constituencies that oppose one another, may
converge in support of a law or policy that is supported by good reasons that no one
has brought forward and, with good luck, the converging rationalizations may moti
vate acceptance of the law or policy. But such a lucky convergence is not usual. A law
passed without publicly receiving evidentially adequate support by reasons cannot
be expected to be justifiable by sound standards, and its applications may be biased
by the inadequate motivating reasons that led to its instatement.
These points should clearly indicate that the principle of secular rationale does
not restrict freedom of expression. The relation between our reasons for advoca
cy and voting need not be expressed, and what we express in political discourse is
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not limited to giving reasons, much less to giving only secular ones. It is a matter
of judgment just how much of one’s overall perspective, whether religious or not,
should be expressed in arguing for laws or public policies. In some cases, bringing
religious convictions into public discussion or political deliberation would be need
lessly divisive; in other cases, this may be necessary to show that secular consider
ations favoring a policy fit with a religious position important in the discussion.
What of the notion of an adequate reason for a law or public policy? Evidential
adequacy will always be contestable, but contestability applies to other indispens
able concepts, including that of democracy itself and certainly to notions essen
tial to it, such as liberty, equality, and the common good. We might say that ade
quacy of a reason entails that an action or belief based on it is rational, but this is of
limited help. It can help to bring concrete aspects of the wellbeing of the people
into view: the importance of food, clothing, shelter, and public health and safety
is virtually uncontroversial. But even in these cases, there will be differences to be
settled by comparing reasons for one policy or another. Determining which are
adequate is a problem for any political theory.
T he essays that follow represent diverse views and numerous insights. They
are far too rich to permit brief summary, but what follows will indicate
some of the points they make and some major issues they address.
Kent Greenawalt’s essay, “Democracy & Religion: Some Variations & Hard
Questions,” is a kind of thumbnail retrospective presentation of ideas he has de
veloped and defended in books and papers spanning half a century.13 He focus
es on liberal democracy, with the United States as his central though not exclu
sive example. Given this concern with democracies like that of the United States,
he naturally considers both establishment and free exercise questions concern
ing religion and democracy. On his view, the nonestablishment and free exercise
norms in the United States Constitution “work together.”14 He takes this to imply
the kind of governmental neutrality toward religion that reflects the point that
“people will feel more free about religion if they understand that the government
will not favor or disfavor them based on their convictions.”15 Greenawalt consid
ers a number of court cases bearing on the nonestablishment and free exercise
norms. He indicates how neither norm implies that there are no limits on free
expression and that the two norms can conflict, as where legislative sessions are
opened with prayers, which, even if nondenominational, may be seen as favor
ing a certain kind of religion.16 He is particularly concerned with showing how
public education can do justice to the importance of religion as a subject of inqui
ry while avoiding governmental establishment of religious doctrines. His essay
also provides a perspective on the ethics of citizenship as applied to religious cit
izens in their political conduct. Here he stresses both the difficulty of their avoid
ing reliance on religious considerations in certain cases and the range of instanc
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es in which some reliance on those considerations is not wrong. His position on
accommodation of religious practices is similarly nuanced. It takes account of
both the democratic commitment to protecting religious liberty where no harm
is done and restricting the exercise of religion where it calls for accommodations
that would require unwarranted governmental preference.
In “Democracy, Religion & Public Reason,” Samuel Freeman provides a broad
account of how, in democratic societies, both government and individual citizens
should view the place of religious beliefs in political matters.17 His overarching
normative framework is that of public reason, roughly as that notion is under
stood by John Rawls but clarified and diversely exemplified in the course of the es
say. Freeman goes to considerable lengths to clarify the way in which that reason
governed framework calls for governmental neutrality toward religion and, for in
dividual citizens, giving a kind of primacy to public reason in lawmaking. Here
Kant as well as Rawls is a major source for conceptions of free and equal citizens
and of the “political values,” above all liberty and equality before the law, that
should guide political decisions. As Freeman illustrates in relation to social con
tract theory as clarifying (perhaps partially yielding) the foundations of democ
racy, these political values make room for religious expression (within appropri
ate limits), but also limit the role that religiously based normative standards may
have in determining laws and public policies. Religiously inspired opposition to
oppression, as expressed by such religious leaders as Martin Luther King Jr., is
consistent with public reason, but religiously based opposition to the civil rights
of, for instance, gays is not.
