The Religious Problem with Religious Freedom: Why Foreign Policy Needs Political Theology 9781138659469, 9781315620176

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“In this book, Joustra considers what many people at first had thought to be a refreshing moral cause, confronts the cacophony of criticisms, conflicting meanings, political agendas, and fast moving global changes that have surrounded it, discovers an approach to managing this debate (principled pluralism), and, all the while, retains his conviction that religious freedom is a worthwhile end of foreign policy, one that, in the end, defends highly vulnerable people. The result is an exceedingly rare combination of brainy sophistication and unyielding moral conviction.” —Daniel Philpott, Professor, University of Notre Dame, USA “Religious and secular actors compete in the political arena while at the same time ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’ are contested terms. In his book The Religious Problem with Religious Freedom, Robert Joustra examines how rival conceptions of the religious and secular compete to influence the foreign policies of the US and Canada in general and specifically with regard to their policies of promoting religious freedom. He then proposes the concept of principled pluralism as an alternative strategy for these foreign policies. This book makes sense of a complex set of debates on an issue of increasing importance worldwide, and provides significant insight into how religious freedom is perceived from a multitude of secular and religious perspectives.” —Jonathan Fox, Professor of Religion and Politics, Bar Ilan University, Israel

The Religious Problem with Religious Freedom

Rival understandings of the meaning and practice of the religious and the secular lead to rival public perspectives about religion and religious freedom in North America. This book explores how debates over the American Office of Religious Freedom and its International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA, 1998) and very recent debates over the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom (2013) have pitted at least six basic, but very different meanings of the religious and the secular against each other in often undisclosed and usually unproductive ways. Properly naming this ‘religious problem’ is a critical first step to acknowledging and conciliating their practically polar political prescriptions. It must be considered how we are to think about religion in political offices, both the Canadian and the American experience, as an essentially contested term, and one which demands better than postmodern paralysis, what the author terms political theology. This is especially critical because both of these cases are not just about how to deal with religion at home, but how to engage with religion abroad, where real peril and real practical policy must be undertaken to protect increasingly besieged religious minorities. Finally, a principled pluralist approach to the religious and the secular suggests a way to think outside the ‘religious problem’ and productively enlist and engage the forces of religion resurging around the globe. The book will be of great use to scholars and students in religion and foreign affairs, secularization, political theology, and political theory, as well as professionals and policy makers working in issues relating to religion, religious freedom, and foreign affairs. Robert Joustra is Associate Professor of Politics & International Studies at Redeemer University College, and Director of the Centre for Christian Scholarship. He is an editorial fellow at the Review of Faith & International Affairs, and a fellow with the Washington, D.C. think tank Center for Public Justice.

Routledge Studies in Religion and Politics Edited by Jeffrey Haynes, London Metropolitan University, UK

This series aims to publish high quality works on the topic of the resurgence of political forms of religion in both national and international contexts. This trend has been especially noticeable in the post-cold war era (that is, since the late 1980s). It has affected all the ‘world religions’ (including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism) in various parts of the world (such as the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and subSaharan Africa). The series welcomes books that use a variety of approaches to the subject, drawing on scholarship from political science, international relations, security studies, and contemporary history. Books in the series explore these religions, regions and topics both within and beyond the conventional domain of ‘church-state’ relations to include the impact of religion on politics, conflict and development, including the late Samuel Huntington’s controversial – yet influential – thesis about ‘clashing civilisations’. In sum, the overall purpose of the book series is to provide a comprehensive survey of what is currently happening in relation to the interaction of religion and politics, both domestically and internationally, in relation to a variety of issues. www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Religion-and-Politics/book-series/ RSRP Religious NGOs in International Relations The Construction of ‘the Religious’ and ‘the Secular’ Karsten Lehmann Religion at the United Nations Value Politics Edited by Anne Stensvold Religion and Soft Power in the South Caucasus Edited by Ansgar Jödicke The Religious Problem with Religious Freedom Why Foreign Policy Needs Political Theology Robert Joustra

The Religious Problem with Religious Freedom Why Foreign Policy Needs Political Theology Robert Joustra

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Robert Joustra The right of Robert Joustra to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 9781138659469 (hbk) ISBN: 9781315620176 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Figure and tables Foreword Acknowledgements

viii ix xv

1

Introduction

2

The God Squad: public debate and the American Office of Religious Freedom

11

Freedom of, or from, religion? Canada and the Office of Religious Freedom

28

The religious problem: the meaning of the religious and the secular in A Secular Age

48

5

Revolutions in political theology

69

6

The politics of principled pluralism

86

7

The practices of principled pluralism: making foreign policy in a religious world

101

Conclusion

123

References Bibliography Index

136 144 160

3 4

8

1

Figure and tables

Figure 3.1 The laïcité perspective on the Office

37

Tables 0.1 Rival versions of the religious and the secular 1.1 Nine concepts of the secular

xiii 10

Foreword

It can be persuasively argued that freedom of religion or belief is one of the most threatened fundamental freedoms in this second decade of the twenty-first century. That it has emerged as a particular human rights priority for liberal democracies and supra-state entities such as the European Union, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the United Nations, among others, speaks to the concern held for those human beings being subjected to often horrific persecution based on their deeply held beliefs. The actions taken by the United States of America in establishing, through the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, an Office of International Religious Freedom within the U.S. Department of State and the Government of Canada in establishing in February 2013 the short-lived Office of Religious Freedom in its foreign ministry were guided by these governments’ witness to the actions and inaction of certain states who fail to uphold Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). I attest to this witness because I stood at the centre of these actions as Canada’s first and to-date only Ambassador for Religious Freedom. In this role I was a witness to those facing persecution. I encountered them in their suffering both directly and indirectly. I strove with my colleagues for their uplifting. Finally, I was privileged to work with my colleagues in the Canadian foreign service and with our international allies in an endeavour to defend and uphold religious freedom as a fundamental and universal human right, a right that speaks profoundly to our shared human dignity. Through advocacy, policy initiatives, and the funding of targeted actions to address many of the underlying bases for religious persecution we sought in good faith to work multilaterally, and bilaterally when required, to affirm the inviolability of freedom of religion or belief. This was advanced always in relation to and in dialogue with other fundamental human rights. We also worked in advancing religious freedom cognizant of the fact that often religious persecution and violations of religious freedom are accompanied by non-religious factors including socio-economic marginalization and age-old historical and political cleavages, whether we are speaking of the violence that ripped through the Central African Republic in the mid-2010s or the caste-based elements of religious persecution in parts of India.

x

Foreword

The Canadian Office of Religious Freedom was not always successful in its efforts and at times we failed to speak out strongly in defence of those persecuted, notably in Saudi Arabia, India, and China – we could have done much more. Often our desire for action was constrained by competing foreign policy priorities and not infrequently misunderstood by a professional foreign service that, in general, failed to grasp or comprehend the impact of religion within international affairs. Canada and its government and foreign service are not alone in this regard. While our office had many enthusiastic and informed collaborators, it was all too clear to us that our ability to exert influence on Canada’s human rights policy was limited by a diplomatic blind spot on religion and more specifically on the role of deep religious faith in guiding human actions, for good or for ill, in much of the world. Despite these not insignificant challenges, we along with our allies were able to inaugurate initiatives that have heightened governments’ awareness of religious freedom as an often misunderstood and devalued right within the broader family of international human rights. In June of 2015 the international call for defense of religious freedom was amplified through one particular initiative: the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom’s launch of the International Contact Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief (ICG). The ICG, for the first time, brought together a diverse group of governments who recognized the need to engage and act to uphold Article 18 provisions through advocacy, policy initiatives, and coordinated programming where possible. The coming together of foreign ministry officials from countries as diverse religiously, politically, and socially as Canada, the United States, Indonesia, Cameroon, Jordan, Norway, and now more than fifteen others was a significant step in advancing human rights and calling attention to international violations of religious freedom. Whether such an initiative can thrive and have an impact remains to be seen, yet I believe it affirms in one way that the upholding of religious freedom internationally as a core human right has a universal relevance, if not a universal acceptance. The desire and the ultimate ability of governments acting to defend and uphold international religious freedom as an objective good is fraught with pitfalls. Beyond the diplomatic challenges of engaging international actors who either reject the very principle of religious freedom or desire its limitation there exists a range of contested concepts. The very nomenclature of religious freedom is itself contested. Are terms such as ‘religious freedom’ or ‘religious liberty’ suitably broad enough to encompass the freedom to be atheist or secular humanist? Is the caveat of ‘or belief’ sufficient to accommodate those who desire protection on the grounds of their rejection of the divine? Then there is the telos of religious freedom, or perhaps as the New Critics such as Elizabeth Shakman Hurd or Winnifred Sullivan might perceive it, its agenda. Is it exclusively Judeo-Christian? Can it genuinely apply within culturally and theologically diverse contexts and can there be an asymmetry to it? Is it encompassing enough of both monotheism and the belief systems which embrace non-theocentric concepts such as dharma? Robert Joustra’s clear and cogent arguments in this present work are indeed most

Foreword

xi

welcome in how they not only grapple with these questions that give diplomats and religious freedom advocates pause, if not frequent restless nights, but also in identifying a way forward on confronting the religious and secular in our societies. What he offers us is a critical appraisal of public theology and a courageous journey into the contested concepts of the secular and the religious and how they are understood by political actors. On a personal note, I am grateful for his critical assessment of the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom that I had the privilege to lead for three years. His analysis is essential in understanding what led to the Office’s creation, its efforts in the international arena, and the political currents which led to its being abandoned as an effective instrument in advancing not only religious freedom as a fundamental freedom but in advancing Canada’s broader human rights policy. I hope that this work might serve as a reflection for my former colleagues in Global Affairs Canada and both practitioners and theorists in the field of international relations on the value of addressing global trends in a targeted fashion such as we did. In his historical surveys and his judicious encounters with both the New Critics of The Immanent Frame and the Toft-Shah-Philpott school, Dr. Joustra charts his own path in offering us a guide towards navigating the contested waters of religious freedom. In acknowledging that the rival versions of religious freedom exist due to the rival and increasingly conflict-ridden meanings and practices of the secular and religious, he provides clearer language for us as practitioners to engage religious freedom. Additionally, Dr. Joustra prompts us to consider new approaches to communicate with secular elites who are often unable to converse about the core elements that undergird the freedom to privately and practice one’s religious beliefs: human dignity, theology, metaphysical encounter, contemplation, and the praxis of faith. Finally, Dr. Joustra’s understanding of political theology as “the understandings and practices that political actors have about the meaning of and relationship between the religious and the secular, and what constitutes legitimate political authority” provides a framework for championing principled pluralism, which is perhaps the most honest and truly diverse approach to dialogue between conflicting secular and religious viewpoints. As ambassador, this conflict between the religious and secular, the privatisation of the religious in liberal democracies, and the corresponding exalting of a secular public reason that had little or no encounter with the religious was the single greatest challenge in articulating the rationale and imperative for our defence of religious freedom. As Dr. Joustra states, “political theology cannot be done by ambassadors and prime ministers. They may facilitate, but they cannot do the work of political theology itself.” Never was a truer statement made in the field of religious freedom advocacy! If we acknowledge that human rights are inviolable; If we acknowledge that religious freedom is universal as is evinced in the UDHR and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); if we affirm that at the core of religious freedom is the freedom to meet, what Rabbi David Novak, has referred to as humanity’s metaphysical need, the need to contemplate “Who am I?”, “Who am I in relationship to you?”, “Who am

xii

Foreword

I in relationship to the world in which I exist?”, and “Who am I in relationship to God, or a philosophy to which I choose to adhere?”, then we must be able address head-on the contested notions of religious and secular. A political community, which cannot recognize that “the line demarcating the secular and the religious, the public and the private, will continue to be a site of considerable disagreement in the twenty-first century” cannot move forward with any genuine dialogue on the importance of religious freedom. Too often I was met by foreign government officials who took issue with the fact that I expressed deep concern over the serious violations of religious freedom in their countries. In response to my advocacy as ambassador the pointed rejoinder often came that we in Canada regularly seek to restrict or limit public manifestations of religious faith, the implication being: “Who are you to criticize us?” – a comment that, granted, does not take into account the dissimilarities between restrictions on religious freedom in Canada and certain countries and the degree and form in which they impact people. While their criticism failed to hit its mark when one considers that Canada’s democratic institutions and the rule of law enables citizens who feel their religious freedom is being violated to seek redress in any number of ways, their critique was fair comment on our relatively poor effort in understanding political theology and our limited success in embracing a principled pluralism. As one who embraces the principles and worldview of Judeo-Christian secularism, I am well aware of the work that is required and so I am deeply grateful for Robert Joustra’s scholarly efforts in articulating the imperative of principled pluralism and of the deep need within western liberal democracies to recognize the contested nature of the religious and the secular. If we are to build a truly common life with our fellow citizens, we must recognize and embrace difference, in particular different approaches to the secular and the religious. Without such efforts we cannot begin to understand religious freedom, its relationship to other fundamental freedoms, and the human dignity it affirms. Dr. Andrew Bennett Canada’s first Ambassador for Religious Freedom (2013–2016)

Inclusive Transcendent, but privatized Neutral, rational, public, in Judeoand individualized concept of principle its logic and social Christian religion forms are accessible to all people secularism

Mutually constitutive, while the two are separate, the secular owes its origins to JC tradition. So far JC has best track record, but other traditions can and should also work to fold in democratic virtues.

Transcendent and private, but Neutral, rational, public, in Antagonistic, the secular may be publically manifested principle its logic and social must be safeguarded from forms are accessible to all people the religious to preserve the political

Laïcité ouverte

(Continued )

Limited democratic progress can be made apart from Judeo-Christian values at the basis of a political culture; best chance at peace is to replicate those values in a polity (whether via JC or others)

Only secular politics are legitimate, limited democratic progress can be made in religious states, reproducing religion-free politics produces better changes of a rational peace. Religion should not be politically but may be publicly present.

Only secular politics are legitimate, limited democratic progress can be made in religious states, reproducing religion-free politics produces better changes of a rational peace. Religion should not be politically or publicly present.

Relationship between religious What constitutes legitimate political and secular authority?

Neutral, rational, public, in Antagonistic, the secular principle its logic and social must be safeguarded from forms are accessible to all people the religious to preserve the political

Understanding and practice of the secular

Transcendent, privatized (freedom of conscience)

Understanding and practice of the religious

Political Theology: the understandings and practices that political actors have about the meaning of and relationship between the religious and the secular, and what constitutes legitimate political authority

Laïcité fermée

Rival versions

Table 0.1 Rival versions of the religious and the secular

Essentially contested

Principled Pluralism

Mutual resonance, overlapping consensus (limited by “constitutive values of liberal democracy”)

Principled pluralism: religious, like other kinds of reasoning, should be part of the rationale by which political actors come to agree on secular policy (mutual resonance). The state does not monopolize the logic by which actors arrive at consensus.

Changing and relative, no ideal relationship, no transhistorical, trans-cultural meaning

Fluid, discursive power defines secular

Fluid, discursive power defines religious

Legitimate political authority is constituted by secular principles that emerges in overlapping consensus from political actors, not by rationale by which actors arrive at them

Political legitimacy is necessarily local and individual, complicating large social and political projects or constitutions

Limited democratic progress can be made apart from Judeo-Christian values at the basis of a political culture; JC missiology essential element for liberal democracy.

Relationship between religious What constitutes legitimate political and secular authority?

The New Critics

Understanding and practice of the secular Mutually constitutive, while the two are separate, the secular owes its origins exclusively to JC tradition. Very negative, for example, on Islam as possible origin or incubator of such values.

Understanding and practice of the religious

Political Theology: the understandings and practices that political actors have about the meaning of and relationship between the religious and the secular, and what constitutes legitimate political authority

Exclusive Transcendent, but privatized Neutral, rational, public, in Judeoand individualized concept of principle its logic and social Christian religion forms are accessible to all people secularism

Rival versions

Table 0.1 (Continued)

Acknowledgements

Alasdair MacIntyre says we are never more, often less, than the half-authors of our own lives. The same is probably true of anything I’ve written. This book owes a great debt to several institutions and communities. They are, in a proper and credited way, also contributing authors of the best points (and none of the worst) of this book. This project began as a doctoral dissertation under Scott Thomas and Adrian Hyde-Price at the University of Bath. It transformed into a book only because of the exceedingly generous support of Jonathan Chaplin at Cambridge, who reviewed chapter after chapter, and Jonathan Fox, who over a consultation in Antwerp introduced me to the excellent Routledge Religion & Politics series under Jeffrey Haynes. Redeemer University College was a supporting community when I began this book, and is now at the close my academic home, an honour for which I am profoundly grateful. The University itself sponsored the publication of this book through an Internal Research Grant and a Grant in Aid of Publication. In both cases I worked with simply outstanding student research assistants. In the latter, Johanna Wolfert, who kept my citations honest, and in the former Jonathan VanSanten, who went far beyond the role of a research assistant for Chapter 2. Cardus, a Canadian think tank, and my home for this research for nearly five years, generously supported my work with research leave and the eventual nudge to see it finished. The Center for Public Justice (CPJ) and the Institute for Global Engagement’s Review of Faith & International Affairs (RFIA) both gifted me with fellowships which opened conversations, relationships, and publication opportunities for early versions of these ideas. Stephanie Summers (CPJ) and Dennis Hoover (RFIA) remain two of my most enthusiastic supporters. I am incredibly grateful for both. The Reid-Trust Foundation provided essential financial support to see me through my final months of dedicated writing and editing. To the Brothers at St. Gregory’s Abbey in Three Rivers, Michigan, where I spent long summer days between Matins and Vespers with stacks of books in their beautiful library, I extend my profound thanks for essential intellectual and spiritual space and encouragement. James K. A. Smith, Kevin den Dulk, Kevin Flatt, Janet Epp Buckingham, and Paul Rowe all provided insight into the larger questions of international theory and religious freedom. I am grateful for the generous Foreword by my friend Andrew Bennett, someone who shares so much of the argument and ideas of this book, and from whom I have

xvi Acknowledgements learned a great deal about not only what religious freedom is, but what practices make it possible. Finally my wife, Jessica, an ethicist and theologian, was a refining conversation partner for much of the last half of the book. She suffered through innumerable revisions on this project during the early months of our marriage. I expect there are more exciting things other newlyweds do than revise/revise/revise, but that kind of liturgy is, I suppose, not entirely out of place in marriage. I dedicate this book to her, with my love. Robert Joustra Toronto, Canada Advent 2016

1

Introduction

Mythology, in its original sense, is at the heart of things.1

Just when we thought we’d survived the Culture Wars,2 the front lines in the Religious Freedom Wars3 are forming up. PEW reports religious restriction, in the form of both government and social hostility, has reached a six-year high.4 The data is not hard to believe, bombarded as we are with stories out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria, and more of forced conversions, persecutions, massacres. Religious freedom is quickly rising from a niche concern of foreign affairs to a major issue on the global stage. Religious freedom wars may seem metaphor and euphemism when applied at home (like ‘the culture wars’) but they are anything but metaphor and euphemism abroad. And yet these religious freedom wars aren’t only about what’s going on out there, they’re also about what’s happening at home. From the Dutch we have an ‘abandonment’ of a policy of multiculturalism, from the Brexiters and Trump nation, to Canada’s (then Quebec Premiere) Pauline Marois a ‘Charter of Quebec Values,’ – the list goes on: there is real, palpable anxiety about how to live well amidst deep difference. It’s as though our culture wars ended in stalemate, and now we’re faced with an equally troubling peace process: how to live together despite our deepest differences?5 This is anything but a merely American, or Canadian, problem. Any of the foregoing examples could be used, but this book takes as its case for exploring the challenge of deep diversity, a classic problem of political theory and science, what I call ‘the religious problem with religious freedom,’ and two recent, comparative North American cases: the public debates surrounding the American Office of Religious Freedom and the International Religious Freedom Act (1998), and the debate leading up to Canada’s formation of its Office of Religious Freedom (2013) and its eventual closure (2016). Both are recent efforts by developed national governments to come to terms with what Scott Thomas calls The Global Resurgence of Religion, or what the team of Toft, Philpott, and Shah call God’s Century: the recognition that doing business in the twenty-first century will mean getting deep into the ‘the guts of religion,’ as religious freedom advocate Thomas Farr has put it. The Canadian Office is closest in analogue to the American Office, established with the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998 in the United States. In fact,