Governmental preference toward religion is widely opposed by political the
orists, but governmental deference toward it is quite different and raises differ
ent questions. The distinction between according preference toward religion and
according deference toward it is not commonly observed, and Paul Weithman’s
“Liberalism & Deferential Treatment” both clarifies it in new ways and brings it to
bear on democratic theory. He conceives deferential treatment of religion as con
stituted by “forms of favorable treatment that are cultural rather than legal,” by
contrast with preferential treatment as “the legal conferral of a status that is more
favorable than that accorded to other organizations or systems of belief.”18 Defer
ential treatment of religion includes such behaviors as giving its teachings the sta
tus of social norms, giving leading religious figures the status of moral authorities,
and according clergy “considerable latitude to act without official or unofficial
scrutiny.”19 Weithman argues that deference of the kind in question encourages
an unreasonable view (or set of attitudes): namely, “benchmark traditionalism,”
an orientation that can produce or strengthen uncritical assumptions. He sees this
orientation–in or outside government–as a failure to give due weight to public
reason. But, unlike many democratic theorists who address the role of religion
in governmental and narrowly political conduct, Weithman brings out how def
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erence toward religion, as a culturally pervasive attitude, can, even when well
intentioned, adversely affect both public discourse and political decisionmaking.
Cathleen Kaveny’s essay, “The Ironies of the New Religious Liberty Litigation,”
is a natural companion to the essays just described and extends their work. Refer
ring to several recent court cases of plaintiffs seeking religious exemptions, she
articulates the not uncommon underlying admixture of political agenda with ap
parently religious zeal. But despite a number of legal gains, “social conservatives
may have blunted their own most powerful critique of Western liberal society: its
atomistic individualism, its reduction of morality to feelings, and its inability to
think in terms of the common good rather than the contestation of interest.”20
Here she contrasts the quest for exemptions as a way to change legislation with
Martin Luther King Jr.’s attempt to make law fair to everyone. In characterizing a
positive redirection in understanding religious liberty and its accommodation,
she outlines a kind of civic friendship that constitutes a better framework for deci
sionmaking in democratic communities than the “exemptionist mentality” that
is currently prominent. Civic friendship centers on regard for one another’s con
science and on reciprocity concerning the maintenance of liberal democracy.21 For
civic friendship, especially in the case of employers, role relationships are central,
and in those relationships, civic friendship seems a better framework than draw
ing more and more legal lines.
In “The Perils of Politicized Religion,” David Campbell provides data that un
derline the urgency of the cultural elements Kaveny sees as needed for the flourish
ing of the ideal democracy, and for reducing the politicization–or as he suggests,
weaponization–of religion. He documents a “secular turn” in American society,
but he also sees evidence that “politics shapes religious views.”22 One indication
of such shaping is a significant change: in the period between the presidencies of
Clinton and Trump, only 6 percent of white evangelicals, compared with 27 percent
previously, affirmed “a connection between private morality and public ethics.”23
He also provides evidence of a “secular backlash,” reporting that, for instance, “ex
posure to a Republican candidate who employs ‘God talk’ leads to an increase in
Democrats who report no religious affiliation.”24 Given these and other data the
essay brings forward, it appears evident that the religionization of politics in many
realms of public life may be seen as a trend that “threatens the state of religious tol
erance in America and muffles religion’s potential to be a prophetic voice.”25
Even apart from the idea that organizations may be viewed as legal persons,
democratic theory must address their status as candidates for religious exemp
tions from applicable laws. This issue is central for Stephanie Collins in her essay
“Are Organizations’ Religious Exemptions Democratically Defensible?” One guid
ing assumption she considers is how individuals’ religious liberty claims might be
“transferred up” to organizations they belong to, such as businesses they own or
institutions in which they hold office. She describes several other assumptions. She
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rejects both the idea that every liberty right of an individual member transfers up to
the organization and the counterpart view that an organization’s responsibility to
do something, such as provide a controversial medical service, transfers down to all
its members.26 Once these and related points are shown, we can see that organiza
tions’ claims–say claims by churches for a legal right to give discriminatory prefer
ence for one sex over another in employment policy–cannot be automatically given
the weight such claims can have in individual relations. The issue is even more com
plicated when a claim by individuals as members of an organization, such as physi
cians in a churchaffiliated hospital, conflicts with a claim of other individuals, for
instance patients, who seek equal treatment by that organization or protection of a
liberty, such as a right to assisted suicide, that it seeks to restrict.