2

Introduction

analogues – and anxious analogues at that – were much in play when the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom (ORF) was being set up in the summer and fall of 2012 as pundits fretted that ‘American religion’ was marking a takeover of Canada’s Conservative government. The American context, by contrast, suffered less by way of Canadian anxiety, but just as much by way of a kind of spectre of Judeo-Christian establishment. As with other religion and religious freedom work by the political structures of the United States government, influential commentators have argued that the state should not ‘do’ religion, and certainly should not have an Office that labors to specifically privilege one form or idea of it over another. The startling comparative of these two stories, the Canadian and the American ORF, is in fact how similar the two public debates looked, how in some cases pundits flipped back and forth across the border making the same arguments, fitting their arguments seemingly with little or no difficulty to an entirely different national and political context. At least part of the reason I give for this is in the realm of political theory: that what we are seeing is a practical manifestation of much more fundamental concepts – theories – of what freedom of religion or belief should be in secular, western democracies. These ‘religion’ debates in the two countries are really only the most public manifestation of a much more fundamental question in our (Secular) age, within the realm of what some would call political theory, others political philosophy, but what I call political theology: the understandings and practices that political actors have about the meaning of and relationship between the religious and the secular, and what constitutes legitimate political authority. This is to say, that unlike sex (or perhaps like it) we do not always know religion when we see it, and in fact naming religion, defining, containing, delimiting it, is at the heart of the new religious freedom wars. What these two cases demonstrate is that underlying major public differences of opinion in religion and religious freedom are major differences in how to define the religious and the secular, which lead to often polar political and social prescriptions. The empirical claim of this book is that underlying rival versions of religious freedom are rival meanings of the religious and the secular. The normative argument is what to do about it. The structure of the book begins with the American experience, which is in many respects fundamental to the Canadian debate. The International Religious Freedom Act itself was launched under a Democratic administration in 1998, and has enjoyed no small measure of controversy. The ‘public debate’ over the Act, and the Office particularly, is limited from slightly before 1998 (the introduction of the Freedom of Religious Persecution Act, 1997) up to 2014 (one year after the opening of the Canadian Office). By public debate, in both the American and Canadian sense, I mean source material from major periodicals and dailies in English in the continental United States. My research assistant and I surveyed opinion-based (not merely news) accounts from this period in the twenty largest circulation papers and some other select periodicals. A full bibliography for both cases serves as two appendices to the book. This may seem a somewhat historic case to make about rival versions of the religious and the secular, but the controversy remains very fresh, for example when the Office of Religion and Global Affairs was launched, a continuation of that Act

Introduction 3 and of the State Department’s Office of Faith-based Community Initiatives. The new Office consolidated several related entities: the Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Special Representative to Muslim Communities, and the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. Maryann Cusimano Love called it America’s new “God Squad,”6 a welcome addition of institutional capacity, not to mention clarity and coherence in branding and approach. President Obama himself addressed the important work of these envoys and of the Office at his White House Summit to Counter Violent Extremism. Speaking in the South Court Auditorium, he said: Al Qaeda and ISIL do draw, selectively, from the Islamic texts. They do depend upon the misperception around the world that they speak in some fashion for people of the Muslim faith, that Islam is somehow inherently violent, that there is some sort of clash of civilizations. . . . [T]here’s a strain of thought that doesn’t embrace ISIL’s tactics, doesn’t embrace violence, but does buy into the notion that the Muslim world has suffered historical grievances – sometimes that’s accurate – does buy into the belief that so many of the ills in the Middle East flow from a history of colonialism or conspiracy; does buy into the idea that Islam is incompatible with modernity or tolerance, or that it’s been polluted by Western values. . . . So just as leaders like myself reject the notion that terrorists like ISIL genuinely represent Islam, Muslim leaders need to do more to discredit the notion that our nations are determined to suppress Islam, that there’s an inherent clash in civilizations.7 This unusual candor from the President, while largely missed in mainstream media,8 was a striking and clear statement that the United States, or at least its President, certainly does do religion. Canada’s Prime Minister was equally clear when he launched the Office of Religious Freedom in February of 2013. The Canadian ORF, promised by the Conservatives in the 2011 general election, was triggered, in some sense, by the assassination of Pakistan minister and reformer Shahbaz Bhatti, and part carrot for the Conservative’s domestic religious constituency. In his speech appointing Andrew Bennett as the first Ambassador for Religious Freedom on February 9, 2013 Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the connection clear: I am privileged, in the course of my service as Prime Minister, to encounter many extraordinary individuals and, from time to time, even among all of these extraordinary people, someone is exceptional. One such person I met in my office on Parliament Hill in 2011. He was the Minister of Minorities of Pakistan, Shahbaz Bhatti. He worked tirelessly to defend the vulnerable not only his fellow Christians, but also Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmadi Muslims, and all other minorities. He did so knowing that it placed him under a constant and imminent threat to his life. He was an honourable and humble man. Shahbaz and I discussed the threats faced by religious minorities, and the need for Canada to do more. Only three weeks later, while travelling to work in Islamabad,

4

Introduction Shahbaz Bhatti was assassinated. Those of us who met him, and certainly his family and friends, will continue to mourn his loss. But his legacy, is, I believe, a legacy of hope, hope for those who are persecuted for their faith, hope for those who believe we can make a difference, hope that if there is goodness enough to inspire one man to speak out even in the most harrowing of circumstances, there is goodness enough to inspire all of us to do our part. Unlike Shahbaz, most of the countless men and women who are persecuted for their faith are not known to us by name. But to them we say, Canada will not forget you. When you are silenced, we will speak out. We will use our freedom to plead for yours. And, we will not rest until the day you can exercise, fully and without fear, your birthright as members of the human family.9

Yet the domestic receptions of both the American and the Canadian Office were anything but unambiguously positive, especially in popular academic and journalistic circles. The Immanent Frame hosted a series of conversations on a proposed Office of Religion and Global Affairs in 2013, including several notable and influential scholars. Margot Badran, a professor at Georgetown, asked, “Why not just continue to engage on (secular) national terrains, through governmental and nongovernmental entities, including religiously defined groups and individuals as some among many, rather than highlighting “religious engagement”? What would religious engagement involve, how would it be conducted, and with whom? Whose religion?”10 Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh at the University of Oxford questioned how the government would “conceptualize” religion, and whether it was prudent for a government to do so. Cutting to the point, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd argued that religious engagement still operates on the pretense that all religions can be taken equally seriously. This masks the power relations involved: it will always be easier for the religion(s) of the majority, the religion of those who are in power, or the particular version of a religion supported by the state, the United States, the United Nations, corporate interests, or other power brokers to carry more weight, politically, than others. Religious engagement means that groups that the United States disfavors are more likely to be classified as “cults” or “extremists,” while US-friendly groups are registered and protected as tolerant and orthodox.11 Winnifred Sullivan went further still, saying there were political, aesthetic and even theological problems with the new office. She wrote, “We want to avoid the hardening of doctrine and structures that occurs when religion is legally defined and managed – when religion and government are interlocked. We want to pretend that religion and government freely interact with each other, each preserving her own integrity, so that religion – and politics – retain their ragged anarchic capacity to interrupt, dissent, and surprise – on behalf of justice, unfettered by government offices.”12 In Canada, Arvind Sharma, a professor of religious studies at McGill and author of Problematizing Religious Freedom,13 called the Office of Religious Freedom an attempt at “predatory Christian proselytization”;14 Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

Introduction 5 coming north of the border repeated her arguments at a lecture to the University of Ottawa warning against a “hegemony of religious freedom”;15 and Doug Saunders, the international affairs columnist for the Globe and Mail, said it was “time to speak out against religious freedom.”16 By global standards, America and Canada have comparatively peaceful and settled liberal democracies, yet their politics are divided not only on the meaning, interpretation, and application of a fundamental human right,17 religious freedom, but even on whether such rights, or such topics like religion, should be part of government policy. And these are, of course, two examples among many. At the time the Office of Religious Freedom was under debate in Canada, the Charter of Quebec Values was in front of voters. Similar patterns were being repeated not only in America but also throughout Europe. The question was not just about whether religion was good or bad, whether its freedoms and associations belonged in politics or society, and with what limits, but what it even was, and whether delimiting it was itself an act of political violence. Therein lay a real problem of theory producing a serious problem of practice. This is why this book is not primarily an argument about public policy or state offices, but an argument about how underlying issues of theory – how ‘ideas’ – can and do impact the practice of politics. This book may therefore be thought of as primarily addressed to political theorists, although it is not ‘merely’ a work of theory which in a pragmatic culture has become something like a profanity. It is part of a larger effort to demonstrate how intellectual problems of theory and definition can, in fact, render themselves in extremely practical ways; it is about the connection between ‘big ideas’ and public policies, and how problems in the latter show much more than we often think of the former. While the project is intellectual in nature, the discourse of foreign affairs, and of the American and Canadian Offices, are marshaled for evidence of ‘the religious problem.’ This problem, namely, that underlying rival versions of religious freedom are rival meanings and practices of the religious and the secular creates a significant impasse for policy. And it is my argument that the impasse is at least partly one of political theology. As Alasdair MacIntyre says, the problem in much of contemporary moral and political debate is not only that we disagree, but that disagreements no longer connect in politically constructive ways, passing each other like ships in the night. This, then, is an attempt at producing what MacIntyre calls constructive disagreement about religion and politics. The empirical component of the book concludes in the fourth chapter with what I call six ‘rival versions’ of the religious and the secular, manifest – even if in a basic way – in public debates in the United States and Canada. I argue that the debates over these Offices show (at least) six rival versions of the religious and the secular. While I explore how the debate over the Offices exposes these cleavages, it’s important to remember that this taxonomy is based on Canadian and American debates in about the last decade or more. Daniel Philpott, for example, differentiates between no fewer than nine different concepts of the secular in political science today.18 Others like Jonathan Fox are much more specific about

6

Introduction

kinds or types of religious freedom around the world, naming no fewer than ten kinds.19 Drilling into other debates on the religious and the secular, to say anything of going abroad, would necessarily expand and complicate this taxonomy. But this is only to make the overall point even more profoundly: even within North America – settled, liberal democracies that they are – rival versions of the religious and the secular pop up in important political ways in defining and practicing religious freedom. This is what we observe from the debates. The taxonomy itself may be incomplete, or undoubtedly in need of adjustment, but the point of the taxonomy is simply to demonstrate that there really do exist rival versions of the religious and the secular underlying rival and often incompatible versions of religious freedom. The fourth chapter finally makes an argument for thinking about the religious and the secular as essentially contested terms. Any resolution on the meaning of the religious and the secular is both political as well as theological. There is, in an important sense, no definition of these terms that is neutral, in defining them to begin with important normative claims are made. This is a key reason that political debates so often and so quickly polarize, because each definition is correct on its own terms. What must be done, and the work of this chapter, is to start to expose exactly what those terms are. The fifth chapter gets more normative and more controversial. Like Daniel Philpott’s argument about the international system in his 2001 book, Revolutions in Sovereignty, I argue that what we are undergoing in what Toft, Philpott, and Shah call God’s Century are revolutions in ‘political theology.’ In God’s Century, these scholars describe political theology as “the set of ideas that a religious actor holds about what is legitimate political authority.”20 This is a major new approach in international relations, but it needs a little tweaking to answer the legitimate arguments of the New Critics that what constitutes ‘religious’ and ‘political’ has an unstable or at least shifting history. I propose thinking about political theology as the understandings and practices that political actors have about the meaning of and relationship between the religious and the secular, and what constitutes legitimate political authority. This definition not only analyzes the increasingly important religious motivations in international relations, but it also contextualizes those motivations within rival meanings of the religious and the secular. It also recognizes, probably most controversially, that being religious is not a prerequisite to doing or having political theology. The meaning of and relationship between the religious and the secular are critical and deeply normative definitions which shape political legitimacy in decisive fashion, whether – perhaps even more so – as an atheist or an Islamist. Provided all of this is so, I argue that the best way to conceptualize religious freedom is through a framework called principled pluralism, the subject of the sixth chapter. Laïcité fermée, laïcité ouverte, inclusive and exclusive Judeo-Christian secularism are often unjustifiably confident about how and why the religious and the secular are defined. The New Critics, as Daniel Philpott has called them, leave us at an impasse of actual politics, where any choice, any politics, is necessarily

Introduction 7 violent, hegemonic, and so forth. What remains, more than simply a middle road, is principled pluralism. Principled pluralism is like what Daniel Philpott describes as rooted reason, which invites secular and religious actors to present their “full rationales – untruncated, unsanitized, unfiltered. Yet it also asks them to enter a dialogue in which they pursue mutual understanding with those different views. Among the fruits of deep dialogue, particularly important is overlapping consensus.”21 Principled pluralism is the practical outworking of a political-theological approach. It is predicated on what Charles Taylor calls a radical redefinition of the secular, not as the inverse of the religious, but as the (proper) response of the state to diversity. I define it simply as the advancement of an overlapping consensus of strong public principles, without monopolizing the public logic, religious or otherwise, by which actors articulate their support for those principles. Have we defaulted to the New Critics, then, where any definition necessarily invokes contestation and is therefore politically impossible? No, because to say that something is political or contested is not the same as saying it has no meaning, or that some meanings are not better or worse than others. It does mean disclosing those meanings, or as political theorist Stephen K. White puts it, ‘sustaining affirmation.’ It is pluralist because it engages forthrightly with those rival meanings, not excluding or diminishing them, but it is principled because that pluralism is itself limited by a certain consensus, variable as it may be in different places and times. Principled pluralism is the advancement of strong public principles, without monopolizing the public logic, religious or otherwise, by which actors articulate their support for those principles. Such politics are left deliberately open-ended because different political cultures will advance different consensus, and in the world of foreign policy it is not only important, it is essential that local tradition and indigenous logic funds such principles. The problem of paper laws long neglected lives at the heart of many noble efforts of internationalizing norms. Finally, in the seventh chapter I argue that principled pluralism is an especially practical framework for thinking about foreign affairs in a post-secular world. I outline six habits of a principled pluralist foreign policy and test six ‘big ideas’ for foreign policy, the sum of which I describe as Track 1.5 Diplomacy – a post-secular “top down” and “bottom up” approach to foreign affairs. I test these habits using the Canadian case, showing in what ways this new model can practically address the empirical problems from the introductory chapters. Using the Canadian Office as a case, we can see first the ‘limits’ of a political office, especially in the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, one of the important trigger events for the Canadian ORF’s creation. On the back of this we see that there are major, if not fundamental, limitations to not only the work of the Office, but to the work of politics generally, when it comes to advocating for and building religious freedom at home and abroad. To root the concept of religious freedom is work that no government, no mere political actor, is sufficiently suited for. We know, in short,

8

Introduction

that political theology cannot be done by ambassadors and prime ministers. They may facilitate, but they cannot do the work of political theology itself. Second, we should not however adopt a kind of misguided fatalism, a reductionist view of government and the state, as though politics is only downstream of culture and society. It may be true that principled pluralism suggests a more open society, but that does not mean that political actors and offices cannot, in turn, shape those same strong public principles through their practice and exercise. Nor, importantly, does it evacuate the need for the kind of ‘normative entrepreneurs’ that freedom of religion or belief needs; political leadership that not only sustains but also actively promotes and protects this basic principle. This is the advantage of a Track 1.5 approach: a partnership of both advocating and building religious freedom, top down, and bottom up. This, I will argue, is a good picture of what principled pluralism demands of any ORF; a picture that holds together both the promise and the real limits of politics generally and religious freedom advocacy specifically.

The take away While the research puzzle for this book is posed practically, namely, evidence in comparative Canadian/American discourse about rival versions of the religious/ secular, much of the book’s originality is in the form of theory, or perhaps a case in how and why theory matters. First, it offers a new clarification of the popular and policy conversations around religious freedom in North America, and suggestively of other Western states. Religious freedom is an emerging area of research interest, but it remains true that very little work has been done on theories of religious freedom, its meaning, definition, and concomitant policy options. This argument aims to clarify in an original way rival meanings of religious freedom and their relationship. Second, the argument answers Daniel Philpott’s call in international theory for more “deep theory”22 on the nature of the religious and the secular. The use of the term political theology for this kind of deep theory may surprise scholars of international relations, but in fact the term has now been brought into the discipline by several well-known scholars, including Philpott himself.23 I offer an original definition for political theology, designed to make sense of the rivalries shown in this chapter. Finally, I aim to show that any definition of religious freedom which takes into account this political theology must invalidate the laïcist, Judeo-Christian, and the New Critic traditions, calling for an original political framework, principled pluralism. Such pluralism is specific on what principles qualify as public (consensus), but agnostic (pluralist) on the logic or rationale by which persons and political communities arrive at those principles. This approach to religious freedom is best suited for deeply pluralist societies, including Canada and America, which are unable, or unwilling, to articulate what rationales are or not acceptable in public life. There is risk here, certainly, but this is no more than the necessary risk of democratic politics, a risk at the heart of any society deserving of the title ‘secular.’

Introduction 9

Notes 1 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 216. 2 See James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Control Family, Art, Education, Law, and Politics in America (New York: Basic Books, 1992). 3 This comparison was introduced to me by Daniel Philpott in personal conversation on a manuscript on religious freedom and Islam that is unreleased. 4 PEW Research on Religion & Public Life Project, “Religious Hostilities Reach SixYear High,” January 14, 2014. www.pewforum.org/2014/01/14/religious-hostilitiesreach-six-year-high/. Accessed August 8, 2014. 5 Quoting Chris Seiple from innumerable conversations, president of the Institute for Global Engagement (http://globalengage.org/). Accessed August 8, 2014. 6 Maryann Cusimano Love, “The God Squad,” The Arc of the Universe, March 5, 2015. http://arcoftheuniverse.info/the-god-squad. Accessed August 3, 2015. 7 President Obama, “Remarks by the President in Closing of the Summit on Countering Violent Extremism,” The White House Office of the Press Secretary. February 18, 2015. www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/18/remarks-president-closing-summitcountering-violent-extremism. Accessed August 3, 2015. 8 Mark Silk, “Obama Attacks Radical Islam and No One Notices,” Religion News Service, February 20, 2015. http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2015/02/20/obama-attacksradical-islam-no-one-notices/. Accessed August 3, 2015. 9 “PM delivers remarks on the establishment of the Office of Religious Freedom” on the website of the Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper, February 19, 2013. www. pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=5310. Accessed February 25, 2013. 10 Margot Badran, “Engaging Religion at the State Department,” The Immanent Frame, July 30, 2013. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2013/07/30/engaging-religion-at-the-departmentof-state/. Accessed August 3, 2015. 11 Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, “Engaging Religion at the State Department,” The Immanent Frame, July 30, 2013. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2013/07/30/engaging-religion-at-thedepartment-of-state/. Accessed August 3, 2015. 12 Winnifred Sullivan, “Engaging Religion at the State Department,” The Immanent Frame, July 30, 2013. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2013/07/30/engaging-religion-at-thedepartment-of-state/. Accessed August 3, 2015. 13 Arvind Sharma, Problematizing Religious Freedom (London: Springer, 2011), 12. 14 Arvind Sharma, “Religious Freedom, Compliments of the West,” The Mark News, December 6, 2011. www.themarknews.com/articles/7670-religious-freedom-compliments-ofthe-west/#.UJp01MXoSUK. Accessed February 25, 2013. 15 Globe and Mail, October 17, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/the-hegemony-of-religious-freedom/article4617004/. At the University of Ottawa, October 2, 2012. http://cips.uottawa.ca/should-canada-promote-religious-freedom/. In Embassy, October 10, 2012. www.embassynews.ca/opinion/2012/10/09/should-canada-promotereligious-freedom/42595. Accessed February 25, 2013. 16 Doug Saunders, “Religious Freedom Sends the Wrong Message to the Wrong People,” Globe and Mail, October 6, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/ doug-saunders-religious-freedom-sends-the-wrong-message-to-the-wrong-people/ article4591927/. Accessed February 25, 2013. 17 To qualify what is meant by a fundamental human right, I take those rights as listed in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) to be fundamental, international human rights. Article 18 of that UN declaration guarantees religious freedom as a human right. 18 Daniel Philpott, “Has the Study of Global Politics Found Religion?” The Annual Political Science Review 12 (2009): 185.

10

Introduction Table 1.1 Nine concepts of the secular Positive or neutral

Negative

1.

5.

Secular means pertaining to the world outside the monastic sphere 2. Secular means a concept or use of language that makes no specific reference to religion or revelation but is not necessarily hostile to them 3. Secular means a differentiation between religion and other spheres of society (political, economic, cultural, etc.) but not necessarily the decline of religion’s influence 4. Secular describes a social context in which religious faith is one of many options rather than an unproblematic feature of the universe (Taylor 2007)

6. 7.

8.

9.

Secularization is a decline in the number of individuals who hold religious beliefs Secularization is a decline in religious practice and community Secularization is a differentiation between religion and other spheres of society (political, economic, cultural, etc.) in a way that entails, and is part and parcel of, a long-term decline in the influence of religion Secularization involves a decline of religious influence on politics, not because of a general long-term decline in religion but rather because of the intentional efforts of regimes to suppress it. This concept does not imply a decline in religious belief or practice Secularization is an ideology or set of beliefs that advocates the marginalization of religion from other spheres of life.

19 Jonathan Fox, The Unfree Exercise of Religion: A World Survey of Religious Discrimination against Religious Minorities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 45 (Table 2.1). 20 Daniel Philpott, Monica Toft, and Timothy Shah, God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), 21–22. 21 Daniel Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 116. 22 Philpott, “Has the Study of Global Politics Found Religion?” Philpott writes a list of further study needed for political science to “find more religion” including his fifth, a call for more deep theorizing about religion’s political influence. . . . Just as security scholars must understand military strategy, political economists economics, and feminist scholars social and gender theory, so, too, political scientists who study religion ought to study theology and religious studies more than most do presently (198–199). 23 See most recently Philpott, Toft, Shah, God’s Century.