Public education is a major realm of churchstate policy issues in democratic the
ory. The prevalent liberaldemocratic position is that although public schools may
require instruction about religion, as in history classes, it may not require instruc
tion in a religion. In his “Secular Reasons for Confessional Religious Education in
Public Schools,” Winfried Löffler argues that so long as secular students are offered
educational alternatives such as courses in ethics (which may touch on religion in
the neutral ways a history course may), a democratic government may require con
fessional religious instruction for those who identify as belonging to an eligible re
ligion. He argues his case in reference to the Austrian public education system but
takes his view to have wider application. For one thing, “religions–in their best
forms–can be seen as powerful supporters of democracy and the ‘democratically
virtuous citizen.’”27 But he also argues that instruction regarding religion cannot be
fully “neutralized anyway.”28 This bears on the alternative view that public schools
should simply teach about religion without any confessional instruction. He indi
cates how, in Austria, the relevant religions are selected, since not just any religion
can properly figure in the curriculum; and he considers how the kind of education
he supports can avoid preferential treatment of any one of the eligible religions.29
Löffler grants that the system he defends is not the only one that may succeed in
providing adequate public education about religion. He concludes that “to have it
done via confessional religion teachers under the transparency conditions of pub
lic schools is not the worst” among the available options for democratic societies.30
Liberty of conscience is a commonly cited right needing protection by any
genuine democracy. But what is conscience? Here Lorenzo Zucca’s “Conscience,
Truth & Action” offers many analytical descriptions. On one view, which he as
sociates with such powerful exemplars as Sophocles’s Antigone, it is a source of
moral knowledge, and that source may of course also be religiously authorita
tive.31 On a second view (not incompatible with the first), conscience is a faculty
that has a motivational and emotional role, pricking and prodding us in various
ways. Here Shakespeare’s Othello is Zucca’s literary exemplar, one whose delu
sion shows how conscience can motivate the wrong actions.32 On a third view,
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“conscience is presented as a deliberative device: we engage in a calm, rational re
flection on our feelings and duties and we attempt to organize our thoughts before
we can allow ourselves to get into action.”33 Shakespeare’s Hamlet is Zucca’s ex
emplar in this case. These conceptions of conscience provide rich sources of ques
tions about the status of conscientious objections, whether religiously based or
not. Zucca concludes that “Conscience can claim to be heard but does not system
atically excuse whoever claims it.”34 He does not explicitly appeal to “public rea
son” or any specific standards for adjudicating claims of conscience, but he does
maintain that “conscience can only be protected by the law when it can show that
the law is making a mistake that needs to be rectified.”35 Conscientious objections
made on a religious basis are no exception to this restriction.
The protection of human rights is an avowed aim of many democratic con
stitutions and an ideal in the leading theories of democracy. There is of course
dispute about just what rights are included, but freedom of religion is typical
ly among the least controversial rights needing protection. Its extent is certain
ly controversial, but few would deny that the liberty rights whose exercise does
not harm others include many categories of religious expression. Here T. Jeremy
Gunn’s essay “Do Human Rights Have a Secular, Individualistic & AntiIslamic
Bias?”–which focuses on the UN Declaration of Human Rights–is highly per
tinent. Citing charges that the Declaration is so biased, he considers objections
from representatives of Islam.36 He finds no Quranic basis for the blanket charge
in question. In making his case, he distinguishes between, on the one hand, rights
people may voluntarily exercise, forgo, or in any case not claim, such as the right
to leave a religion even if they have in some way promised to live within it perma
nently, and, on the other hand, the supposed right of a state to enforce conformity
with the religiously ordained standard. He does not deny that, as in some other re
ligions, there are some cases in which Muslims might deny that there is a right to
act contrary to an Islamic requirement, but he suggests that the real issue for Mus
lim critics of the Universal Declaration “is not that it interferes with the ability of
Muslims to practice their religion, but that it interferes with their wish (which has no
basis in traditional Islamic law) to enlist the modern state to compel compliance with
religious law.”37 A major question his essay raises is whether, contrary to some of
the cited critics of the Universal Declaration, human rights are intrinsically individ
ualistic and, accordingly, whether any rights of governments as such derive from
the rights of the individuals to whom governments are responsible.