2

The God Squad Public debate and the American Office of Religious Freedom

But they [conservative Christians] undoubtedly have another object, too: to advance their cause of giving religion a prime role in the American political structure. – Anthony Lewis, “Abroad at Home; The Wrong Signal.” New York Times, September 12, 1997 No matter what their ideology or party affiliation, to some extent almost all presidents framed and justified their foreign policies in religious terms. – Andrew Preston, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith, 610

Jeffrey Goldberg called it a “process of political manufacturing that Washington seems to have perfected” in the New York Times in December, 1997, right in the heyday of the debate over how and why to frame a religious freedom act. He wrote this was “the taking of a simple, transparently righteous issue and turning into a political football.” Washington, as he titled his argument that December morning, has discovered Christian persecution. This was true, and of course it also wasn’t. Washington was undoubtedly consumed with the issue of religious persecution in a way in which it had not been so single-mindedly consumed by it in a long time (if ever). But to say that religious freedom or religious persecution was somehow a new moral component of American foreign affairs is certainly wrong. Since 1997, a huge range of academic and popular writers have published on the influence of religion on American affairs, both domestic and abroad. Andrew Preston, in his magisterial Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith, offers one of the most complete accounts. The two main historical accounts of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) and the Office of Religious Freedom themselves come from Allen Hertzke’s Freeing God’s Children and Thomas Farr’s World of Faith and Freedom.1 More recently Anna Su has written at length of the influence of religious freedom in American foreign affairs. In Exporting Freedom: Religious Liberty and American Power, Su cites historical cases as diverse as the SpanishAmerican War, Wilson’s famous postwar diplomacy, the reconstruction of Japanese politics (its constitution) and society, American-led advocacy on human rights after World War II, religious freedom and its role in opposing Soviet expansion in the Cold War, and – to the present day – our own case of the IRFA and finally even

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The God Squad

the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) in Iraq in 2004.2 Some have argued that a fundamental tenet of the American Gospel,3 as Jon Meacham calls it, is religious liberty; that far from a “discovery” the idea of liberty of conscience and practice is effectively the catalyst for the whole American experiment. There may be some overreach in these arguments, but the point remains that for some, perhaps even for many, the growth of religious freedom around the globe has long been a handmaiden of both the idealist vision of making the world safe for democracy, and the realist one of guaranteeing American security. In this chapter, I analyze the public debate around the American Office of Religious Freedom and the IRFA. I did this looking mainly at print media and its online components, tracking substantive, opinion-based journalism (not simply reporting) and its arguments over this initiative (see Appendix A).4 There is plenty of prejudice in using only print media, or only high circulation papers that our databases counted, but the methodology only needs to be precise enough in this case to net a plausible answer to the question of whether or not we can identify clear disagreement, and whether I can show that disagreement stems in part from rival and often incompatible definitions of the religious and the secular. Further, while our search and categorizations were more exhaustive, only a selection of those appear in this chapter. These are necessarily hand-picked selections, meant to be plausibly representative, but even if not convincingly representative at least plausible examples of the rival and incompatible arguments raised over this initiative in the United States. The time period under consideration is from 1997, which is necessarily prior to the IRFA’s adoption in 1998 to capture the actual debate, up to 2014. Our analysis specifically looks for opinions generated on the Office of Religious Freedom or the IRFA, not simply religious freedom generically (also not the Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF) of which most American media is domestic. Our concern is both international and comparative, and so in an effort to be as clear as possible on both, the Office itself is the main candidate of study, as close as we can get to a direct correlation to the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom. There remain, of course, substantive differences between these two efforts, not least of which is nearly a decade and a half of time passing between them, but those differences do not, in my opinion, invalidate the fruit of a comparative study. The argument follows fairly naturally. The International Religious Freedom Act was a piece of compromise legislation whose politics and public debate showcase the continued struggle to understand the place of the religious and the secular in America’s history, identity, and foreign policy. Specifically, at least six rival accounts appear, potentially seven in the American case. These accounts are not, in a rational sense, reconcilable, partly because on their own logic, accepting their own definitions and demarcations of the religious and the secular they cannot be disproven in an academic sense. This does not mean some are not better than others. I certainly stake my own opinion strongly in the remainder of this book, but it is to say that typical, apologetic, academic argument will often prove insufficient. These rival accounts cannot simply be proven wrong, however, they may, as MacIntyre puts it, be out-narrated. These are debates, in short, of political theology,

The God Squad 13 a topic as explosive as it is critical to our twenty-first-century politics, and one that the United States itself has a leading and continuing role in.

The Freedom from Religious Persecution Act (FFRPA) There are hotly contested accounts of why, exactly, the United States pursued religious liberty, in the moment it did, as a foreign policy priority. Accounts range as widely as the Clinton administration being handcuffed or worn down by the vestiges of the Religious Right, alliances between hard power and soft power elements in Washington on religious freedom as a security agenda, or even the postmodern classic that it was yet another arrow in the quiver of American hegemony; that religious freedom is a kind of Trojan horse in developing societies that slowly remakes them as little America’s. Salacious and perplexing as some of these explanations are, the truth is closer to the reality of politics, one more akin to chaos than to some conspiratorial or ideologically hegemonic project. Thomas Farr, for example, writes that America’s aversion to religion in its foreign policy was simply badly out of step for the times in which we now live. America, he argued, needed to stop “peddling strict separation and privatization of religion and begin to address the way religions can flourish within liberal states,” and that only when it does so will it be “perceived as grounding its policy in respect rather than hostility or in arrogance.”5 This mirrored some of the arguments of religious groups, particularly those concerned that the secularity of American elites and the foreign policy establishment was a systemic and deeply embedded problem. Madeleine Albright, whose conversion narrative on religious freedom and religion in foreign policy has become a minor legend in the foreign policy community, was initially deeply critical of the push for religious freedom. Her memoir, The Mighty and the Almighty,6 recounts her candid skepticism and legitimizes at least some of the anxiety of religious groups that a ‘secular hegemony’ was already operative in American foreign affairs. All of this is a bit confusing to the long-term observer of American foreign affairs, who over the course of the twentieth century would have seen both an American establishment and executive not only conversant in the language of religion and global affairs, but often deeply invested in the project of religious freedom. Anna Su argues that religious liberty thrived as a policy priority in foreign affairs during the Cold War because of its alignment between hard power hawks and the soft-power rights establishment. Religious liberty, on the one hand, was a first right, a fundamental piece of the package of liberal politics; on the other hand, it was a banner under which to oppose the Soviets, a moral high ground from which to ideologically shell the opposition during the Cold War. So, says Su, it should come as no surprise that during America’s peak “unipolar moment” religious liberty emerged again, with a new alliance of characters, but a similar kind of story.7 The lesson to take from this basic orientation is simply that any nation’s foreign affairs, but especially one as large and diverse as America’s, is never “one thing.” Trenchant idealist secularity, equally secular hard-power Realism, and deeply religious and moralist advocacy were all, and all remain, part of this not-always

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The God Squad

coherent thing called U.S. foreign policy. And they remain part of the debate over the meaning and practice of religious freedom in foreign affairs. Religious groups like the American Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, and Baha’i communities worked diligently to “fast track” the various pieces that became the IRFA, and these groups had real opposition, but it is also the case that religious freedom was not an unknown element in American foreign affairs. Writes Su, many of the representatives and senators responsible were veterans of the Cold War. People like Chris Smith from New Jersey and Frank Wolf from Virginia had long records of concern over religious liberty, first in the Soviet era, then after its collapse in Muslim countries and in China.8 Tom Lantos, a House Democrat, argued already in 1993 that the United States as “a country that has made the championing of religious freedom a defining trait of its national character,” cannot “turn a blind eye to the denial of this most basic human right.”9 As early as 1994 efforts were already being made to tie economic policy to human rights policy, especially in China. So when, in January 1996, the National Association of Evangelicals issued a call for the appointment of “a knowledgeable, experienced and compassionate Special Advisor to the President for Religious Liberty charged with preparing a report indicating needed changes in policies dealing with religious persecution and recommending remedial action,”10 it was hardly new territory. Congressional hearings were convened, books and op-eds were published, and major advocates were identified, fore among them Nina Shea, Michael Horowitz, and Paul Marshal.11 Writing in the New York Times, Peter Steinfels quickly identified what would become a constant source of criticism for the initiative: that while “the National Association of Evangelicals’ statement does link its defense of Christians’ freedom of religion with the protection of freedom for other faiths and with democracy and human rights generally” the “organizers of today’s meeting were loath to widen their focus to all other religious groups.”12 In other words, it was a government project by Christians for Christians, in the estimates of some, to make the world safer not for America, but for Christian missionaries. This, certainly, was Anthony Lewis’s perspective when the new Freedom from Religious Persecution Act, sponsored by Frank Wolf and Arlen Specter, dropped for debate in September 1997. That first bill would have created an Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring in the White House, created a director subordinate only to the president, and enabled automatic economic sanctions. The latter was what earned the ire of the Clinton administration. But for Lewis, the entire project was an opening salvo threatening the separation of church and state. Lewis argued that in addition to creating an artificial hierarchy of rights, a concern repeated from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright herself,13 the underlying intention was to increase the role of religion generally: The doubts about this legislation are increased by the fact that conservative Christian groups, including the Christian Coalition, are its strongest though not only backers. Of course their concern for persecuted Christians in the world is sincere. But they undoubtedly have another object, too: to advance their cause of giving religion a prime role in the American political structure.14

The God Squad 15 That the bill focused initial attention on Christians and Baha’is entrenched fears of a missiological project in bureaucrats clothing. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor, Pat Holt argued that the Wolf-Specter bill was an idea whose time “should never come.” And that, “There is a fine line between insisting on a decent respect for human dignity and freedom, on the one hand, and preaching sanctimonious hypocrisy, on the other.”15 Holt’s concerns found purchase when China’s President, Jiang Zemin, visited America later that same month. Even those, like Holt, who found religious liberty a “desirable” cause showed alarm and concern that this issue could trump the well-laid foundations for trade ties between the two countries.16 Then director of foreign policy at Brookings, Richard Hess, simply said of China’s human rights record, “Over time, the best way to reduce the role of China’s government is to build a stronger economy.”17 That strategic ordering is important: first people become wealthier, then usually follows a concomitant decline of religion, which makes it less of a political threat, which makes it easier to contain, which makes allowing it freedom less risky and sometimes even a multiplier of secular, social goods. It is a kind of Maslow’s hierarchy of foreign policy. This, said Thomas Farr, was at the heart of what he called the “liberal internationalists’ secularist views of religious freedom.” He writes, It does not acknowledge the American founding as an achievement of religious freedom (certainly not as the term is defined in this book). Secularists assume the founders resolved conflicts over religion by codifying in the First Amendment the toleration of something inherently threatening, namely religion in its public manifestations. This was accomplished by the “separation of Church and State,” and by the privatization of religion.18 Jeffrey Goldberg gleaned some of this when he argued that for Horowitz and Shea the persecution bill was really just a means to an end, and that end was “to overturn the established – that is, liberal – order.” He argued, “When Shea and Horowitz look at Human Rights Watch, the National Council of Churches, even the U.S. State Department, they see organizations driven by a class-based secular humanism.”19 The anxiety of secularists was enlarged by the frank Judeo-Christian secularism of Horowitz, who argued plainly that “The reason we have democracy is that the Judeo-Christian ethic taught the most radical political philosophy of all – that all men are created equal before God.”20 In a revealing speech before the International Coalition for Religious Freedom Horowitz laid this vision out plainly: Don’t you know why we have democracy in the West? We don’t have the right to go to church because we had the right to vote. We have the right to vote and we have democracy because of . . . the notion that all men and women are created equal in the eyes of God.21 Horowitz was so well loved by evangelicals that in 1997 the Southern Baptists even named him one of the ten most influential Christians of that year.22 The irony: he’s Jewish.

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Fuelling this Judeo-Christian optimism were recent empirical studies that, in the words of Thomas Farr, made it clear “that Protestantism has been the most effective religious agent of international democratization and modernization.”23 Data from the Culture Matters Research Project shows that, again in the words of Farr, there is “compelling evidence of the Protestant-democracy connection.”24 The empirical debate has, in fact, broadened out from democracy and already includes speculations on economic development and capitalism.25 The conclusion of some Judeo-Christian enthusiasts is reminiscent of the Gospel of Matthew’s injunction to “seek first the kingdom of God” and good socio-economic development will be added: what is good for the ailments of the world is first and foremost the JudeoChristian tradition; the rest follows naturally. It is at this point it may become clear just how alarming laicist thinkers found the entire line of argument of Judeo-Christian secularists. Not only would they contest this entire history, and its presumptions of the meaning of and relationship between the religious and the secular, they would see the argument as a very slippery slope to regressing back to where Western culture has only so recently managed to escape. It is a short hop to making the world safe for Christian missionaries in order to make the world safe for democracy. It is a larger, but not impossible leap, to argue that American security could be best served by facilitating these kinds of missions.

The International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) Once it became clear that the Wolf-Specter bill would not pass, centered around opposition to its automatic economic components, Don Nickles and Joseph Lieberman drafted what became known as the Nickles-Lieberman bill. The effort adopted the definition of religious persecution under Article 18 of the UNHDR and Article 18 of the ICCPR, and placed the Office of International Religious Freedom directly in the State Department. It expanded the tools of the president, and gave the office more discretion on how to apply those tools. It also established USCIRF as an independent body which made separate recommendations to the president, a kind of independent check to the Office. On May 24, 1998, that bill passed by a stunning majority – 98 to 0 in the Senate and 375 to 41 in the House. But this majority should not obscure, as Anna Su argues, “the tortuous path marked with acrimonious debates before its passage.”26 Just prior to the bill’s passage, in April 1998, Gary Bauer, president of the right-wing evangelical Family Research Council, made stinging indictments of the sitting administration. “I believe right now in Washington the leaders of both political parties are acting morally bankrupt when it comes to our foreign policy,” he said. “We are acting as if the highest American value is trade.”27 In Bauer’s crosshairs were undoubtedly people like Samuel Berger, Clinton’s National Security Advisor, who argued in May 1998 that the IRFA represented the “Wrong Approach to Religious Freedom.”28 Clinton’s critics accused him of being too economically focused, and even after the passage of the bill, many suspected the president was simply too overwhelmed by his own problems to offer vigorous opposition.29

The God Squad 17 Opposition to the bill came in several forms, but the two main ones were that elevating religious freedom in the State department would (a) tamper with delicate economic and cultural relationships with emerging powers, for whom movement on rights would not come with “naming and shaming”; and (b) undermine human rights advocacy generally, by sticking America’s nose into the business of religion all around the world, where it either doesn’t belong, or it doesn’t have the moral or spiritual authority to act.30 Both concerns coalesced around the fear that such a unilateral approach to religious freedom would weaken multilateral regimes, and that IRFA was effectively an exercise in American imperial overreach.31 Almost none of the opposition in the debates in the late 1990s was opposition to religious freedom as a right or to America’s obligation to have concern and act upon that right globally. It was a political debate between a soft laïcité and a continuum of Judeo-Christian secularism, which privileged obviously different strategic priorities. To be clear, both were animated by genuine concern for the plight of persecuted people, but the rival meanings and practices of the religious and the secular meant that the order of operation was very different. For laïcité, the priority is clearly building ties, especially economic ones, which model not only social relations but political values, and in the process build the kind of wealth which makes the growth of a middle class, of accountability, and finally of liberaldemocratic rights like religious freedom possible. For Judeo-Christian secularism, the priority is on freedom of conscience and of religion first, only from the roots of which can any kind of liberal-democratic sentiments emerge. The disagreement is basic but it is one effectively of story: on the one hand, wealth and education grow, religion’s political power declines, and so it can be safely given freedoms within a more limited sphere. On the other hand, it is precisely religion – and especially the Judeo-Christian tradition – which is the wellspring of those basic concepts of human dignity and rights. Religious liberty and – in the case of exclusive Judeo-Christian secularism – the liberty and virtues of the Christian Gospel, is the cornerstone of free, just societies. Writing shortly after the IRFA, E. J. Dionne Jr. argued in the Washington Post that “the turn of the millennium in America may well be remembered as a time when the country renegotiated the relationship between religion and public life, faith and culture,” and that “the rise of the religious conservatives and the culture wars of the past two decades sharpened the debate over separation and aroused both sides.”32 This debate would remain unsettled in the years to come, and – if anything – only expand in intensity and variety.

George W. Bush and September 11, 2011 The best account of the early years of the Office of International Religious Freedom is told by its first director, Thomas Farr, who recounts it in World of Faith and Freedom. But much of the debate over the early years serves to show how these already basic disagreements began to grow and entrench. The appointment of the first ambassador, Robert Seiple, became a touchstone for these debates. Seiple was, in the words of Jane Lampman at the Christian

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Science Monitor, immediately in the “diplomatic hot seat.”33 Seiple, an evangelical Christian, needed to be quick to answer alarm that his position was what secularists feared all along, cover for Judeo-Christian activism abroad. In a Los Angeles Times interview in June 1999 he clarified that, “as a matter of general principle, secularism and respect for internationally protected rights of freedom of religion are not mutually exclusive.”34 The United States, he said at a UN-sponsored roundtable in Geneva the April before, is not the international religious cop. Later that year, in November, the Washington Post gave a complicated profile of the new ambassador: one with a stack of Christianity Today on his desk (the evangelical news monthly), and yet who argued passionately against a focus merely on Christians in his Office. “The legislation does not lift up any one particular faith, does not put down any one particular faith. . . . The only requirement for working here is to feel passionate about the issue” of religious freedom.35 Despite assuaging some fears, however, the project of integrating religion and religious freedom was far from simple. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Mr. Seiple was a “fantastic man, but getting him integrated into the department was not a simple issue. Many people there were trained the way I was,” she explained, “which was: ‘The situation is complicated enough. Let’s not bring God and religion into it.’ ”36 Two major changes shifted this already complicated picture: the election of evangelical George Bush to the White House, and – conclusively – the attacks of September 11, 2001. In Bush, evangelicals were said to have their man. “I believe freedom is the almighty God’s gift to each man and woman in this world,” Bush said at a news conference in April 2004.37 But Bush’s foreign policy was marked by a curious merger of Realist and Idealist motivations, what would come to be known as neoconservative policies. Some attributed the rise in religious rhetoric and “Wilsonian idealism” in Bush’s foreign policy to those same evangelicals who “scored a major foreign policy victory with the passage of the International Religious Freedom Act.”38 Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Gregory Rodriguez argued, Evangelicals are among the Americans who believe most strongly in this nation’s providential role in history. And because they make up one-quarter of the U.S. electorate, they see themselves positioned to help it along. “Never before has God given American evangelicals such an awesome opportunity to shape public policy in ways that could contribute to the well-being of the entire world,” wrote the board of the National Evangelical Assn. in its call to civic responsibility. “Disengagement is not an option.”39 Others argued this alliance between evangelicals and neoconservatives really only blossomed after September 11, 2001. Peter Waldman wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “the views of evangelicals and neoconservatives, long aligned in

The God Squad 19 some ways, grew more so after Sept. 11, 2001. Spreading democracy and religious freedom became not just a moral cause but a national-security one.”40 Jim Hoagland in the Washington Post argued that religion and democracy were the “two grand themes” of Bush’s presidency.41 All of which may have seemed to confirm laicist suspicions that the IRFA was a Trojan horse for broader ambitions to integrate the Judeo-Christian tradition more actively in American politics, both at home and abroad. Wrote Jane Lampman in the Christian Science Monitor, “his [Bush’s] campaign remark that Jesus Christ was his ‘favorite political philosopher’ was an early signal” and that “his rising use of religious language and imagery in recent months, especially with regard to the US role in the world, has stirred concern both at home and abroad.”42 The post-9/11 world also complicated the idealist vision of religious freedom, however. In Religion in the News T. Jeremy Gunn wrote that since 9/11 “several of the countries that were among the principal targets of American criticism – including China, Sudan, Uzbekistan, and Saudi Arabia – are being courted by the Bush administration to participate in its coalition against terrorism.”43 Arguing that more than a little hypocrisy was at work, Gunn said that “In the weeks following September 11, the Washington voices that earlier had sounded the alarm about religious freedom fell silent.”44 Yet others, like Joshua Green, made the case that the attacks of September 11 created a focal point and catalyst for the issue of religious persecution.45 Prior to 9/11, argued Gunn, once the IRFA was passed “media interest melted away . . . Except for a handful of articles in the Washington Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times, the major national and regional news outlets gave IRFA a pass.”46 But, said Green, what’s prevented the Christian persecution movement from becoming a bigger force in American politics – even in conservative circles – has been the average American’s general lack of interest in foreign policy. That problem disappeared on the morning of September 11.47 The new problem focussed squarely, of course, on Islam. Anticipating, in some respects, the decade to come David Newsom’s May 1999 counterarguments to the Office are emblematic of the post-9/11 “Islam question.” Writing from a now familiar position, Newsom argued it is hard for people who see religion as essentially “peaceful” to understand its violent and repressive proclivities, but this is because “conflicts are rarely over religious issues; they are battles for political power, prestige, and economic advantage.”48 These arguments would be repeated in Afghanistan, Iraq, in Syria, and the Levant in the coming decades: religion, as such, is a catalyst and mobilizer, not a cause of conflict, the causes of which are more familiar underlying material reasons. This question, which rubs against the causal rivalry between laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism, is at the heart of the storm of controversy that emerged from Graeme Wood’s 2015 Atlantic article, “What ISIS Really Wants”: just how religious is this extremist violence? How Islamic is Islamism?

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Newsom’s concern, one that will be clarified by the New Critics of international religious freedom, is that by politicizing religion American foreign policy risks sacralising otherwise mundane conflicts that are effectively about material things. There is, naturally, real concern that in prioritizing religious freedom other causes might be eclipsed. Examples of this exist, including the Russian war in Chechnya, a case which has been transformed over time from a separatist conflict rooted in Soviet-era grievances into an Islamist frontier, partly as a result of Russian policy and sensational rhetoric.49 Just as some worry that in privileging the “Islamic” misapplications and misinterpretations of the tradition of the Islamic State, the real pathologies of power, money, and tyranny are being subsumed under religious veneers. This debate helps clarify for us between laïcité fermée from laïcité ouverte: the former of which names all religion, including Islam, as a toxin for liberaldemocracy, the latter of which sees only its extreme, political forms (which it names from the outside as perversions) as a problem. On Islam, ironically, JudeoChristian exclusivists tend to align with laïcité fermée; both are equally pessimistic about any chance of a liberal-democracy that is rooted in a Muslim culture and political theology. Neither of these would be the positions of the Obama administration, its public debate over Islam being only the tip of the iceberg, underneath which lay undisclosed sometimes incompatible stories and meanings of the religious and the secular.

The Obama years President Obama’s tenure was marked initially by a somewhat agnostic approach to the Office of Religious Freedom. Critics of his approach can be found on all sides of the ideological map, despite what amounted to effective inaction during his first term in office. While staying far away from Bush’s Freedom Agenda, he articulated his own pluralistic vision grounded in universal ideals. Even before his election a picture began to appear of a kind of softer, or open laïcité. Then Sen. Barack Obama, speaking at his now famous Call to Renewal talk in Washington, said: “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason.” Principles must be “accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”50 The soon to be president was equally clear on the challenge this poses. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. . . . At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments.51 In his own analysis of President Obama on religious freedom, Andrew Preston argued the President was finding a middle way between hardline Judeo-Christian nationalists and hardline secularity. In July 2012 he wrote,

The God Squad 21 a third way has been coming into view. Throughout his presidency, President Obama has begun harking back to Roosevelt’s evocation of a pluralistic American religious tradition. In keeping with the times, Obama has broadened it to include religions besides Christianity and Judaism. And, for the first time, he has added another crucial group: humanists, agnostics, atheists, and other skeptics. As he declared in his inaugural address, “We know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.”52 This third way, as Preston describes it, drew criticisms on all sides on the Office of Religious Freedom. “To date, President Obama has raised religious freedom in his speeches abroad without those sentiments being translated into concrete foreign policy actions, and our hope is that this report with the administration’s call to action,” said Leonard Leo, chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.53 Thomas Farr accused the president of “sidelining religious freedom” when it took him nearly eighteen months to nominate an ambassador.54 The 11th annual report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom offered pointed criticisms of the president’s adoption of “freedom of worship” rather than “freedom of religion” language, which it argued “allows regimes to claim they are not oppressing certain religions if those faiths exist in a form acceptable to the regime.”55 The report also noted that Obama spoke of the importance of religious freedom early on in Ankara and Cairo but since then had stopped using the term. That same year the Chicago Council on Global Affairs criticized the administration for feeding an “uncompromising Western secularism” and recommended that President Obama make religion “an integral part of our foreign policy.”56 Katrina Lantos Swett and Robert P. George became some of the administration’s most ferocious critics on the record of religious freedom. Their reports and editorials headlined the peril that religious freedom was in, the level of inaction on the part of the administration, and the international effort needed to reverse the trend.57 At the same time, this “uncompromising Western secularism” came under fire from a new branch of academic activists. Inspired by the poststructural canon, academic turned activist scholars like Winnifred Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, and Saba Mahmood trained substantive criticisms on the entire ‘religious freedom industry.’58 Their collaborations, initially on the Social Science Research Council blog The Immanent Frame,59 led to an edited academic collection Politics of Religious Freedom,60 from the University of Chicago Press (2015). Writing in such diverse places as the Chicago-Sun Times, the Globe and Mail, Al Jazeera, and The Immanent Frame Hurd, and others, have made ivy league careers arguing that “the good religion-bad religion mandate has become an industry”61 which religious freedom advocacy has created. Already in 2006, Winnifred Sullivan said, “I’m not sure isolating religion as something that needs to be protected makes sense in the twenty-first century, when religion has become as disestablished and as complex and mobile and pluralistic as it has.”62 The history of religion, argue these Critics, is an ambiguous and contingent

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one. It is simply not possible to point to one thing called “religion” and ascribe it “trans-historical, trans-cultural meaning.”63 The process of doing so naturally invalidates some kinds of religion, and validates others. And when that process is state-led, rather than merely culturally constituted, it has the coercive power of politics to enforce the good/bad religion dichotomy which worries these Critics so much. And there is good reason for this anxiety. Good/bad religion, and boundary making around apostasy/orthodoxy have a long and contemporary history in many places in the world. This anxiety, at least, religious freedom advocates like George and Lantos Swett undoubtedly share, although they draw dramatically different conclusions. For New Critics, like Hurd, George and Lantos Swett are part of, if not the whole problem. She even wrote that it was only a matter of time until the “religious freedom (IRF) lobby sought to capitalize on the moral panic surrounding ISIS to advance their agenda.”64 “Let’s be clear,” says Hurd, ISIS and the IRF lobby cannot be equated. Yet they share more in common than either would care to admit. Both claim to be driven by the objective of universal emancipation and collective religious flourishing; both draw strength from an intensive, explicit, and highly politicized focus on religious and sectarian divisions; and both have the answer to how we should live together. In some sense they are each other’s nemesis, supporting and sustaining each other in an endlessly provocative (and for some, quite lucrative), globalized version of the American culture wars.65 To put it bluntly, “the last thing the people of the Middle East need is a religious freedom charter that will serve only to embolden ISIS among its followers.”66 Far from an “indivisible package of human rights” of which religious freedom may be one, Hurd is deeply critical of the whole pantheon of so-called universal rights – a “bogus gospel,” she says, of “free trade and free religion.”67 Quoting Talal Asad, Hurd writes that religious freedom “usurps the entire universe of moral discourse, capturing the field of emancipatory possibility and effacing the distinction between law and justice.” This approach is deeply democratic, but it is not necessarily liberal. In fact, quoting Asad again, she writes “the modern idea of religious belief (protected as a right in the individual and regulated institutionally) is a critical function of the liberal-democratic nation-sate but not of democratic sensibility.” But the spectrum of New Critics can also run a bit softer.68 In Saba Mahmood’s latest intervention, for example, the ‘religious freedom industry’ is a small, and arguably even less interesting, part of political secularism’s distinguished career.69 American diplomacy is part of, but hardly the panacea, for the problem of political secularism. It is the state itself, argues Mahmood, and its intrinsic project of sovereignty and secularity that is the heart of the problem. It is modern secular governance that “has contributed to the exacerbation of religious tensions in postcolonial Egypt, hardening interfaith boundaries and polarizing religious differences.”70

The God Squad 23 Mahmood’s argument is that by privileging things like religious freedom diplomacy we risk hardening religious polarizations, which may create the very conditions for vulnerability our diplomacy is meant to fix. In other words, when does the political power to name something as a religious problem sometimes actually help make it a religious problem, where it wasn’t necessarily one before? This is a very real concern worth attention, and if the uninitiated can push through Mahmood’s somewhat academic-jargon, the question is worth the price of admission. Diplomatic rhetoric can render vulnerable minorities more vulnerable by naming their religious status as a cause, especially if the roots of the vulnerability have little to do with religious identity. The surest way to avoid this problem, at least according to Hurd, is probably to give up on the lost cause of religious freedom advocacy. We do more harm than good, according to Hurd, when we go abroad pointing fingers calling things religious that effectively only export our own secular/sacred problems and solutions. Mahmood is not quite as sure. The ‘industry’ has problems, but naming them doesn’t mean quitting the field. She writes, The language of religious liberty and minority rights reintroduces the problem of difference into the purportedly neutral language of political belonging, drawing attention to the social and substantive inequalities that continue to permeate a polity. It is not surprising, therefore, that both religious liberty and minority rights occupy a prominent place within Egyptian political discourse today. Their re-emergence should be understood as a sign not of the failure of political secularism in Egypt but of its ongoing promise.71 Religious liberty, for Mahmood, is just one of a repertoire of problems that recurs as a result of “the establishment of the principle of state sovereignty.”72 Mahmood intuits correctly, then, that these problems may not have a final, satisfactory resolution. They are endemic tensions to liberalism and political secularism, and so we should expect that the line demarcating the secular and the religious, the public and the private, will continue to be a site of considerable disagreement in the twenty-first century. Even as recently as the launch of the Office of Religion and Global Affairs (2013) – what Maryann Cusimano Love called America’s new “God Squad”73 – The Immanent Frame hosted a series of interventions on a proposed Office of Religion and Global Affairs, including several notable and influential scholars. Margot Badran, a professor at Georgetown, asked, Why not just continue to engage on (secular) national terrains, through governmental and nongovernmental entities, including religiously defined groups and individuals as some among many, rather than highlighting “religious engagement”? What would religious engagement involve, how would it be conducted, and with whom? Whose religion?74 Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh at the University of Oxford questioned how the government would “conceptualize” religion, and whether it was prudent for a

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government to do so. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd argued that religious engagement itself was a bad idea. “Religious engagement means that groups that the United States disfavors are more likely to be classified as ‘cults’ or ‘extremists,’ while US-friendly groups are registered and protected as tolerant and orthodox.”75 Academic as this debate may appear, and it is certainly more at home in the ivory tower than in the halls of Congress, it has emerged as a significant if minor ‘rival version’ in the debate over religious freedom in the United States. And, perhaps because of its academic nature, it is also one of the more clarifying in stating the underlying religious/secular rivalries that animate alternative accounts of religious freedom. It should not be exaggerated, but it also cannot be ignored in any taxonomy of the public debate up to and including the years of President Obama.

Conclusion This chapter has given a brief look at some ‘greatest hits’ in the debate over the Office of Religious Freedom and the International Religious Freedom Act in the United States from 1997 to 2014. The purpose of this overview was to show justifiably representative opinions and glean from their comparative reading rival accounts of religious freedom, underlying which may lie further rival accounts of the religious and the secular. I have labored to show that these underlying religious/ secular meanings and practices are a plausible reason, if not exhaustive or exclusive one, for disagreement over religious freedom in American foreign affairs. The practical effect of their disagreement covers a wide range, from tacit support for Judeo-Christian mission, to pluralistic deconfessionalization of the public realm, to a radical reorientation and even cessation of religious engagement whatsoever on the part of American foreign affairs. Clearly tangible policy differences are at stake. In the chapter that follows, I trace similar, if somewhat distinct, trends in the much shorter debate – and far shorter-lived – Canadian Office of Religious Freedom. Similar trends, owing to even some similar voices, appear in that debate: a taxonomy of rival and often incompatible religious/secular meanings and practices underlying rival policies of religious freedom in foreign affairs.

Notes 1 Allen D. Hertzke, Freeing God’s Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004) and Thomas F. Farr, World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty Is Vital to American National Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 2 Anna Su, Exporting Freedom: Religious Liberty and American Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016). 3 Jon Meacham, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation (New York: Random House, 2007). 4 I owe a substantial debt to my research assistant on this project, Jonathan Van Santen, for having done most of the initial work compiling what would become the case editorials and opinion pieces of this chapter. I am grateful to have had the chance to work with him in the term of 2016 and hope it won’t be the last.

The God Squad 25 5 Farr, World of Faith and Freedom, 28. 6 Madeleine Albright, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (New York: HarperCollins, 2007). 7 Su, Exporting Freedom, 136. 8 Ibid., 139. 9 Cited in ibid., 145. 10 As cited in ibid., 141. 11 See especially Nina Shea, In the Lion’s Den: A Shocking Account of Persecution and Martyrdom of Christians Today and How We Should Respond (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997) and Paul Marshall and Lela Gilbert, Their Blood Cries Out (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1997). 12 Peter Steinfels, “Evangelicals Ask Government to Fight Persecution of Christians,” New York Times, January 23, 1996. 13 As cited in Mary Leonard, “Faith, Hope, but First, Policy,” Boston Globe, October 26, 1997. 14 Anthony Lewis, “Abroad at Home; The Wrong Signal,” New York Times, September 12, 1997. 15 Pat M. Holt, “Religious Persecution in the Global Balance,” Christian Science Monitor, October 2, 1997. 16 “Not by Trade Alone,” Washington Times, September 29, 1997; Leonard, “Faith, Hope, but First, Policy.” 17 As quoted, “Not by Trade Alone.” 18 Farr, World of Faith and Freedom, 129. 19 Jeffrey Goldberg, “Washington Discovers Christian Persecution,” New York Times, December 21, 1997. 20 Cited in ibid. 21 Horowitz, as quoted by Farr, World of Faith and Freedom, 116. 22 Peter Waldman, “Power and Peril: America’s Supremacy and Its Limits,” Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2004. 23 Farr, World of Faith and Freedom, 100. See Harrison, The Central Liberal Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Robert D. Woodberry and Timothy S. Shah, “Christianity and Democracy: The Pioneering Protestants,” Journal of Democracy 15, no. 2 (April 2004), 47-61. 24 Farr, World of Faith and Freedom, 100. 25 See for example Brian Grim’s Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, whose central argument is that “Religious Freedom Is Good for Business: Business Is Good for Religious Freedom.” http://religiousfreedomandbusiness.org/. Accessed August 16, 2016. 26 Su, Exporting Freedom, 145. 27 Jessica Lee, “Religious-Right Leader Sets Foreign Policy Goals,” USA Today, April 14, 1998. 28 Samuel Berger, “Wrong Approach to Religious Freedom,” Washington Post, May 14, 1998. 29 Abraham M. Rosenthal, “On My Mind: They Will Find Out,” New York Times, October 2, 1998. 30 Pat M. Holt, “Good Cause, Bad Legislation,” Christian Science Monitor, December 2, 1998. 31 See for example, Su, Exporting Freedom, 146, and Laura Cozad, “The United States’ Imposition of Religious Freedom: The IRFA and India,” India Review 4, no. 1 (2005), 59–83. 32 E. J. Dionne Jr., “A Shift Looms: The President Sees Consensus, While Religious Leaders Disagree about the Church-State Divide,” Washington Post, October 3, 1999. 33 Jane Lampman, “In the Diplomatic Hot Seat: Religion,” Christian Science Monitor, April 8, 1999. 34 Larry B. Stammer, “Religion: An Envoy for All Faiths,” Los Angeles Times, June 12, 1999. 35 John Lancaster, “State’s Witness for the Persecution,” Washington Post, November 30, 1999.

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36 As quoted in Peter Steinfels, “Madeline Albright, Would-Be Priest Turned Secretary of State, Takes Up Religion’s Role in Policy,” New York Times, May 6, 2005. 37 As quoted in Waldman, “Power and Peril.” 38 Gregory Rodriguez, “Keeping the Faith, Globally,” Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2006. 39 Ibid. 40 Waldman, “Power and Peril.” 41 Jim Hoagland, “Faith-Based Politics,” Washington Post, November 24, 2005. 42 Jane Lampman, “New Scrutiny of Role of Religion in Bush’s Policies,” Christian Science Monitor, March 17, 2003. 43 T. Jeremy Gunn, “Religion after 9–11: When Our Allies Persecute,” Religion in the News, Fall 2001. 44 Ibid. 45 Joshua Green, “God’s Foreign Policy: Why the Biggest Threat to Bush’s War Strategy Isn’t Coming from Muslims, but from Christians,” Washington Monthly, November 2001. 46 Gunn, “Religion after 9–11.” 47 Green, “God’s Foreign Policy.” 48 David D. Newsom, “Religion & Foreign Affairs,” Christian Science Monitor, May 26, 1999. 49 See Matthew Evangelista, The Chechen Wars: Will Russia Go the Way of the Soviet Union? (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2002). 50 Jim Hoagland, “Melding Faith & Tolerance,” Washington Post, July 2, 2006. 51 Ibid. 52 Andrew Preston, “The Un-Tradition,” Boston Globe, July 1, 2012. 53 William Wan, “Clinton Speaks against Anti-Defamation Laws,” Washington Post, October 27, 2009. 54 Thomas F. Farr, “How Obama Is Sidelining Religious Freedom,” Washington Post, June 25, 2010. 55 Madhani Aamer, “Obama Blasted on Religious Freedom,” USA Today, April 29, 2010. 56 David Waters, “ ‘God Gap’ Impedes U.S. Foreign Policy, Study Says,” Washington Post, February 24, 2010. 57 See, for example, Katrina Lantos Swett, “Honor U.S. Values and Interests: Back Religious Freedom Abroad,” Washington Post, On Faith, May 14, 2013; Robert P. George and Katrina Lantos Swett, “Religious Freedom Is about More Than Religion: U.S. Foreign Policy Should Promote Liberty of Belief and Unbelief,” Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2013; Robert P. George and Katrina Lantos Swett, “Religion’s Rogue States,” Washington Post, August 22, 2013. 58 See especially Winnifred Sullivan, The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Beyond Religious Freedom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015); and Saba Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015). 59 http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/. Accessed August 15, 2016. 60 Winnifred Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Mahmood, and Peter G. Danchin, Politics of Religious Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015). 61 Hurd, Beyond Religious Freedom, 35. 62 “Legislating International Religious Freedom,” an event at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. November 20, 2006. www.pewforum.org/2006/11/20/legislatinginternational-religious-freedom/. Accessed August 15, 2016. 63 See William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 64 Hurd, “International Religious Freedom Agenda Will Only Embolden ISIS,” Religion Dispatches, November 10, 2014. http://religiondispatches.org/international-religiousfreedom-agenda-will-only-embolden-isis/. Accessed August 15, 2016.

The God Squad 27 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 Hurd, “The Bogus Gospel of Free Trade and Free Religion,” Al Jazeera America, May 20, 2014. http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/5/free-trade-religionguatemalakicherights.html. Accessed August 15, 2016. 68 Parts of this argument also appear in a book review in the Review of Faith and International Affairs (Fall 2016). 69 Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age. 70 Ibid., 1. 71 Ibid., 106. 72 Ibid., 33. 73 Maryann Cusimano Love, “The God Squad,” Arc of the Universe, March 5, 2015. http:// arcoftheuniverse.info/the-god-squad. Accessed August 3, 2015. 74 Margot Badran, “Engaging Religion at the Department of State,” The Immanent Frame, July 30, 2013. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2013/07/30/engaging-religion-at-the-departmentof-state/. Accessed August 3, 2015. 75 Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, “Engaging Religion at the Department of State,” The Immanent Frame, July 30, 2013. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2013/07/30/engaging-religion-atthe-department-of-state/. Accessed August 3, 2015.

3

Freedom of, or from, religion? Canada and the Office of Religious Freedom

One’s concept of religious freedom cannot be divorced from one’s concept of religion itself.1 – Arvind Sharma, McGill University

The short-lived Canadian experiment of an office dedicated to international religious freedom came into being in February 2013, and passed quietly out of existence about three years later, its staff shuffled into other departments in now Global Affairs Canada, its ambassador taking residence with a faith-based think tank in the capital. It was an experiment plagued with the anxiety of American comparisons, despite its ambassador and staff earning bipartisan accolades during their tenure. It was also an experiment that headlined, just as its American counterpart did almost a decade and half earlier, the rival meanings and practices of the religious and the secular. The debate was, undoubtedly, peculiarly Canadian in many respects, but its fundamental questions were not so peculiar, just one of many possible case studies in God’s Century. In this chapter I sift through the record of the Canadian debate on its Office of Religious Freedom, from March 2011, to its launch in February 2013, up to its closure in early 2016. This debate encompasses journal and newspaper articles, consultations, forums, and speeches, triggered – in the government’s own language – by the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti in March of 2011.2 Like in the American case of the last chapter, I define the record by public debate held in these major news periodicals and publications (Appendix B). Again, like that case this chapter will be necessarily representative, although given the brevity of the Office, it is also nearly exhaustive. By far, in Canada the two dominant traditions represented are laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism, a not quite accurate, but close, parallel to the French and English Canadian political experience. The chapter has three major sections. First, I provide a legal and political history to the Office, both the historic context of the Canadian experience, but also the immediate events that triggered the then Conservative government to make such an Office a priority in its foreign policy platform. I arrange the sources on the debate in two broad sections: first, the opponents, laïcité (both kinds) and the New Critics; second, proponents, Judeo-Christian

Freedom of, or from, religion? 29 secularists, and the like-minded. The balance in the Canadian conversation is unique, but its basic debate is not. Like America, Canada too may well come to remember the turn of the millennium as a time “when the country renegotiated the relationship between religion and public life, faith and culture.”3

The Office of Religious Freedom: a legal and political context In her book, Fighting over God,4 Janet Epp Buckingham describes three broad themes that have shaped Canadian approaches to religious freedom, both at home and abroad. The first is the religious fault line between Canada’s French/ Catholic and English/Protestant traditions. The British North America Act, now called the Constitution Act, 1867, joined two dominant, religiously defined cultures into a single exercise of nation-building. In its negotiation, sections such as Section 93 were provided to separate schools and grant provincial governments sole jurisdiction over key areas like education. The story of two-founding, religiously and culturally defined, nations is key to the argument that Canada was never founded on disestablishment at all, but on a creative constitutional overlap between two dominantly Christian cultures. This should stress that the growth of laïcité is a mid-twentieth-century response to a dominantly civil-religious political culture. The urgency and power of laïcité is often most marked, as Charles Taylor himself has argued, when it has grown as a secularizing balance to a dominant civil-religious state. The second theme, the protection of religious minorities, may well bear out the urgency of laïcité for Canadian culture and history. A founding mythology5 of two-nations eclipses religious minorities, especially First Nations spiritual beliefs. It was not until after the Second World War that strong lobbies from religious minorities, especially Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses, resulted in protections from discrimination. Secularization itself stressed the English and French rather than Protestant and Catholic nature of Canada’s “founding nations,” expediting this. The third theme is the rise of secularism. Buckingham means secularism in this instance as the slow eclipse of a dominantly Christian (Catholic and Protestant) culture in favor of an official position of “multiculturalism.” W. L. Morton writes that during the Victorian Era, the period in which Confederation took place, “Religion was . . . the chief guide of life for most Canadians; it touched all matters from personal conduct to state policy.”6 Not until the 1960s did the census forms in Canada even allow for a response of “no religion.” That category in 1971 was 4 per cent, but in 2001 it was 16 per cent. This was the time of Quebec’s “Quiet Revolution” (Révolution tranquille), a period of rapid and effective secularization of French society, the creation of the welfare state, and a realignment of politics into federalist and separatist, or sovereigntist, factions. John Webster Grant wrote of this time that “the nation had come to carry on its business as if the church were not there.”7 Despite this, the inscriptions of an earlier civil religion remained. Canada still had no official separation of church and state. Roman Catholic schools were publicly funded, religious charities took government funding, the national anthem and the Charter had references to God.