A difficult question not pursued directly by any of the essays in this issue is
whether any major religion is committed, by its scriptures or traditions, or by
these in combination with other factors, to a specific conception of democracy
and its role therein. Only one of the essays explores whether practitioners of a ma
jor religion, here Judaism, tend toward definite views of the relation between re
ligion and democracy. In “Judaism, Pluralism & Public Reason,” Jonathan Jacobs
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surveys both selected Jewish literature and related historical patterns. One of his
conclusions is that “Notions of citizens of a democracy as ‘free and equal’ and
meriting respect on the basis of the worth and dignity of all human beings come
quite naturally to Judaism. . . . Biblical conceptions of the fellowship of human
kind, the worth of the individual, the political imperative of ‘justice, justice you
shall pursue.’” Beyond this, he sees a welfarist tradition: “the moral obligation to
care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor are anchored in Jewish
sources.”38 He does not view this anchoring as in tension with the ideal of gov
ernmental neutrality toward religion, which he finds consonant with Jewish tra
dition. Endorsing governmental neutrality toward religion, however, does not
require that citizens “bracket, suspend, or otherwise disengage from values and
commitments that might be basic to how people understand themselves and oth
ers, and how they understand what justice requires.”39 Here he stresses the need
for toleration rather than the constraints on political deliberation he sees in a
Rawlsian conception of that realm. Indeed, “For neutrality to succeed, it is im
portant that people acquire habits and attitudes of toleration.”40 This point leaves
open both the extent of religious liberty government must protect and the kinds
of reasons citizens may take as a basis for lawmaking; but the emphasis on tol
eration seems fully consistent with the liberty, equality, and neutrality principles
cited earlier,41 the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and a wide range of religious
accommodations permitted by these two sets of standards.
The essays considered so far concern the theory of democracy in relation to
religion and the focus has been on appropriate standards governing this relation
in actual democracies. In “Religion & Transitional Justice,” Colleen Murphy ex
plores how religion can be relevant to achieving democracy in a nondemocratic
society that is transitioning from civil war or some other crisis toward democratic
government. Here she pursues the question whether, as some have argued, for
giveness is an essential element in such peacemaking struggles. On this issue, she
points out, not all injustices preceding transition can even be discovered in many
such cases (hence cannot be forgiven), nor can all their perpetrators be punished
if a transition is ever to be accomplished (thus making forgiveness a response that
many may see as important for achieving transition). Forgiveness is an attitude
(or stance) enjoined by certain religions and perhaps sustainable in transitional
cases only with the support of religious attitudes or institutions. She acknowl
edges that “religion has been a root cause of conflict, a marker of those targeted
for repression and the basis for privilege in an unequally structured institution
al scheme.”42 But she also explores the possibility of an overlapping consensus
among those in an “Abrahamic faith” and cites positions that they apparently
supported in South Africa as it transitioned from apartheid.43 Such a consensus
could support an individual’s becoming a moral exemplar with the authority to
chair, say, a truth commission. In some cases, this kind of authority may be needed
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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesReligion & Democracy: Interactions, Tensions, Possibilities
to move toward democracy. Here religious figures have played a prominent role
in transitional justice, though the moral authority of such people “is a function of
individual biography” and need not depend on their religion.44
Patriotism has been considered a virtue, but it has also been seen as allied to a
kind of nationalism that may be inimical to democracy as well as to international
relations. In “Patriotism & Moral Theology,” John Hare draws on Immanuel Kant
both in defending patriotism as compatible with democracy and in arguing that
it can be supported theologically. Hare takes patriotism to be love of one’s coun
try, not an attitude or stance toward one’s nation as a legal or institutional entity.