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Buckingham’s book ably covers the range of domestic, legal landmarks, including the Charter, and its religiously controversial preamble (“Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law”8). But by the time of the Office, many of the religious affectations of Canada’s guiding documents had become cultural and historical symbols, rather than active letters.9 The province of Quebec, for example, long the secularist canary in the Canadian coal mine, was already in 2007 debating just what kind of accommodation should be granted to religious minorities. He appointed the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences, although it is more generally known by the surnames of the two men appointed, the Bouchard-Taylor Commission. That Commission noted that, “during the public consultation held in the fall of 2007, Quebecers massively espoused the concept of secularism, one of the most frequently mentioned themes,” meaning “religion must remain in the private sphere.”10 Famous legal cases that followed have embedded this cultural logic in law: the 2010 Loyola High School case, the 2010 Ontario Human Rights Commission v. Christian Horizons, and more. So, by the time the Conservative government came to power, and certainly by the time it decided to make an international Office a priority, religious freedom in Canada was already in a delicate cultural and legal position. This, conclusively, was one of the reasons that when appointed – and even beforehand – the government had to reiterate at some length that the Office would function exclusively on an international level, despite some calls for an Office to redress exactly these questions at home. But there was good cause to look globally, rather than challenging the courts and domestic processes at home. One of those came in the person of Shahbaz Bhatti. Bhatti was an appointed minister of the government of Pakistan, whose stated priority was to change its blasphemy laws. But when President Musharraf signaled a change in the blasphemy and apostasy laws, militants warned, “If the government tries to finish it, the government itself will be finished.”11 This was the topic of conversation when the prime minister and other ministers met with Bhatti in February of 2011 in Ottawa. The meeting was part of a broader strategy to fulfill a 2008 election platform promise for “a new, non-partisan democracy promotion agency that will help emerging democracies build institutions and support peaceful democratic change in repressive countries.”12 This was a preamble for the closure of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, or Rights and Democracy, in April, 2012, an institution of such widespread dysfunction that even the government lost its patience with the arm’slength rights body.13 Bhatti’s visit came amid rumors of a general federal election, and his death on March 2, 2011, came just prior to the writs of election issued by Governor General David Johnston on March 26. The Office of Religious Freedom, a replacement for Rights and Democracy, and a fulfillment of the 2008 promise, was incorporated into the Conservative’s 2011 election platform. The government’s focus on the rise of repressive and undemocratic laws was the result of consultations with those like Bhatti, but also rising evidence of

Freedom of, or from, religion? 31 relevant cases. The Pew Forum reported that a substantial portion of the world’s population – 75 per cent as of mid-2010 – “lives in countries where governments, social groups or individuals restrict people’s ability to freely practice their faith.”14 Generally speaking, the report argued, taking government restrictions and social hostilities together, religious freedom is worsening across the globe. Bhatti’s assassination, while a focusing event, was not an isolated incident. Those who challenge the legal and political culture of blasphemy and apostasy from within are in some of the greatest danger. This was the case with Shahbaz Bhatti. Bhatti was made Minority Affairs Minister in 2008 and was reappointed in February, 2011, just before his murder. He used his position to secure government assistance for victims of religiously motivated mob violence, advocate publicly for reform of the blasphemy laws, and increase public focus on religious minorities’ concerns. After his death, Dr. Paul Bhatti, his brother, was appointed as Advisor to the Prime Minister on Interfaith Harmony, a position he still holds. Bhatti’s tireless opposition to blasphemy and apostasy laws earned the respect of Canada’s prime minister and several members of the Cabinet. Then Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who was also the party’s point man for outreach to immigrant Canadians, said Mr. Bhatti made a major impression on Mr. Harper when they met in early February, 2011: The Prime Minister was deeply affected by this as was everyone who had the chance to meet him. His visit to Canada shortly before his assassination helped to galvanize within the government the reality of this kind of persecution. . . . Just before I brought Shahbaz to meet the Prime Minister, I told the Prime Minister it would be a miracle if the man he was about to meet would be alive in a few months’ time.15 Minister Kenney is said to have counseled Mr. Bhatti against returning home. “Shahbaz was very conscious that in returning to Pakistan he would be facing not just the possibility but also the likelihood of assassination,” the minister said.16 Bhatti knew the risks. In a video he left, to be played in the event of his death, he said he would not change his principles, and that he was prepared to die for his work.17 He was shot and killed while visiting his mother in Islamabad in March, 2011. Al Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban Movement in Punjab claimed responsibility in leaflets left at the scene. In Pakistan, few convicted of blasphemy and apostasy have been judicially executed, partly because of the length of trials, but also because mobs and vigilantes have killed hundreds of the accused.18 When Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched the Office of Religious Freedom, and named its first Ambassador, Andrew Bennett, on February 9, 2013, he made the connection clear: Unlike Shahbaz, most of the countless men and women who are persecuted for their faith are not known to us by name. But to them we say, Canada will not forget you. When you are silenced, we will speak out. We will use our

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Freedom of, or from, religion? freedom to plead for yours. And, we will not rest until the day you can exercise, fully and without fear, your birthright as members of the human family.19

The task of the Office was the promotion of religious freedom as one of these ‘strong public principles’ in Canadian foreign affairs. Its mandate was to “promote Canadian values of pluralism and tolerance throughout the world” and specifically to: • • •

Protect, and advocate on behalf of, religious minorities under threat; Oppose religious hatred and intolerance; Promote Canadian values of pluralism and tolerance abroad.20

During its short tenure, the Office was indeed busy in the person of its ambassador, travelling the globe advocating on behalf of religious minorities, and releasing an array of statements both via the Office and via the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself. It is less clear how well integrated the priority of religious freedom became in other parts of Canadian foreign policy, but given the focus of the ORF on “countries or situations where there is evidence of egregious violations of the right to freedom of religion,”21 it is also unlikely that issues of religious freedom would be central in, for example, trade negotiations. However, some sanctions, as in the one case in Russia, were authorized, which may have at least some background in religious freedom issues, given the ambassador’s priority on that region and the conflict in Ukraine.22 While statements and diplomatic visits attract attention, the bulk of the assets of the Office ($4.25 million out of its annual $5 million budget23) were actually dedicated to the more subtle, less eye-catching work of the Religious Freedom Fund. The fund was designed to: •

• • •

Raise awareness about issues related to freedom of religion or belief by providing financial support to multilateral organizations for their activities, including interreligious dialogue and education on religious tolerance, freedom of religion or belief, and pluralism; Conduct research on freedom of religion or belief that provides governments and decision-makers the world over with sources of information and analysis related to freedom of religion or belief; Provide support for projects designed to support dialogue among different religious groups leading to clearly identified outcomes in countries where religious issues are principal factors of conflict between communities; Provide legal and legislative or related forms of support on issues of freedom of religion or belief in order to build capacities and help defend communities that are targeted because of their faith.24

The Office had several rounds of funding, including projects in Nigeria, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Indonesia, Pakistan, and elsewhere. While the geography of these projects spanned the globe, what united their aims and methods on the part of the ORF was their commitment to work with local

Freedom of, or from, religion? 33 actors, to fund and support the development of conversations and guidelines rooted in and resulting from those same actors. Not only was this collaborative approach to foreign partnership consistent with principled pluralism, it also pivoted the Office into a non-redundant place in the international religious freedom community.25

Opponents: laïcité and the New Critics Despite this modest endowment, critics of the Office emerged early on in the public debate. Between the assassination of Bhatti and the launch of the Office, the key advocates of laïcité, and for this reason also some of the key opponents of the Office, have been Doug Saunders from the Globe and Mail, Arvind Sharma from McGill University, and Paul Wells, an influential columnist with Canada’s national newsweekly, Macleans. Unlike the United States, these were among the more popular and common opinion makers in the lead up to the office. Indeed, consistent with Charles Taylor’s suggestion that laïcité generally galvanizes around opposition to a strong civil-religious culture, the most powerful arguments for laïcité have, in fact, been arguments against Judeo-Christian secularism. For this reason, the arguments tend to be more reactionary. Doug Saunders is a well-known British Canadian journalist, the international affairs columnist for Canada’s paper of record, the Globe and Mail, and bestselling author of Arrival City and The Myth of the Muslim Tide. He is also one of the most outspoken critics of the Office of Religious Freedom. It is time, he has written, “to speak out against religious freedom.”26 Saunders’s arguments are evocative of the logic of laïcité, the dangerous political risks that are associated with religious expression outside the bounds of private life. He writes, When groups of people exercise their self-proclaimed religious freedoms, terrible things tend to happen. The phrase religious freedom is evoked by Hindu nationalist parties in India to justify killing rampages in Muslim neighbourhoods, by the Buddhist-majority government of Sri Lanka to imprison members of the country’s Hindu minority, by Jewish religious parties in Israel to call for the denial of Israeli Muslims’ full citizenship rights, and by crowds of Salafists and Islamists in Egypt bent on ruining the lives of Coptic Christians.27 For the ardent religious believer, he argues, religious freedom often means the “right to restrict the freedoms of others, or to impose one’s religion on the larger world. That’s why the most important religious freedom is freedom from religion.” Contrary to Judeo-Christian secularism, Saunders says that “the core values of our common culture, the things that make us Western and modern – democracy, equality, the rule of law – were forged through the rejection of religion and the overthrow of spiritual authority.”28 In his opinion, Canada should promote the “peaceful removal of faith from the state.” Saunders himself characterizes two rival versions of religious freedom. In a Globe and Mail editorial in 2011 he wrote,

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Freedom of, or from, religion? We are witnessing a showdown, across the West, between two competing definitions of “freedom of religion.” In one definition, the public sphere is a wide-open space: Citizens are free to try to impose religion, to invoke their gods in legislation, to wear whatever symbols they like. It’s a marketplace of beliefs, and may the strongest prevail. In the other definition, that sphere is a neutral space: Religion is private and public places are unencumbered by competitions for divine supremacy. This definition recognizes that freedom of religion depends on a strongly defended freedom from religion.29

Although to this point in his argument Saunders has approvingly quoted a lecture by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd at the University of Ottawa in October, it seems unlikely she would agree with this caricature, at least on the prospect of a supposed unencumbered, public neutrality that would result from the suppression of the religious. In his own critical response to the Office, Arvind Sharma argues that JudeoChristian secularism casts a long shadow on the Office. In an interview with the CBC, he expressed anxiety about the connection to American civil-religion: The [U.S. officials] tends to recognize and emphasize violations of rights of Christian minorities and Christian evangelical groups to proselytize, rather than using the term “religious freedom” to cover the religious freedom of all communities. So this is a very deep bias.30 The absence of other world religions in government consultations, notably what Sharma calls non-Western ones, was also a key concern for him, a point he makes at greater length in his 2011 book, Problematizing Religious Freedom. He writes, The current concept of religious freedom operates with a Western concept of religion which involves the notion of exclusive religious affiliation, or the view that one may belong to only one religion at a time, and that the contours of the concept of religious freedom change significantly when one operates with . . . an Asian concept of religion, which permits multiple religious affiliation.31 Further to this, Sharma argues that not all definitions of religion, notably some variations of Islam, accept conversion as a legitimate freedom of religion. This was certainly in evidence in the negotiation of key international documents on religious freedom, and in the 2006 trial of Abdul Rahman in Afghanistan. All of this sustains a parallel conclusion to my argument, that “the concept of religious freedom cannot be divorced from the concept of religion.”32 But Sharma’s response is driven by a reaction to the supposed Judeo-Christian bias of the, at the time, non-existent Office of Religious Freedom. In a popular piece for the Mark News, he argued that “religious freedom [is] compliments of the West,” and, more odiously, that “the promotion of the western concept of religious

Freedom of, or from, religion? 35 freedom (which encourages people to be open to changing their religions) comes across as a cover for predatory Christian proselytization.”33 His solution is more difficult to agree with, arguing that “followers of proselytized religion are justified in imposing restrictions on the proselytizing activities of the proselyting religions, in order to prevent the violation of the principle of non-interference in the pursuit of one’s religion.”34 Such an opinion contradicts basic Canadian values outlined in the Charter and the Constitution, but it also neglects the arguments of Hurd to this point that the repression of varying forms of the religious, including proselytization, forms its own – in her words – discursive hegemony. Further, the premise that proselytization consists only in explicit expression runs at odds with Taylor’s argument that “if an understanding makes a practice possible, it is also true that it is the practice that largely carries the understanding.”35 Restrictions on proselytization not only privileges the dominant secular regime’s religious/secular discourse, it may also provide an intolerable restriction on the definition of the religious. Sharma’s response to the religious problem with religious freedom seems to be a sharper, more privatized laïcité, until co-religious debate is stripped from not merely political, but also public space. This has the ironic consequence of arguing for greater restriction in the name of a deeper pluralism. The logic of this is laicist because it supposes that the suppression of the religious in public produces an inclusive neutrality, rather than an enlargement of the dominant discursive settlement of the secular and the religious. It is further laicist because it presumes that the practices of the religious are not, as Taylor says, in and of themselves intrinsic, rather than exogenous or secondary, to belief. This is an argument that Saba Mahmood makes at greater length about the women’s piety movement in Egypt, and the religious practice of the veil, in her well recognized book, The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject,36 which was the subject of an interview with the CBC on October 24, 2012. Macleans and the Canadian International Council (CIC) made more explicit criticisms of the Office of Religious Freedom, titling its first series of expert reflection “The New Missionaries: Should Canada Promote Religious Freedom Abroad?”37 Edited by Maclean’s Paul Wells, the symposium worked within this explicit missiological framework, asking – on several points – whether promoting religious freedom was not the same as promoting religion itself, and whether the government of Canada should have any role in such an exercise.38 Two of the three defenders were Americans, Thomas Farr and Allen Hertzke, serving to enlarge the fears of Canadians already concerned that American Judeo-Christian civil-religion was creeping into Canadian foreign affairs via a parallel Office and structure to the United States. American parallels are common. In the Toronto Star, Tony Burman, former head of Al Jazeera English and CBC News, discusses “Why faith and politics are a toxic brew.”39 Burman writes, The Canadian “Office” is based on a similar U.S. government initiative, criticized for choosing its targets primarily to further American political interests.

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Freedom of, or from, religion? It is not surprising that the toxic blend of religion and politics in the U.S. has influence well beyond its borders, whether in Afghanistan or Canada.40

The CIC later balanced these responses with a roundtable of international experts from outside the United States, including UN Special Rapporteur Heiner Bielefeldt, MP David Anderson, Dr. Malcolm Evans from Bristol University, Dr. Nazila Ghanea-Hercock from Oxford, and Dr. Janet Epp Buckingham from Trinity Western University. As a backgrounder to the conversation, Baha’i researchers from their community in Canada, Geoffrey Cameron and Eric Farr, argued for the positive, principled role of Canada in the future of religious freedom.41 Elizabeth Shakman Hurd contributed to the debate in the Globe and Mail, a lecture at the University of Ottawa, and in Canada’s foreign policy newsweekly, Embassy.42 Her arguments were the most academic, although even so she responds to the problem of the Office head on, arguing it “empowers religious leaders at the expense of dissenters, doubters, and those on the margins.”43 In this, she shares perspectives with Doug Saunders, who quotes her approvingly in his Globe and Mail editorial of October 6. The “exportation” of “American invented” religious freedom can do far more harm than good, she argued in her own Globe editorial. Such a reification and projection of the “religious” affords only certain kinds of “right” religion. Hurd cites her co-editor on “the politics of religious freedom” at The Immanent Frame, Winnifred F. Sullivan, that “the right kind of religion, the approved religion, is always that which is protected, while the wrong kind, whether popular or unpopular, is always restricted or even prohibited.”44 But unlike Saunders, her solution is not a further retrenchment of laïcité. In fact, her proposed solution remained far from clear in her advice for the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom. She wrote, Religious freedom needs to be reimagined as a site of resistance against powerful authorities, rather than a form of discipline imposed by them, funneling people into predefined religious boxes and politicizing their differences.45 Although this reimagining may prove of academic interest, it is difficult to understand how such a renewed imagination can practically support the Office which must by political necessity define its intentions on the meaning of religious freedom, and the definition of the religious and the secular. Saunders and others may well have read Hurd wrongly in their arguments citing her for laïcité as an approach to religious freedom, but her serious lack of political clarity on the topic of a political Office made this more likely.46 Saunders, Sharma, and Hurd are not alone, of course. Only days after the launch of the Office, iPolitics, Canada’s daily aggregator for political insiders, featured well-known conservative Tasha Kheiriddin, asking, “Why an office of religious freedom? God only knows.”47 She argued that launching the Office, and in her opinion elevating religious freedom above other freedom, “violates the principle of separation of church and state.”48 In the accompanying political cartoon (Figure 3.1), the accusation is that in order to move religious freedom in as a priority, a neutral, rational, scientific agenda has to be moved out.

Freedom of, or from, religion? 37

Figure 3.1 The laïcité perspective on the Office

Proponents: Judeo-Christian Secularists Advocates of laïcité argue, perhaps rightly, that the default position of Canada’s government and political culture is Judeo-Christian. The evidence for this is historical, legal, political, and cultural: Canada’s two founding nations, French/Catholic and English/Protestant, the inscribed privilege of those traditions in Constitution and law and precedence, and finally the influence of American Judeo-Christian secular conservatism on the Canadian Conservative party. Although since the Quiet Revolution a second, powerful tradition of laïcité has also persisted on the Canadian political landscape, the reactionary nature of this tradition also speaks to the powerful precedence of the Judeo-Christian story in Canada. Yet, unlike America, Canada has no Puritan mythology,49 no parallel, powerful evangelical political activism seeking to extend a “hegemony” of religious freedom. Some Canadian journalists, notably Marci MacDonald, have labored to uncover a Judeo-Christian agenda at the heart of Canada’s Conservative party,50 but provocative as her thesis is, scholars of religion and religious freedom in Canada have largely dismissed the study for being riddled with extensive factual errors and not a little bit of conspiracy mongering.51 Despite Marci MacDonald, Doug Saunders, and others, there is less evidence of an exclusivist Judeo-Christian agenda in debates over the Office, but there remains a significant legacy of

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Freedom of, or from, religion?

inclusive Judeo-Christian secularism, which is taken as the meaning of JudeoChristian secularism hereafter. Indeed, Judeo-Christian secularism persists if only because the experience of Canadian secularity is negotiated from within a French/ Catholic and English/Protestant history. Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Hon. John Baird, has gone to great length to demonstrate the government’s pragmatic, democratic approach to religious freedom, but he also made a deliberate attempt to connect this pragmatism to a tradition in Canadian values. In a speech from October 2011, Minister Baird cited Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, a quote that the prime minister recalled again on February 19, 2013, in his speech launching the Office: I am a Canadian . . . free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and mankind.52 In sustaining the Office with a narrative of freedom, peace, and security, Minister Baird reiterates a key message of the Conservative government that they are not innovating, but rather restoring, or building on, fundamental Canadian values. These values are typically expressed in secular language, although individual Members of Parliament are open to, and sometimes do, express those values within the Judeo-Christian consensus of English and French Canada.53 Yet even for these Members, such a framework is not an exclusivist project, but rather a historical recognition that the Judeo-Christian tradition and its values produced the secularism now called multiculturalism. The essential disagreement with laicists, then, is whether that mid-century transition was one of continuity or breakage. In fact, contrary to the argument of those like Doug Saunders, the minister said explicitly at a religious liberty dinner in Washington in May, “We know that freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.”54 Judeo-Christian secularism in Canada, and the kind Minister Baird and other Members appeal to, is an argument for continuity in values, history, and tradition, not of disruption. On that continuity, the minister, as well as Member Bob Dechert, then parliamentary secretary to the foreign affairs minister, have been very clear. At the second annual Parliamentary Forum on Religious Freedom in April 2012, Mr. Dechert said, “Canada is a place where religious freedom is part of our fundamental core values. If we’re not willing to stand up and say this is a Canadian value, then we’re denying our heritage.”55 Minister Baird even recalled the words of American President Franklin Roosevelt, in the same speech at the stakeholders’ consultations in October 2011, saying, Where freedom of religion has been attacked, the attack has come from sources opposed to democracy. Where democracy has been overthrown, the spirit of free worship has disappeared. And where religion and democracy have vanished, good faith and reason in international affairs have given way to strident ambition and brute force.56

Freedom of, or from, religion? 39 American connections to the Office of Religious Freedom buttress the concerns of laicists, who worry that American-style religious freedom is really a project of Judeo-Christian proselytization in disguise. American political culture tolerates civil-religious language and justifications in a way that Canadian political culture does not. A clear example of this would be the importance of the Christian religious affiliation of the American president, versus the clear liability that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s similar evangelical Christian faith was to him and his party. Harper’s faith was, in fact, at the center of concerns over his “secret agenda,” a supposed moral and religiously conservative series of actions the opposition warned he would take if ever elected to a majority parliament. But Jonathan Malloy, an academic who studies religion and politics at Carleton University, argued in the Globe and Mail that for all the concern about a Harper secret agenda against abortion and gay rights, this [the Office] is the real stuff that brings Conservatives and evangelicals closer together. The prospective effect of this office of religious freedom is almost beside the point. This is a low-cost, high-yield pledge that resonates deeply with evangelicals, without the divisive risks of explosive sexuality issues.57 This connection to “American and evangelical-style religious freedom” immediately raises Arvind Sharma’s specter of “predatory Christian proselytization.” Some saw the idea of an Office of Religious Freedom as a replacement for the former Rights and Democracy, which proved “insufficiently supportive of Israel,” and an attempt to consolidate voter support among immigrant Coptic and Pakistani Canadian Christians. Haroon Siddiqui wrote for the Toronto Star: The Conservatives also wooed the Coptic Christian and Pakistani Canadian Christians in the GTA with a foreign policy pledge: establishing the Office of Religious Freedom. This was widely taken to mean advocating mostly for Christians and other minorities in Muslim nations. While Baird makes perfunctory references to the beleaguered Muslim minority in Burma, he has little or nothing to say about plight of other religious groups, such as the Shi’ites in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, or Sufi Muslims in Pakistan. This discredits the core Canadian value of universal human rights.58 Religious freedom itself has suffered as a concept from alignment with American interests in Canada. Sheema Khan writes of the US State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom for the Globe and Mail, that for years, “religious freedom” was seen as code for “Christian evangelizing,” and the agency’s effectiveness had diminished as a result of internal bickering and claims of religious bias. A former staffer recently filed a complaint against the commission, alleging discrimination against Muslims.59

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Concern over a pro-Israel, pro-Christian, American-style agenda was central in the minor media cycle that was made out of official panelists at an October 2011 consultation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the Office. These included: • • • • • •

Thomas Farr, first director of the US Office of International Religious Freedom. Father Raymond de Souza, Roman Catholic priest and columnist. Anne Brandner of the Global Peace Initiative, formerly of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. Don Hutchinson, then vice president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC). Frank Dimant, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada. Susanne Tamas of the Baha’i Community of Canada.60

Concern was focused not only on the panelists’ religious affiliations, all but one from the Judeo-Christian tradition, but also by the strong affinity expressed with the American Office and its work on religious freedom. Shortly before the election of 2011, Fr. De Souza wrote, “The American experiment launched under Clinton and Albright is worthy of emulation.”61 Thomas Farr was the architect and first director of the US Office, and Anne Brandner and Don Hutchinson both had past affiliations with the EFC, an unapologetically evangelical advocacy group in Ottawa. Yet the secretive nature of the consultations appears exaggerated by press reports, eventually prompting one panelist, Don Hutchinson, to write a response, “I admit it: I was a panelist at the consultations for new office of religious freedom.”62 He wrote, Well, there you have it. I’ve been outed by the CBC. Yes, it’s true. I was a panelist at the Department of Foreign Affairs consultation on establishing an Office of Religious Freedom. I don’t know the selection process for attendees or for the panelists either . . . I didn’t ask. They didn’t tell. It is disappointing that the CBC’s coverage of the development of this new Office evidences the long since disproven view that secularism would triumph in global affairs, a bias that required religion to be set aside in Western engagement with other nations. The CBC’s description that the consultation was “clothed in secrecy” evidences that . . . the secret wasn’t well kept – given that the CBC put together a program on the consultation a week before it occurred and other journalists found their way to attend. Hutchinson goes on to argue that the government hosted a variety of consultations, many of which, despite his record and enthusiasm on the topic, he was not invited to. Minister Baird’s own office was quick to counter that this specific consultation was open to “everyone who expressed interest,” while some select invitations were extended to those with a greater track record in promoting religious freedom.63 This has done little to forestall criticism.

Freedom of, or from, religion? 41 Fr. De Souza’s enthusiasm after the launch of the Office in 2013, and his explicit advocacy for “faith in our common life,”64 are a final example of both the persistence of an inclusive Judeo-Christian perspective on religious freedom, and the sharp disagreement with laïcité opposition to the Office. On February 23, 2013, De Souza wrote an explicit defense of a religious Canada, in “A religious Canada, strong and free” in the National Post: The prime minister . . . explained why it is that religious liberty is the first liberty – in the Magna Carta, in the American Bill of Rights, and yes, in our Charter of Rights of Freedoms. If a person is not free before God, is not free in his conscience, then there is no basis for his freedom before the state, and his property and other rights are of little avail. The state that claims the right to interpose itself between man and God is by definition a totalitarian state, even if should be a softer sort of totalitarianism, at least at first. A discordant note was sounded by the national media present in Maple, who framed their questions as if this were a clever political trick by the federal government, slipping a little Christian proselytism by the Ahmadiyya Muslims who hosted the event with great pride and enthusiasm. The prime minister came . . . to make a foreign policy announcement. The reaction of some was that it was a foreign country. It’s not. It’s the new Canada, and the best part of it.65

Conclusion Such is our brief survey, hardly an exhaustive account, of the debate that took place over a short period of time, and its place within Canadian political and legal history. The Office itself was closed shortly after the new government took power in the fall of 2015, its ambassador finally released in the spring of 2016. Religious freedom remains a priority, according to the new government, but one now embedded in the broader infrastructure of Global Affairs Canada. In March of 2016 the Toronto Star simply stated, “it’s time to close Canada’s controversial Office of Religious Freedom.”66 It argued, “although ostensibly opened to bolster religious freedom around the world, the agency never shook off the suspicion that Harper’s primary goal lay closer to home – courting the vote of Canada’s religious communities and playing to the Conservative base.”67 Stephanie Levitz for the National Post wrote in August that same year that an evaluation of the Office found that it was simply too “tainted” by the Conservative Judeo-Christian brand, a familiar charge from the IRFA debate, that the “Office of Religious Freedoms may be viewed as favoring Christians over all other religious groups.”68 One study, commissioned by OpenCanada, revealed that Christian minority groups received most of the funding that was granted.69 Others complained the Office was hardly given a fair trial, because it took nearly two years to get operational, and was promptly closed in 2016, nearly half of the funds allocated were never spent. Fr. de Souza called it “burying the Office” and that the ORF was “not being closed because it is not working, it is likely being closed because

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the government does not place a priority on the work itself.”70 Evan Solomon, in Macleans, argued that closing the Office lost the bigger point, addressing what Justin Trudeau once called “the root causes” of terror.71 In government, said Solomon, “religion is like sex. People do it but don’t talk about it. That has political consequences.”72 The new Liberal government, and its Minister of Foreign Affairs, argued that “our government shares the same conviction as the previous government, but it assesses the consequences of its chosen method of promoting this conviction differently. I am referring to freedom of religion or belief, which we will defend tooth and nail, but not through the office that the Harper government specifically set up for this purpose.” We believe, he said, “that human rights are better defended when they are considered, universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated, as set out in the Vienna Declaration.”73 Criticisms of the Harper government’s “hierarchy of rights” are familiar to watchful observers of the IRFA from the 1990s. The difference, obviously, is that that agenda won the day, and the Office in Ottawa is now closed. The political debate for and against the Office is not nearly so simple as Conservative vs. Liberal, or even laïcité/New Critic vs Judeo-Christian. There is politics, vote-getting, departmental shuffling, and bureaucratic policies that influence decisions like this. This chapter’s argument is not an attempt to be reductionist, as though all the political disagreement and debate over the Office was the result of rival and incompatible definitions of the religious and the secular. The argument is, however, to show that this is one of the plausible reasons for that disagreement, and one of the reasons that such disagreement is often so intractable and irreconcilable. What we can say is that rival versions, dominantly laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism, persist in the discourse surrounding the Office of Religious Freedom in Canada between March 2011 and into early 2016. But we could also say that these rival versions are central in Canadian political-religious history. The question of this survey then becomes, how can these thorny theoretical issues be made practically accessible in actual political work, including but not limited to religious freedom? It is my opinion that such work can and should be done only under a new radical education on the religious, its history, meaning (‘the religious problem’) and finally its attendant political theologies (‘revolutions in political theology’).

Notes 1 Arvind Sharma, Problematizing Religious Freedom (New York: Springer, 2011), 11. 2 In answering “Why was the office created?,” the CBC reports that “The Conservatives say it was the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti in Pakistan in March 2011 that galvanized the government into taking more concrete action.” In “4 Questions about Canada’s New Office of Religious Freedom,” CBC News, February 20, 2013. www.cbc.ca/news/ canada/story/2013/02/19/f-religious-freedom-office.html. Accessed February 27, 2013. 3 E. J. Dionne Jr., “A Shift Looms: The President Sees Consensus, While Religious Leaders Disagree about the Church-State Divide,” Washington Post, October 3, 1999. 4 Janet Epp Buckingham, Fighting over God: A Legal and Political History of Religious Freedom in Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2014). 5 See, for example, Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).

Freedom of, or from, religion? 43 6 W. L. Morton, “Victorian Canada,” in The Shield of Achilles: Aspects of Canada in the Victorian Age, ed. W. L. Morton (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1968), 314. 7 John Webster Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1998), 224. 8 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s 2, Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11. http://laws-lois.justice. gc.ca/eng/Const/page-15.html. Accessed February 27, 2013. The Charter also lists as fundamental freedoms (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and (d) freedom of association. These are generally freedoms which are associated with the concept “Canadian values.” 9 Janet Epp Buckingham argues that the preamble of the Charter is all but dead, citing Justice Southin of the British Columbia Court of Appeal, saying: “They have become a dead letter and while I might have wished the contrary, this Court has no authority to breathe life into them for the purpose of interpreting the various provisions of the Charter.” According to Buckingham, “with the advent of the Charter in 1982, the process of secularization was accelerated.” Buckingham, Fighting over God, 31. See also Regina (Crown) v. John Robin Sharpe, 1999 BCCA 416, para. 79. http://canlii.ca/en/bc/bcca/ doc/1999/1999bcca416/1999bcca416.html. Accessed February 27, 2013. 10 Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, “Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation,” Abridged Report (Government of Quebec, 2008), 43. 11 Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 100. 12 Emphasis added. Aaron Wherry, “The New Office of Religious Freedom,” Macleans, February 19, 2013. www2.macleans.ca/2013/02/19/the-new-office-of-religious-freedom/. Accessed March 1, 2013. 13 See Linda Frum, “The Real Trouble at Rights and Democracy: Sen. Linda Frum on the Controversy; Paul Wells Responds,” Macleans, March 22, 2010. www2.macleans. ca/2010/03/22/the-real-trouble-at-rights-and-democracy/. Accessed February 26, 2013. Also, Tobi Cohen, “Mulroney-Created Rights and Democracy Getting Shut Down by Tories,” National Post, April 3, 2012. Accessed March 1, 2013. 14 The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is one of the most widely respected centres for this research. Many of its reports are available online, including “Rising Tide of Restrictions on Religion,” September 20, 2012. www.pewforum.org/Government/ Rising-Tide-of-Restrictions-on-Religion-findings.aspx. Accessed March 1, 2013. 15 Steven Chase, “Conservatives Laying Groundwork for Office of Religious Freedom,” Globe and Mail, January 1, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/conservatives-laying-groundwork-for-office-of-religious-freedom/article1357558/. Accessed February 26, 2013. 16 Ibid. 17 Marshall and Shea, Silenced, 100. 18 Akbar S. Ahmed, “Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law: Words Fail Me,” Washington Post, May 19, 2002. www.thepersecution.org/news/wp020519.html. The BBC suggests that with respect to blasphemy, “Hundreds of people have been lynched since the mid-1980s”; see “Blasphemer Attacked in Pakistan,” August 7, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ south_asia/8189209.stm. Accessed February 26, 2013. 19 “PM delivers remarks on the establishment of the Office of Religious Freedom” on the website of the Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper, February 19, 2013. www. pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=5310. Accessed February 25, 2013. 20 Global Affairs Canada, “The Office of Religious Freedom.” www.international.gc.ca/ religious_freedom-liberte_de_religion/index.aspx. Accessed November 23, 2013. 21 Global Affairs Canada, “Mandate of the Office of Religious Freedom.” www.international. gc.ca/religious_freedom-liberte_de_religion/mandate_mandat.aspx?lang=eng. Accessed August 19, 2014.

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22 Global Affairs Canada, “Ambassador Bennett Concludes Visit to Ukraine,” January 26, 2014. www.international.gc.ca/media/orf-blr/news-communiques/2014/01/26a. aspx?lang=eng. Accessed August 19, 2014. 23 Global Affairs Canada, “The Importance of Religious Freedom” on Office of Religious Freedom. www.international.gc.ca/religious_freedom-liberte_de_religion/assets/pdfs/ ORFInfosheet-eng.pdf. Accessed August 19, 2014. 24 Global Affairs Canada, “The Religious Freedom Fund.” www.international.gc.ca/ religious_freedom-liberte_de_religion/fund_fond.aspx. Accessed November 23, 2013. 25 Robert Joustra, “Religious Freedom beyond Rights: Retrospective Lessons for Canada from America’s Office of Religious Freedom,” Review of Faith & International Affairs 11 no. 1 (2013), 87–89. See also Richelle Wiseman and James C. Wallace, “The Promise of Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom,” Review of Faith & International Affairs 11 no. 3 (2013), 52–60. 26 Doug Saunders, “Religious Freedom Sends the Wrong Message to the Wrong People,” Globe and Mail, October 6, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/ doug-saunders-religious-freedom-sends-the-wrong-message-to-the-wrong-people/ article4591927/. Accessed February 26, 2013. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Doug Saunders, “The Problem in Public Life Isn’t Islam, But Religion Itself,” Globe and Mail, February 18, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/doug-saunders/ the-problem-in-public-life-isnt-islam-but-religion-itself/article2342413/. Accessed February 26, 2013. 30 Louise Elliott, “Religious Freedoms Panel Drawn Largely from Western Religions,” CBC News, December 7, 2011. www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/12/07/polreligious-freedoms-panel.html. Accessed February 26, 2013. 31 Sharma, Problematizing Religious Freedom, 12. Although most the sources covered in this debate are media, journals, and speeches, Sharma’s book, published in 2011 in response to this new priority of the Conservative government fits the stated framework of the debate between March 2011 and February 2013. 32 Ibid., 255. 33 Arvind Sharma, “Religious Freedom, Compliments of the West,” Mark News, December 6, 2011. www.themarknews.com/articles/7670-religious-freedom-compliments-ofthe-west/#.UJp01MXoSUK. Accessed March 1, 2013. 34 Sharma, Problematizing Religious Freedom, 256. 35 Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004), 25. 36 Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). In her book, Mahmood argues that the veil is not best understood as a manifestation of belief, but rather as a practice which produces belief. Mahmood came into the Canadian debate when interviewed at length by CBC’s David Cayley on her book, on October 24, 2012. Her 54-minute interview was part three of a seven-part series titled “The Myth of the Secular.” www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Ideas/ ID/2295911408/?page=2. Accessed March 1, 2013. 37 Canadian International Council, “The New Missionaries: Should Canada Promote Religious Freedom Abroad?,” www.opencanada.org/the_new_missionaries/. Accessed March 1, 2013. 38 See especially Janet Keeping, Tony Burman, and Daniel Dennett in opposition: http:// opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/comments/religious-freedom-caution/, http:// opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/video/tony-burman-keep-faith-out-of-foreignpolicy/, http://opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/interviews/daniel-dennettreligious-freedom-must-not-be-elevated-above-other-rights/. Accessed March 1, 2013. 39 Tony Burman, “Why Faith and Politics Are a Toxic Brew,” Toronto Star, February 25, 2012. www.thestar.com/news/world/2012/02/25/burman_why_faith_and_politics_ are_a_toxic_brew.html. Accessed March 3, 2013.

Freedom of, or from, religion? 45 40 Ibid. 41 Geoffrey Cameron and Eric Farr, “Canada and the Future of Religious Freedom,” OpenCanada.Org: Canada’s International Affairs Hub, a project of the Canadian International Council, January 16, 2013. http://opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/comments/ canada-and-the-future-of-religious-freedom/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Cameron and Farr certainly do not advocate laïcité, but are part of an emerging third perspective on the religious and the secular which is described in the final chapter as “principled pluralism.” They are not laicists, but neither – as Baha’i – are they Judeo-Christian secularists. 42 In Globe and Mail, October 17, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/ the-hegemony-of-religious-freedom/article4617004/. At the University of Ottawa, October 2, 2012. http://cips.uottawa.ca/should-canada-promote-religious-freedom/. In Embassy, October 10, 2012. www.embassynews.ca/opinion/2012/10/09/shouldcanada-promote-religious-freedom/42595. Accessed February 26, 2013. 43 University of Ottawa CPIPS Blog, “Should Canada Promote Religious Freedom?,” October 2, 2012. http://cips.uottawa.ca/should-canada-promote-religious-freedom/. Accessed February 26, 2013. 44 Winnifred Sullivan, The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 155. 45 Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, “The Hegemony of Religious Freedom,” Globe and Mail, October 17, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/the-hegemony-of-religiousfreedom/article4617004/. Accessed February 26, 2013. 46 This is a criticism that Geoffrey Cameron picks up in his response to Doug Saunders and Elizabeth Hurd, “Religious Freedom Is a Human Right, Not a Hegemonic Project,” Embassy, October 17, 2012. www.embassynews.ca/opinion/2012/10/16/ religious-freedom-is-a-human-right-not-a-hegemonic-project/42641. Accessed March 2, 2013. 47 Tasha Kheiriddin, “Why an Office of Religious Freedom? God Only Knows,” iPolitics, February 21, 2013. www.ipolitics.ca/2013/02/21/why-an-office-of-religious-freedomgod-only-knows/. Accessed March 2, 2013. 48 Ibid. 49 See especially Andrew Preston, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American Diplomacy (New York: Knopf, 2012), and Jon Meacham, American Gospel: God, The Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation (New York: Random House, 2007). 50 Marci McDonald, The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada (Toronto: Random House, 2010). 51 See, for example, Ray Pennings, “Religious Faith Is the Civic Oxygen of Our Social Ecology,” Globe and Mail, June 2, 2010. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/ religious-faith-is-the-civic-oxygen-of-our-social-ecology/article1371878/. Accessed February 26, 2013. Pennings writes, Author Marci McDonald’s latest book, The Armageddon Factor, mocked for its sky-shouting alarm about a purported Christian putsch in Canadian federal politics, has been dismissed by its harsher critics as delusional rubbish being pushed through the public square. And yet, Ms. McDonald’s face-off with public faith deserves a second look, at least for what it says about the suspicion and hostility many Canadians harbour toward mixing religious and political belief. 52 Address by Minister Baird at Office of Religious Freedom Stakeholder Consultations, October 3, 2011. www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/speeches-discours/2011/ 2011-034.aspx?lang=eng&view=d. Accessed March 1, 2013. Address by the Prime Minister, “PM Delivers Remarks on the Establishment of the Office of Religious Freedom,” February 19, 2013. www.pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=5310. Accessed March 1, 2013. 53 For example, the host of the Parliamentary Forums on Religious Freedom, Mr. David Anderson, Member of Parliament for Cypress Hills-Grasslands, and Mr. Bev Shipley,

46

54 55

56 57

58

59 60

61 62

63 64 65 66 67

Freedom of, or from, religion? behind Motion-382: motion on religious freedom as a priority for Canadian diplomats and foreign affairs, filed May 29, 2012. It is important to note that although MPs are members of the government, and their views on religious freedom may be symbolic of other Member’s views, these opinions are not official government positions. Mr. David Anderson as of September 2013 was made Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Address by Minister Baird at Religious Liberty Dinner, May 24, 2012. www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/speeches-discours/2012/05/24a.aspx?lang=eng&view=d. Accessed February 26, 2013. As heard at the Second Annual Parliamentary Forum on Religious Freedom, April 2, 2012. Ottawa, The Government Conference Centre. Also reported by Taline Bedrossian, “Religious Freedom Has ‘Trickledown Effect’ on Rights: Tory MP,” Embassy, April 11, 2012. www.embassynews.ca/news/2012/04/11/religious-freedom-has-trickledown-effect-on-rights-tory-mp/41460. Accessed March 2, 2013. Address by Minister Baird at Office of Religious Freedom Stakeholder Consultations, October 3, 2011. www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/speeches-discours/2011/2011-034. aspx?lang=eng&view=d. Accessed February 26, 2013. Jonathan Malloy, “Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tory Evangelical Factor,” Globe and Mail, April 13, 2011. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/hidden-in-plain-sightthe-tory-evangelical-factor/article576262/. Accessed March 2, 2013. See also John Ibbitson, “Religious-Freedom Office Shows Lack of Conservative Hidden Agenda,” Globe and Mail, February 19, 2013. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawanotebook/religious-freedom-office-shows-lack-of-conservative-hidden-agenda/ article8822804/. Accessed March 2, 2013. Haroon Siddiqui, “Prime Minister Harper’s Foreign Policy Hobbled by Ideology,” Toronto Star, October 13, 2012. www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2012/10/13/ prime_minister_harpers_foreign_policy_hobbled_by_ideology.html. Accessed March 2, 2013. Sheema Khan, “Who Monitors Our New Religious Freedom Monitor?,” Globe and Mail, June 8, 2011. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/who-monitors-our-newreligious-freedom-monitor/article582520/. Accessed March 2, 2013. As reported in Louise Elliott, “Religious Freedoms Panel Drawn Largely from Western Religions,” CBC News, December 7, 2011. www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/12/07/ pol-religious-freedoms-panel.html. Accessed March 1, 2013. See also Louise Elliott, “Memos Anticipate Religious Freedom Office Sensitivities,” CBC News, December 3, 2011. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/12/03/pol-office-religious-freedom.html. Accessed March 2, 2013. Father Raymond J. De Souza, “Foreign Affairs Needs to Get Religion,” National Post, April 28, 2011. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/04/28/father-raymond-jde-souza-foreign-affairs-needs-to-get-religion/. Accessed March 2, 2013. Don Hutchinson, “I Admit It: I Was a Panellist at the Consultations for New Office of Religious Freedom,” National Post, December 12, 2011. http://life.nationalpost. com/2011/12/12/i-admit-it-i-was-a-panelist-at-the-consultations-for-new-office-ofreligious-freedom/. Accessed March 2, 2013. See Louise Elliott for the CBC, December 7 and December 11. The tagline of his journal, Convivium. Father Raymond J. De Souza, “A Religious Canada, Strong and Free,” National Post, February 23, 2013. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/02/21/father-raymond-jde-souza-a-religious-canada-strong-and-free/. Accessed March 2, 2013. Toronto Star, “Ottawa Doesn’t Need an Office of Religious Freedom: Editorial,” March 28, 2016. www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2016/03/28/ottawa-doesnt-need-anoffice-of-religious-freedom-editorial.html. Accessed August 17, 2016. Ibid.