Indeed, he strongly associates love of country and love of humanity and sees the
moral theology of Kant as he understands it to support the latter and thereby a
cosmopolitan perspective.45 Hare also maintains, regarding at least the Abraham
ic religions, that “Within Judaism, we should look at the Noahide Laws, for exam
ple; within Christianity, at the parable of the Good Samaritan; and within Islam,
at the Mu‘tazilite position on duties to the stranger. . . . [I]t is the very same God
who does both the including and the sending out . . . beyond the group to strang
ers in need.”46 He illustrates this point by citing Germany’s accepting more than
one million people seeking asylum. Must German patriots disapprove, and is the
cosmopolitan stance here antidemocratic? Surely not. The essay views Kantian
moral theology as supporting, both morally and metaphysically, the universal val
ues that ground democracy in particular countries and their international cooper
ation in dealing with refugees and other matters of international concern.
T he relation between religion and democracy is multifarious, and it has
different facets for every distinct kind of religion and for every particu
lar form of democracy. Religions differ in their ethical standards and in
the political implications of their teachings. Clergy differ in their disposition to
distinguish moral leadership from political guidance. Ordinary citizens differ in
their religious commitments and, whether they are religious or not, in their at
titudes toward religion. Democracies differ in the historical and cultural condi
tions that shape their constitutional and legal structures. A major challenge for
political theory is to provide standards that appropriately respect both democracy
and religion and secure the possibility of their mutual flourishing. This balancing
task has numerous institutional dimensions, particularly in defining and realizing
a separation of church and state. It also presents a multitude of challenges in fram
ing standards in the ethics of citizenship for individuals. The task is difficult even
where there is agreement on religious liberty as a right that democracies must de
fend, and even when this is understood to entail governmental neutrality toward
the religious and the nonreligious alike. But the difficulty of the task is reduced by
a clear wellreasoned study of points of tension between religious and democratic
values. It is also reduced by examination of alternative frameworks for rational
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149 (3) Summer 2020Robert Audi
resolution of conflicts that occur between church and state and, at the level of the
civic interactions and political conduct of individual citizens, both in their pub
lic life and within their private thinking. The essays presented here are offered as
contributions to advancing this perennial task.
author’s note
For pertinent discussion of the issues addressed in this essay, I thank all of the au-
thors in this issue who presented drafts of their papers in the Australian Catholic
University seminar on the topic of religion and democracy in March 2019, directed
by James McLaren (ACU–Melbourne) and me. These are all except Professors David
Campbell, T. Jeremy Gunn, and Jonathan Jacobs, whose correspondence was none-
theless also beneficial to me. All who attended the seminar benefited from the com-
mentaries on the main papers presented by Annette Bryson (John Cabot Univer-
sity, Rome), Nevin Climenhaga (Dianoia Philosophy Institute, ACU–Melbourne),
Clive Cookson (The Financial Times), Charles Lockwood (ACU–Melbourne), David
McCabe (Colgate University), Pietro Maffettone (Universita Degli Studi Di Napo-
li), Domenico Melidoro (LUISS, Rome), Marta Soniewicka (Jagiellonian University,
Krakow), and Camil Ungureanu (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona).
about the author
Robert Audi, a Fellow of the American Academy since 2018, is John A. O’Brien Pro-
fessor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. His major work is in the fields
of ethics and political philosophy, theory of knowledge, philosophy of action, and
philosophy of religion. He is a Past President of the American Philosophical Associ-
ation, Editor-in-Chief of The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (1994, 1999, and 2015),
and a Professorial Fellow with the Australian Catholic University. His many books
include The Architecture of Reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality (2001), The
Good in the Right: A Theory of Intuition and Intrinsic Value (2004), Democratic Authority and
the Separation of Church and State (2011), and Means, Ends, and Persons (2016).
endnotes
1 This statement reflects the “principle of protection of identity: the deeper a set of commit-
ments is in a person, and the closer it comes to determining that person’s sense of iden-
tity, the stronger the case for protecting the expression of those commitments.” This
is proposed and discussed in Robert Audi, Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church
and State (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 42–43.
2 John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1978), 9–10. Mill is strongly opposed
to parentalism and (for competent adults) excludes harm to oneself as a ground for
interference. See esp. ibid., 10 ff. The notion of harm is seriously vague, and there is
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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesReligion & Democracy: Interactions, Tensions, Possibilities
no simple way to determine just how free we ought to be even if the harm principle is
sound so far as it goes.
3 In this section I draw on earlier work, especially as briefly represented in my Democratic
Authority.
4 Several kinds of establishment, some more and some less likely to affect religious liberty
or basic human rights, are considered in ibid., 43–44. The legal literature on the “non-
establishment norm” is extensive.
5 John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 235.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid., 247.
8 Ibid., “Preface,” li–lii.
9 See Kent Greenawalt, Religious Convictions and Political Choice (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1988), 12. This view is refined and defended in Greenawalt’s later work, but the
kinds of comments I make here are not undermined by his further work on the topic.
Some of the points I make are extended or given a wider context in Robert Audi, “Reli-
gion and the Ethics of Political Participation,” Ethics 100 (2) (1990): 386–397.
10 See Robert Audi and Nicholas Wolterstorff, Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Reli-
gious Convictions in Political Debate (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), 112–113.
This volume contains essays by each author writing alone and responses of each to the
other. For his account of justice, see, for example, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice in Love
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2015).
11 This formulation is drawn from Robert Audi, Religious Commitment and Secular Reason
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 86; though published earlier in Robert
Audi, “The Separation of Church and State and the Obligations of Citizenship,” Phi-
losophy & Public Affairs 18 (3) (1989): 259–296. The principle has been widely discussed.
12 I have explained and defended this point in Audi, Religious Commitment and Secular Reason,
96–100.
13 These include–in addition to Greenawalt, Religious Convictions and Political Choice–the sev-
eral, mostly later books listed in Kent Greenawalt, “Democracy & Religion: Some Vari-
ations & Hard Questions,” Dædalus 149 (3) (Summer 2020): n. 1, including Religions and
the Constitution: Free Exercise and Fairness (2006); Religion and the Constitution: Establishment
and Fairness (2008); Does God Belong in Public Schools? (2005); Statutory Interpretation: Twenty
Questions (1999); Conflicts of Law and Morality (1987); Exemptions: Necessary, Justified, or Mis-
guided? (2016); From the Bottom Up (2016); and When Free Exercise and Nonestablishment Con-
flict (2017).
14 Greenawalt, “Democracy & Religion,” 27.
15 Ibid., 28.
16 Ibid., 27.
17 Samuel Freeman, “Democracy, Religion & Public Reason,” Dædalus 149 (3) (Summer
2020).
18 Paul Weithman, “Liberalism & Deferential Treatment,” Dædalus 149 (3) (Summer 2020):
61.
19 Ibid., 62.
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149 (3) Summer 2020Robert Audi
20 Cathleen Kaveny, “The Ironies of the New Religious Liberty Litigation,” Dædalus 149 (3)
(Summer 2020): 84.
21 Ibid., 81.
22 David E. Campbell, “The Perils of Politicized Religion,” Dædalus 149 (3) (Summer 2020):
90.
23 Ibid., 93–94.
24 Ibid., 97.
25 Ibid., 101.
26 Stephanie Collins, “Are Organizations’ Religious Exemptions Democratically Defensi-
ble?” Dædalus 149 (3) (Summer 2020): 109.
27 Winfried Löffler, “Secular Reasons for Confessional Religious Education in Public
Schools,” Dædalus 149 (3) (Summer 2020): 125.
28 Ibid., 126.
29 Ibid., 128–129.
30 Ibid., 132.
31 Lorenzo Zucca, “Conscience, Truth & Action,” Dædalus 149 (3) (Summer 2020): 136–137.
32 Ibid., 145.
33 Ibid., 137.
34 Ibid., 143–144.
35 Ibid., 146.
36 T. Jeremy Gunn, “Do Human Rights Have a Secular, Individualistic & Anti-Islamic Bias?”
Dædalus 149 (3) (Summer 2020).
37 Ibid., 161.
38 Jonathan A. Jacobs, “Judaism, Pluralism & Public Reason,” Dædalus 149 (3) (Summer
2020): 170.
39 Ibid., 181.
40 Ibid.
41 See pages 8–9 in this essay.
42 Colleen Murphy, “Religion & Transitional Justice,” Dædalus 149 (3) (Summer 2020): 187.
43 Ibid., 190–194.
44 Ibid., 197.
45 John Hare, “Patriotism & Moral Theology,” Dædalus 149 (3) (Summer 2020).
46 Ibid., 212.
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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesReligion & Democracy: Interactions, Tensions, Possibilities
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