Freedom of, or from, religion? 47 68 Stephanie Levitz (The Canadian Press), “Federal Religious Freedoms Office Was Tainted by Perception of Political Interference: Review,” National Post, August 10, 2016. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/religion/federal-religious-freedoms-officewas-tainted-by-perceived-political-interference-review. Accessed August 17, 2016. 69 Evan Solomon, “In Defence of the Defunct Office of Religious Freedom,” Macleans, March 30, 2016. www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-defence-of-the-defunct-office-ofreligious-freedom/. Accessed August 17, 2016. 70 Father Raymond De Souza, “Burying the Office of Religious Freedom,” National Post, March 31, 2016. http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/father-raymond-jde-souza-burying-the-office-of-religious-freedom. Accessed August 17, 2016. 71 Solomon, “In Defence of the Defunct Office of Religious Freedom,” March 30, 2016. 72 Ibid. 73 Michelle Zilio, “Liberals to Close Office of Religious Freedom, Dion Says,” Globe and Mail, March 29 2016. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/liberals-to-letreligious-freedom-office-expire-on-march-31/article29416476/. Accessed August 17, 2016.

4

The religious problem The meaning of the religious and the secular in A Secular Age

Religion is like sex. People do it but don’t talk about it. That has political consequences. – Evan Solomon, Macleans1

More than twenty-five years ago Alasdair MacIntyre wrote a bracing argument that underlying rival concepts of justice are rival meanings of rationality. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? was the landmark sequel to After Virtue, in which MacIntyre claimed that ethical arguments, too, had reached an impasse largely because their underlying rationale, their narrative, and what he calls ‘mythological’ sources2 of their inspiration were no longer on the table. He sums up the problem aptly in his later Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, Each warring position characteristically appears irrefutable to its own adherents; indeed on its own terms and by its own standards it is in practice irrefutable. But each warring position equally seems to its opponents to be insufficiently warranted by rational argument.3 I want to make a parallel argument about the religious and the secular, namely that underlying rival versions of religious freedom are rival accounts of the religious and the secular. And further, that like MacIntyre’s argument about justice and ethics, we cannot constructively disagree on these rivalries, or their political consequences, because each position has set the terms of its own engagement, namely the deep meanings of the religious and the secular, and so is practically irrefutable. This chapter makes this argument in three ways. First, I cover a very brief, if necessarily ambiguous, history of the religious and the secular in the West. Aside from basic orientation, this section is intended to show that shifts have occurred in the religious and the secular, and that these shifts often accompanied transformations of social and political order. This is not, I hasten to add, to cede the field to the New Critics that because their meanings have shifted they have no meaning: quite the opposite, it is to show that major normative foundations are at stake in the meaning of and relationship between the religious and the secular. Second, to bring this history closer to home, I arrange the typology from the last two chapters on the United States and Canada, and show that, even in the relative liberal consensus

The religious problem

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of American and Canadian democracy, substantive normative differences on the religious/secular fuel real political disagreement on issues of religious freedom. Again, the point of this section is to show that such rival versions exist, they have a story, and they have a power that is often unrecognized. As Taylor argues in A Secular Age, important light can be shed on “both the original and the contemporary issues about modernity if we can come to a clearer definition of the selfunderstandings that have been constitutive of it”;4 religion, I would say, among them. Finally, I make an argument for a way to think about the religious/secular binary, what I call conceptualizing religion as an essentially contested term. This is not exactly a resolution to the colored history and politics of the religious and the secular, but it is a critical clarification, one which, in my opinion, is fundamental to any practical politics – any practical adjudication of this diversity.

The religious and the secular: a brief and ambiguous history5 Religio, the Latin root of religion, had only modest use until it was given new social meaning in the modern era. It was not often used in a compartmentalized sense in pre-modern times. How, for example, to think of religion as distinct from other institutions? Could it be said that imperial Rome was religious? Does it matter that the emperor and conqueror Julius Caesar was also for a time supreme Pontiff of Rome, a religious office – to the modern observer – that was essentially in perfect congruity with the political conquests and triumphs of Rome?6 Were Rome’s wars religious or political? The question is very hard to answer with modern categories in one way or the other. Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s 1962 book The Meaning and End of Religion made one of the first arguments about “the religious problem” at greater length. Simply put, he said, politics as a category of human life independent of religion is a modern thought.7 Political theorist Quentin Skinner, for example, says that the idea of politics as a distinct branch of moral philosophy is impossible in a medieval context underwritten by Augustine’s City of God.8 The religious problem, argues Smith, is assuming that religio means through all time what it came to be (re)defined as in the modern period. But religio in the Latin was only one of a whole variety of terms surrounding social obligations in the pre-modern world, and it certainly did not mean only transcendent impulses or codes of belief. It included cultic observances, but also civic oaths and family rituals9 that the modern mind might take at face value as secular. According to William T. Cavanaugh in The Myth of Religious Violence, in early Christianity religio was still a relatively minor concept. The term appears, although somewhat sparsely, in translations of the New Testament.10 Various patristic writers used the term, although with different meanings, including rituals for clerical office, worship liturgies, and piety or a worshipful disposition.11 Augustine meant by religio the act of worship. In Book X of City of God, he clarifies its use, The word “religion” would seem, to be sure, to signify more particularly the “cult” offered to God, rather than “cult” in general; and that is why our

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The religious problem translators have used it to render the Greek word thrêskeia. However, in Latin usage (and by that I do not mean in the speech of the illiterate, but even in the language of the highly educated) “religion” is something which is displayed in human relationships, in the family (in the narrower and the wider sense) and between friends; and so the use of the word does not avoid ambiguity when the worship of God is in question. We have no right to affirm with confidence that “religion” is confined to the worship of God, since it seems that this word has been detached from its normal meaning, in which it refers to an attitude of respect in relations between man and his neighbour.12

Augustine sees as one continuum the obligations of family and society and the beliefs and practices of religion. All these devotions are bound together in a complex web of relationships. For Augustine, right ordering of social relationships includes worship of God. But that ordering of obligations, of what Augustinian philosopher David Naugle calls “ordered loves,”13 is not distinguished between secular and religious obligations. All of life is ordered toward the worship of God, all of life embedded in a hierarchical cosmos. Religio is a little less common in the medieval period, although early medieval sources themselves are fewer. Wilfred Cantwell Smith says that although it is nowadays customary to think of this period as the most ‘religious’ in the history of Christendom . . . throughout the whole Middle Ages no one, so far as I have been able to ascertain, ever wrote a book specifically on ‘religion.’ And on the whole this concept would seem to have received little attention.14 John Bossy argues that the ancient meaning of religio as duty or reverence disappeared in the medieval period.15 In England by around 1400, religion was taken to mean entering various orders, Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans, and so forth.16 Aquinas did use the word, primarily to defend religious orders, but also in the older sense in the Summa Theologiae where he lists religio as a virtue of justice. Cavanaugh summarizes from Aquinas four important qualifications about what religio was not for medieval Christendom.17 First, “religio is not a universal genus of which Christianity is a particular species.”18 Religio is only true religio in the sense that it has an ordered worship of the Christian God at its source. Aquinas would not, for example, acknowledge a common essence of religio underlying various world religions. Second, religio was not a series of a propositions or a system of beliefs. Cavanaugh writes, Christian religio is not a system of propositions about reality. It is a virtue . . . Christian religion is a type of habitus, a disposition of the person toward moral excellence produced by highly specific disciplines of body and soul.19 Religio is not a cerebral exercise of propositions or doctrines, but a practice of embodied formation. This is why Saba Mahmood outlines in Politics of Piety:

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The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject that nonmodern rituals often have a more marked emphasis on bodily habits and sensory rituals.20 Mahmood argues, for example, that the Muslim veil is often misunderstood as simply an identifying religious symbol, when actually it is itself a religious practice of modesty, by whose adoption people become more modest. Iterative gestures eventually become postures, not altogether unlike what Aristotle argued in his Ethics, a philosopher’s influence which recognizably spans the Christian-Muslim realm. This insight has also been picked up by Augustinian philosopher James K. A. Smith who argues simply You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit.21 Third, religio is not a purely individual and interior impulse. For Aquinas, religio is a virtue, and virtue is a type of habit, and habits are caused by the repetition of acts.22 If the soul and the body are one psychosomatic unit, with the soul or the consciousness as no separate thing, then the acts of religio are surprisingly physical to the modern observer. Hugh of St. Victor writes, for example: It is discipline imposed on the body which forms virtue. Body and spirit are but one: disordered movements of the former betray outwardly the disarranged interior of the soul. But inversely, “discipline” can act on the soul through the body – in ways of dressing, in posture and movement, in speech and in table manners.23 Therefore, fourth, religio is also not an institutional force discrete from other secular forces. As Cavanaugh argues, the claim that religious institutions are responsible, for example, for certain acts of violence or benevolence, is difficult to sustain in pre-modern history. Institutional religion opposed to what? When pundits and populists reach back into antiquity to pull, for example, religious impulses out of the Crusades, or the early aggressive expansions of Islam, in what sense is the “religion” that they are talking about comprehensibly distinct in those contexts? Were the Crusades religious, or economic, or political? The point is not that the real motivations were not religious. The point is that dissecting motivations of this nature, or categorizing institutions in this fashion, using retrospective categories whose meanings have shifted yields historical anachronism at best, falsity at worst. Religio in the pre-modern world was a more contiguous sphere of concern, its obligations permeated all spheres of life. Argues Cavanaugh, religio was not separable – even in theory – from the political activities of Christendom.24 It was, as Aquinas says, that “every deed, in so far as it is done in God’s honor, belongs to religion, not as eliciting, but as commanding.”25 The religious problem, says Cavanaugh, is not just “that all phenomenon identified as religious are historical specific” but rather that “the definitions themselves are historical products that are part of specific configurations of power.”26 A small industry has emerged on the role of the Reformation in the transformation of the religious and the secular. Brad S. Gregory, for example, argues in The Unintended Reformation that the Reformers led, through a somewhat circuitous route, to the secularization of society.27 Peter Harrison argues that Calvinism in particular was a catalyst for transition from a life of communal ritual to individual

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belief – the state of the mind.28 John Calvin, however, used the term religio in a medieval sense, although Harrison believes his followers embraced a more cerebral pietism, emphasizing saving knowledge principally through doctrines such as predestination and election. He traces this to Calvin’s rejection of the Catholic doctrine of “implicit faith,” which is the idea that less-educated Christians did not need to understand doctrines like the Trinity, but merely have faith in the traditions and ministers of the Church.29 But of the many ‘solas’ of the Reformation, the two oft-named culprits for this religious/secular transformation don’t seem sufficient: sola fide and sola Scriptura. Sola fide means justification by faith alone. While differences exist within Protestantism as to how divine grace impacts people as they come to faith, they nonetheless share this basic point. Human beings are sinners, and they are saved only by an act of God. This was the doctrine which Martin Luther labored to articulate after his encounter with Romans 1:16–17. John Calvin, too, emphasized sola fide. From Geneva, he wrote: “For we are said to be justified through faith, not in the sense, however, that we receive within us any righteousness, but because the righteousness of Christ is credited to us, entirely as if it were really ours.”30 Later in his Institutes of the Christian Religion he wrote, “This [justification sola fide] is the main hinge on which religion turns.”31 The justification by faith alone was a theological position, but it had the corollary of germinating a strong sociological and political move. Sovereignty was implied. Religion which can be experienced and encountered personally, which does not depend on the maintenance and placation of a substantial hierarchy, is religion which may be experienced directly, without mediation. This was a crack in the hierarchical edifice of medieval cosmology, to be sure, where it began to be possible to imagine a relationship with God which evaded the choice between medieval papacies by simply removing it as a soteriological requirement. Further, it challenged some of the rituals and liturgies of late medieval piety. But there is nothing especially inevitable about a religious/secular divide from this. James Payton argues persuasively in Getting the Reformation Wrong that while sola fide was an unapologetic cornerstone of the reforming movement, faith was not understood to be alone. In 1531 Philip Melanchthon argued just this. He wrote, “Our opponents slanderously claim that we do not require good works, whereas we not only require them but show how they can be done.”32 Martin Luther was also clear on this. In The Freedom of a Christian he wrote, “This is that Christian liberty, our faith, which does not induce us to live in idleness or wickedness but makes the law and works unnecessary for any man’s righteousness and salvation.”33 Others like Zwingli, Calvin and Bucer were just as clear. For the Reformers, says James Payton, “justification is by faith alone, but faith is never alone.”34 Sola Scriptura was the second and arguably most significant challenge to the hierarchical cosmology of medieval Europe. Yet even here the immediate break by the Reformers was less radical than present-day Protestantism often suggests. Reformation scholar Irena Backus writes, “the Reformers did not reject the tradition of the Early Church, which in their eyes was to be distinguished from the corruptions of the medieval ecclesiastical structures.”35

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This view had precedent well before the actual reformations of the sixteenth century, but its extension by Luther was especially troublesome. Allegations, which may strike today’s scholars as startlingly postmodern, were made of Luther at the Diet of Worms in 1521 that he was promoting subjectivism. How, after all, could he propose to have read Scripture correctly? Was not sola Scriptura simply a veil for whatever insights individuals might wish to promote? Yet even Luther did not strictly advocate Scripture alone, so much as Scripture as the highest authority. His extensive readings of Augustine and church fathers like Ambrose, Hilary, Cyprian, John Chrysostom and others all suggested this same approach. Luther was not writing against traditions of interpretation, but rather against traditions he took to be corruptions of the great tradition and of Scripture, as read against earlier movements in church history. It was a reform inspired by the church for the church, not an attempt to start an independent movement disconnected from that tradition, as some contemporary Protestant manifestations have taken it. The Reformation was, in short, self-understood not as innovative revolution, but penitent rediscovery. Luther’s summary of religious authority and Scripture is striking: “we Gentiles must not value the writings of our fathers as highly as Holy Scripture, but as worth a little less.”36 Sola scriptura thus meant for Luther that Scripture was the only unquestioned religious authority, but it did not mean it was the only religious authority. Authority, and the evolution of religion as a rational choice, was at the center of the Arminian controversy. Sensitive that John Calvin’s teachings on the sovereignty of God undermined human agency, Jacobius Arminius proposed a condition whereby human agents made a choice to believe, thereby ensuring intellectual assent as the cornerstone of the Christian faith. It was not the same as the moralism or the works righteousness that the Reformation reacted to, but it did tend to smooth the way for religio understood as a series of important truths that were agreed upon.37 So when Hugo Grotius, Arminius’s patron, wrote De Veritate Religionis Christianae, his task was to show that Christianity was the true religion, meaning that its doctrines were “facts.”38 He argued for the superiority of what Christianity taught,39 rather than what it simply was. The evolution of the religious and the secular was already therefore taking place when in the sixteenth century Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, one of the most important modern theorists of religion, proposed a consensus on the five essential beliefs of all religions. They were:40 That That That That That

there is some supreme divinity; this divinity ought to be worshipped; virtue joined with piety is the best method of divine worship; we should return to our right selves from sins; reward or punishment is bestowed after this life is finished.

He takes these common truths to proceed directly from innate instincts that are natural to the human condition. So rather than take traditions and their claims on their own terms, the rational mind makes its best decisions when unaffected, or unclouded, by tradition. Religion is best private because a decision on religious

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matters colored by hierarchy or externalities could produce an irrational result, or at least the results may not be true to the self. Writes Cavanaugh, This sharp distinction between inward and outward would be unrecognizable in medieval Christendom, where the state of the interior soul was inseparable from the bodily disciplines and rituals that both formed and expressed the dispositions of the soul.41 Notice, for example, John Locke’s distinctions of the church as “a voluntary society of men” versus the state, to which one owes obedience from birth.42 The state, argues Cavanaugh, is the new covenant one is born into, defining the individual’s social and political obligations. Such an account suggests that not only are the religious and secular evolving terms, but that their modern evolution was concomitant with the secular, and the constellations of state power.43 What this suggests is that Protestantism as a religious innovation opened up certain possibilities, intended or otherwise, for social and political order. Fore among them, the consistent deconstruction of medieval hierarchy, the personalization of faith, and the decentralization of sacred (and by extension political) authority. This is the revolution in sovereignty to which Daniel Philpott refers to in high medieval Europe.44 The slow degradation of medieval hierarchy which made possible a horizontal society of interlocking interdependency; discrete individuals with interlocking causes rather than a cosmological hierarchy with duties of obligation. A system of sovereign states was made possible by subverting the order of the Church and sustaining a theological tradition which gave authority to individuals or, more significantly for that time, monarchs to interpret and apply the Christian tradition. The advantage of this was not lost on Europe’s monarchs, not all of whom converted to Protestantism’s many doctrines with material disinterest. The society that slowly began to emerge was one predicated on a shift in the meaning of the religious,45 one which was discretely disembedded from structures and rituals of obligation, and more concerned with individual piety and conviction. Famously, the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia labored to produce an international system which provided for the private administration of religion within a realm, but not its public or international manifestations. This, of course, is its own kind of moral and ontological ordering of society, distinct, but not neutral in comparison to the hierarchical medieval world of Western Europe. The Reformation was one major part of this move toward modern moral order, and some of the key transformations in knowledge and authority – of sola fide and sola scriptura – came under the reformers, making possible an international relations of sovereign states, religious toleration across borders, and within; of laws, as the great Protestant thinker Hugo Grotius articulated them, which came to exist between nations. While sweeping, the spirit of Daniel Philpott’s argument is convincing: The Reformation created religious pluralism, which led to the crisis that was eventually resolved through Westphalia’s toleration, the abjuration of international enforcement of religion. The Reformation also yielded the idea that the

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authority of territorial kings and princes could be separated from the temporal powers of the universal Church. Both of these prongs of Protestantism – toleration and separation of powers – led to a system, of sovereign states at Westphalia, a solution of pluralism to a crisis of pluralism.46 Jean Bethke Elshtain agreed, writing that the reformers were “transitional figures to the modern state and its sovereignty.”47

Six rival versions: the religious and the secular in America and Canada In the history of Canada, what Janet Epp Buckingham identifies as the English/ Protestant and French/Catholic traditions dovetails remarkably well with what international theorist Elizabeth Shakman Hurd calls the two dominant ‘trajectories of secularism’ in international relations.48 In her 2007 book, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, Hurd argues that the social construction of secularism has taken two distinct paths in international relations: a laicist trajectory, in which religion is seen as an impediment to modern politics, and a Judeo-Christian secularist trajectory, in which religion is seen as the source of a unity and identity that generates conflict in modern international politics.49 Laïcité, argues Hurd, is a widespread and deeply influential way of understanding the religious and the secular, nowhere more so than the academy. John Esposito writes, Religious faith was at best supposed to be a private matter. The degree of one’s intellectual sophistication and objectivity in academia was often equated with a secular liberalism and relativism that seemed antithetical to religion . . . Neither development theory nor international relations considered religion a significant variable for political analysis.50 In this view, “the mixing of religion and politics is regarded as necessarily abnormal (departing from the norm), irrational, dangerous, and extremist.”51 Of its dimensions, Hurd argues there are several, including “the exclusion of religion from the spheres of power and authority in modern societies (structural differentiation), the privatization of religion, and a decline in church membership and potential disappearance of individual religious belief.”52 These dimensions of laïcité have been alternately influential in a wide variety of contexts, including France, the former Soviet Union, Turkey, China, and elsewhere. The term itself comes from the Jacobin tradition of laïcisme, and is suggestive of what Partha Chatterjee calls a coercive process in which the legal powers of the state, the disciplinary powers of family and school, and the persuasive powers of government and media

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The religious problem have been used to produce the secular citizen who agrees to keep religion in the private domain.53

José Casanova, echoing Taylor’s use of the Secular, says this privatization is “mandated ideologically by liberal categories of thought which permeate not only political ideologies and constitutional theories but the entire structure of modern Western thought.”54 Talal Asad argues that laicism confines religious belief and practice “to a space where they cannot threaten political stability or the liberties of ‘free-thinking’ citizens.”55 Most significantly for politics, laïcité either expels religion from politics or assumes that it has been successfully privatized within the state. Hurd writes, “Laicism defines religion by designating that which is not religious: the secular . . . Laicism attempts to set the terms for what constitutes politics and religion. This move is ambitious and contestable.”56 These also depend, as Hurd argues, on the history of Latin Christendom, and the experiences of Westphalia and others, to provide context for the meaning of the religious to be comprehensibly distinct from something called the secular. This is one reason Charles Taylor argues that laïcité often emerges as a counter force, in reaction to a strong civil religion, usually Christian religious political culture.57 This, he says, was the case in France, where in order to be independent of the church, the state must have “une morale indépendante de toute religion” and enjoy a “suprématie morale” in relation to religion. Underlying the state’s morality is a “théologie rationelle,” not unlike what Kant suggested. This kind of secularism is therefore often more aggressively rival to religion and religious politics because it is given its urgency by an already dominant political-theological regime. Taylor argues that the example of France can be paralleled to the case of Canada’s secularizing Quiet Revolution in Quebec. Hurd writes, By defining something called religion and working to exclude it from politics, laicism constructs and delimits the temporal domain in a particular fashion. This is a political move. It is also a theological one. Laicism marks out the domain of the secular and associates that domain with public authority, common sense, rational argument, justice, tolerance, and public interest. It reserves the religious as that which it is not, and associates it with a personal God and beliefs about God. Laicism, then is not the opposite of theological discourse. It enacts particular kind of theological discourse in its own right. In this discourse, religion is “treated as a universal term, as if ‘it’ could always be distilled from a variety of cultures in a variety of times rather than representing a specific fashioning of spiritual life engendered by the secular public space carved out of Christendom.”58 This has two important consequences. First, as Taylor observes with regard to global politics, “defined and pursued out of the context of Western unbelief, it understandably comes across as the imposition of one metaphysical view over others, and an alien one at that.”59 It is Hurd’s view that that in attempting to legislate the terms

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through which the secular and the religious are defined, laicism rules out in advance other kinds of linkages between religion and spheres of power and authority. Secondly, laicism not only produces a certain kind of politics, but it also produces a certain kind of religious subject. In presuming to distinguish between the transcendent and the mundane, and fixing those boundaries socially and politically, it defines the starting point from which the religious experience and its actors, institutions, and communities can begin. We might then reasonably expect laïcité to be generally suspicious of initiatives like the Office of Religious Freedom. The key for laïcité in religious freedom is not freedom of religion, but freedom from religion. It is true, of course, that laïcité supports the freedom of beliefs, but those beliefs should be kept carefully separate from public and political life. Indeed, laïcité understands democracy as resting on secularity, and secularity as a neutral, rational, public space, which is therefore inherently non-religious. This space can also seem anti-religious because it actively suppresses religious manifestations or claims in public, but generally that suppression is limited only to public displays. The foreign policy options for the Office of Religious Freedom accompanying this approach are therefore about the orderly removal of the religious from the political orders of foreign partners. This guarantees “freedom of religion,” because no single religious perspective is installed that would persecute or marginalize others, and it would also safeguard the state’s political community from ideological and religious tyranny, an important first step toward a functional democracy. The specificity of these policies also becomes clear in the foreign policy debates over religious freedom. As Taylor warns, however, a political system that replaces the religious with a comprehensive secular philosophy as its foundation risks making religious members into second-class citizens, because these citizens cannot embrace the rationale that are officially recognized philosophy.60 In such an instance, the political system may end up simply replacing established religion, including the core beliefs that define them. This is what Hurd means above when she says laicism installs its own kind of theological discourse. Taylor recalls the experience of secularism versus Catholicism in France, or versus Islam in Turkey, both instances of laïcité emerging as a reaction against a formerly strong civil religious background. In these contexts, secularism in its most radical form appealed to an independent morality founded on reason and on specific configurations of human nature. Taylor says, “That type of political system replaces established religion with secular moral philosophy.”61 This, he says, is what Jean-Jacques Rousseau had in mind in his expression of moral and political philosophy as “civil religion.” These are very broad strokes from what we have seen in the actual debates of freedom of religion or belief in the foreign affairs of the U.S. and Canada. In fact, what we’ve seen is that there is a broader continuum of laïcité, what I have described as laïcité fermée and laïcité ouverte, or close and open secularity. The continuum is defined by exactly how dangerous public religion is, and whether and what kind of public expressions can be tolerated. Neither approach legitimizes religion in the political realm, both would advocate its orderly removal to secure legitimate political authority, but laïcité ouverte would provide more space for

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public religion in civil society, the media, non-governmental organizations, and the like. Laïcité fermée, on the other hand, would contest or suppress the public spaces for religion’s manifestation, including – perhaps most controversially of late – dress. The goal of laïcité fermée, although it may appear draconian, is to create equality through a degree of public homogeneity, to make everybody ‘the same.’ That immigrant religious communities sometimes do not experience it this way in, for example, France, is a testimony that sameness and equality do not always mean the same thing, and are sometimes, in fact, directly opposed. “While laicism seeks to define and confine religion to the private sphere,” writes Hurd, “Judeo-Christian secularism connects contemporary Western secular formations to a legacy of ‘Western’ (Christian, later Judeo-Christian) values, cultural and religious belief, historical practices, legal traditions, governing institutions, and forms of identification.”62 Interestingly, Hurd says that many Christians and Jews are not Judeo-Christian secularists, and that one does not need to be either Jewish or Christian to adopt the assumptions of Judeo-Christian secularism. The claim is as cultural and historical as it is religious. Says Hurd, “the common claim of Judeo-Christian secularism of all varieties . . . is that Western political order is grounded in a set of core values with their origins in (Judeo)-Christian tradition.”63 This is an especially powerful claim in the United States of America. Hurd cites Catholics Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, John Courtney Murray, and no less than President George W. Bush in her arguments for the prevalence of Judeo-Christian secularism in America. In Canada, Neuhaus’s legacy is most obviously felt in the person of Father Raymond De Souza, a Catholic priest, confidant and consultant of the Office of Religious Freedom,64 regular columnist for the National Post, the right-of-centre rival Canadian national newspaper to the Globe and Mail, and editor of newly formed Convivium journal.65 De Souza gave the eulogy at Neuhaus’s funeral,66 titling it, and later his new journal, after a favorite word and practice of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, “The Great Convivium.” Neuhaus argued that universally valid Catholic moral arguments should replace “secular” public godlessness and re-clothe the naked public square as the basis of American identity, community, and foreign policy.67 Fr. De Souza has taken up that same argument, stating in Convivium, We are convinced that religious faith is critical to our Canadian common life. That is a contested position today, as formidable forces seek to drive religion to the margins of public life. That’s not good for religion, but neither is it good for our common life.68 The argument of De Souza and Judeo-Christian secularists in Canada is not necessarily exclusivist, although in their own case there is a stated preference for the morals and foundations of Catholic moral arguments. It is an argument for religion understood more broadly as “an important constitutive role in this form of secular politics.”69 It is, therefore, important to remember that there is a variety of discursive formations of Judeo-Christian secularism, some which doubt that other religious traditions – especially Islam – are capable of sustaining the kind of strong moral foundations needed for liberal democracies, and others that are more

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open to faiths of many kinds articulating those claims. The difference between these trajectories can be thought of as exclusive Judeo-Christian secularism and inclusive Judeo-Christian secularism. What is consistent, of course, is that the religious is vital for a democratic political order, and further that to this point, the Judeo-Christian tradition presents the best evidence for sustaining such an order. Hurd argues the exclusivist tradition is more explicit in the United States, and for that reason tends to be associated with American politics. Judeo-Christian secularism, she says, draws on a long tradition in which particular religious traditions are linked implicitly to the possibility of civilization. She repeats the famous citation from Tocqueville on the issue: In the United States it is not only more that are controlled by religion, but its sway extends over reason . . . So Christianity reigns without obstacles by universal consent . . . Thus while the law allows the American people to do everything; there are things which religion prevents them from imagining and forbids them to become . . . Religion, which never intervenes directly in the government of American society should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions.70 Of Tocqueville, William Connolly argues, “Christianity does not need to be invoked that often because it is already inscribed in the prediscursive dispositions and cultural instincts of the civilization.”71 Therefore, Judeo-Christian secularism enacts its own kind of “theological discourse,” as Hurd has put it. It diverges from laicism with regard to the role of Judeo-Christian tradition in the establishment and maintenance of the secularist “separation” of church and state. While laicism assumes that religion has receded out of modern spheres of authority and into the private realm or diminished altogether, Judeo-Christian secularism does not make this assumption . . . A shared adherence to a common religious tradition provides a set of publicly accessible assumptions within which democratic politics must be conducted. For JudeoChristian secularists, the separation of church and state is a unique Western achievement that grew out of a shared adherence to a common set of European religious and political traditions. Christianity . . . led to secularism.72 The implications for international relations can take on a polarizing quality. Hurd cites, for example, Samuel P. Huntington’s argument about the clash of civilizations, the logic under which is largely religious, cultural, and linguistic. If the common cultural assumptions of the Judeo-Christian tradition make democratic politics possible, then where those assumptions are absent, undemocratic, possibly irrational politics may be the rule. Hurd writes, The position that a Judeo-Christian secular common grounds ends abruptly at the edge of Western (Judeo-Christian) civilization leads to the defense of this ground against both internal and external enemies, resulting in what

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The religious problem Connolly has described as civilizational wars of aggressive defense of Western uniqueness.73

Neuhaus makes an explicit appeal to the civilizational value of the Judeo-Christian tradition, arguing that “those who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus turn out to be the best citizens.”74 What this means in America or Canada is that a Judeo-Christian secularist approach to religious freedom would almost certainly default to the values, definitions, and meanings of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is not necessarily the case that Judeo-Christian secularism is exclusive of other religious traditions, but it is certainly preferential. This means that in foreign policy it is those virtues and values, and its commensurate understandings of political legitimacy, that will be central in religious freedom advocacy. This may lead, as Hurd argues, to a marginalization of non-Western and non-Judeo-Christian perspectives on religion and politics. She writes, In this way of thinking, on the one hand non-Westerns who do not advocate for Western forms of secularism are portrayed as children who refuse to acknowledge they are sick and need to stay in. On the other hand, those who do advocate for some form of secularism are subject to the charge from either abroad or at home that they are advancing pale imitations of a robust Western ideal, thereby departing from (and potentially betraying) indigenous tradition.75 As is the case in the debates over the Office, these concerns are widely represented by opponents of Judeo-Christian secularism, and by extension often opponents of the Offices in general. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd has defined much of this terrain, but she herself has also become a leader in a movement of New Critics of religious freedom. Her many articles and op-eds, covered at some length in the opening chapters, come into focus in her latest book Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion, followed shortly by her Immanent Frame colleague Saba Mahmood, and her book Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report.76 In that book, Hurd argues that the protections for the rights of religious minorities has “gone viral”77 and that “the good religion-bad religion mandate has become an industry.”78 The globalization of religious freedom policy has had the consequence, intended or otherwise, of naming some kinds of religion, some kinds of believing and behaving, “good” and some kinds “bad.” The state, argues Hurd, isn’t just dabbling in religion; it’s neck deep in it. It’s literally using the coercive powers of the state to define what kind of religion will be tolerated and supported, and what kinds must be opposed and maybe exterminated. Far from a “separation,” the nation-state is busy picking winners and losers. Mahmood’s book is largely a long case study of this in the Egyptian context. The book is organized to “track the modern career of political secularism in Egypt through the institutionalization of five of its signature ideas: political and civil rights, religious liberty, minority rights, public order, and the legal distinction between public

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and private.”79 But in Mahmood’s argument the religious freedom industry is a small, and arguably even less interesting, part of political secularism’s distinguished career. American diplomacy is part of, but hardly the panacea, for the problem of political secularism. It is the state itself, argues Mahmood, and its intrinsic project of sovereignty and secularity that is the heart of the problem. It is modern secular governance that “has contributed to the exacerbation of religious tensions in postcolonial Egypt, hardening interfaith boundaries and polarizing religious differences.”80 Mahmood’s argument is simply that by privileging things like religious freedom diplomacy we risk hardening religious polarizations, which may create the very conditions for vulnerability our diplomacy is meant to fix. In other words, when does the political power to name something as a religious problem sometimes actually help make it a religious problem, where it wasn’t necessarily one before? This is a very real concern worth attention. Diplomatic rhetoric can render vulnerable minorities more vulnerable by naming their religious status as a cause, especially if the roots of the vulnerability have little to do with religious identity. The surest way to avoid this problem, at least according to Hurd, is probably to give up on the lost cause of religious freedom advocacy. We do more harm than good, according to Hurd, when we go abroad pointing fingers calling things religious that effectively only export our own secular/sacred problems and solutions. But many of the complaints that Hurd brings against religious freedom seem to me complaints about liberalism and political secularism generally. Mahmood certainly would find that consistent. Religious liberty, for Mahmood, is just one of a repertoire of problems that recurs as a result of “the establishment of the principle of state sovereignty.”81 I think Mahmood intuits correctly that these problems may not have a final, satisfactory resolution. They are endemic tensions to liberalism and political secularism, and so we should expect that the line demarcating the secular and the religious, the public and the private, will continue to be a site of considerable disagreement in the twenty-first century. But then the problem really isn’t religious freedom. Hurd’s conclusion is that religious freedom privileges some forms of religion, whether beliefs, modes of being or knowing, and dis-privileges others. Is that really the fault of religious freedom, or is that the natural consequence of sovereignty and of political secularism? The state, Hurd is at pains to show, is not neutral because it privileges certain kinds of beliefs and being. But it seems somewhat obvious that it should. The ‘neutrality’ of the secular state is not an intellectual innocence. It is a political community that has very definite opinions about certain kinds of beliefs and behaviours, and the suggestion that it was ever intended to be an open-cosmopolitan social space seems historically naïve. That, for example, Hurd could write “the wrong kind of religion is an object of reform and discipline”82 and this could shock us means we missed the prior postmodern lesson that politics are always moral, that what a political community means by justice – the good of politics – is hardly “neutral” in an intellectual sense. There is no such thing as good or bad religion, argues Hurd,83 except – of course – when we get busy situating ourselves in a tradition, or moral position, then some kinds of belief and being and knowing are good. And some are bad.

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This is where the New Critics sometimes hit a snag, because we know that we are already situated in such a sense, whether we are busy attending to it or not. This is Charles Taylor’s point in A Secular Age about the “modern social imaginary” that we were in the business of having understandings of and practices in the world long before we got into the business of theorizing about them. What is the New Critics imaginary then? It is one whose moral hierarchy counts diversity and (a kind of) equality as its chief aims. The fundamental problem with religious freedom, then, is the same as the problem with human rights generally. Quoting Talal Asad, Hurd writes that religious freedom “usurps the entire universe of moral discourse, capturing the field of emancipatory possibility and effacing the distinction between law and justice.”84 This approach is deeply democratic, but it is not necessarily liberal. In fact, quoting Asad again, she writes “the modern idea of religious belief (protected as a right in the individual and regulated institutionally) is a critical function of the liberal-democratic nation-state but not of democratic sensibility.”85 Therefore, if there is a place to disagree with Hurd about the conceptual use of ‘religion’ as a category for international politics, the fulcrum of that disagreement becomes clear: it is probably because one person will privilege the liberal in liberal-democrat, and the New Critics will privilege the democrat. A democrat is a respectable thing to be, but privileging it at the top of moral pyramid, untethered from the limits of what Taylor calls the “constitutive values of liberal democracy,” is a little riskier politics than most states care to play. Saba Mahmood goes right for the jugular on this. She cites Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor in their little book Secularism and Freedom of Conscience,86 and their attempt to settle this ‘religious problem’ by simply including under the label of religious liberty any controlling, core beliefs. But this fails, as it must, to meet an ultimate democratic-moral aim, because it still depends on “the particular sovereign prerogative of the state to judge and decide which values are worthy of legal protection.”87 Furthermore, she writes, in order to judge whether a certain belief is worthy of protection the state must inevitably involve itself in investigating the substance and sincerity of the belief; this in turn embroils the secular state further into the domain of privacy, which is supposed to be a space of autonomy and freedom.88 I would go a step further than Mahmood. Not only is it true that the state would be embroiled in sincerity tests on the part of individuals, the state will even be embroiled in determining what kinds of behaviours, what kind of “modes of being,” it deems acceptable regardless of sincerity. There is, in other words, no such thing as this state-space of autonomy and freedom, and the idea that there ever was is a modern dream, for which these peculiar postmodern eulogies seem oddly out of step with their own tradition. As it turns out, this is more or less what the data shows in the discipline too. Jonathan Fox, in his latest release of his worldwide data on 111 types of state religion policy in 177 countries between 1990 and 2008 shows that the religion/

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politics competition is heating up.89 States are getting more involved in religion. This is a consequence of both the globalization of secularization and the global resurgence of religion – each reacting to the other – a religious-secular competition creating a new family of religious/secular ideologies.90 In other words, a typology of six rival versions, sequestered in North America, barely scratches the surface. But that a great many more meanings of the religious and the secular exist outside North America hardly invalidates this argument, it only strengthens the urgency for a consistent, academic effort to disclose the meaning of, and relationship between, the religious and the secular in doing foreign policy. What is needed, therefore, is an approach to ‘the religious problem’ which names it frankly, but without subjecting it to fashionable western hierarchies of morality. We need, in short, a way to conceptualize religion on its own terms, but without quitting the field to genealogical subjectivism. That, I argue, is why religion is an essentially contested term.

Defining religion, an ‘essentially contested concept’ How, then, should we think about the religious, this term which we see can have such variable and contested meanings which produce such different political practices? Is it, as some have said, that the term is simply chameleon, or that it should be abandoned, yet another site where the power to define manifests itself with real political consequences? It’s important to qualify here, as those like Daniel Philpott (contrary to Elizabeth Hurd) do, that to say meanings and boundaries between concepts like the religious and the secular have shifted does not mean that ‘religion’ has no meaning or is a free-floating construction. The political and social manifestation of a concept is not coterminous with the phenomenon itself; that is, just because what we call religion has shifted, does not mean religion itself has no meaning. The evidence that religion is such a hotly contested concept suggests that what we try to describe when we talk about religion is probably hugely important. It is a matter, then, not only of recognizing that some concepts tend to be political and unstable, but also that some concepts are better than others. Writes Oliver O’Donovan, “only theorists could be so foolish as to think that it did not matter which concepts one grasped – apart, that is, from the morally immature.” This is something like what Scottish social theorist Walter Bryce Gallie tried to capture with his idea of an ‘essentially contested’ concept at the Aristotelian Society in 1956. He presented the idea as a way to help understand various interpretations of abstract or evaluative notions such as art, religion, science, democracy, and social justice. Essentially contested concepts are understood to be so value-laden that no amount of argument or evidence can lead to one single, standard, or universal use. These concepts are contested so deeply because they seek to define a complex whole. The meaning of art, for example, is notoriously shifty, the subject of protracted debates in large part because doing so forecloses particular modes of the aesthetic, which are often variable and subjective. Yet while Gallie was clear no understanding of an essentially contested concept can be viewed as the “only” one, he did nonetheless insist that there are some that are considerably better than others.

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We can build on Gallie’s “essentially contested concept” to offer a deep critique of how we understand religion, which is nonetheless not a free floating poststructuralism. Hurd has argued that the prior act of defining what is and is not religious, especially by states, renders a kind of hegemonic framework that implicitly does violence to other meanings of and practices of the religious. Religious freedom for this reason, she argues, needs to be reimagined as a site of resistance. While Hurd’s critical method reveals important political consequences for the meaning of religion, it also makes conceptual analysis, to say nothing of actual foreign policy, a tricky proposition. It is, in a general sense, the postmodern problem of definitions of any sort: the intrinsic exclusions that inevitably accompany our claims and stakes in the world. Such shifts have indeed occurred in world history. But it does not necessarily follow that there is no historical thing as religion and its freedoms. That the meaning of and relationship between the religious and the secular have shifted is not the same thing as saying these things have no meaning or existence prior to the powers of the state and the community. In fact, it is precisely because the concept of religion has gained such global importance that policymakers cannot afford to ignore it as a way of framing their thinking around the global resurgence of organized faiths like Islam, Pentecostalism, Catholicism, and so forth. What we must be, then, is very clear about rival meanings of the term. Only once we clarify these meanings can we decide if we are prepared to truly acknowledge religion’s contested nature in the structure and aims of our foreign policy. Thus the effort to track such shifts in the secular and the religious does not finally leave us only a project of resistance, vaguely – if practical at all – for the work of politics, but it does leave us with the responsibility of sustaining definitions, of why the concepts of the religious and the secular so-defined deserve that definition, both for moral and political reasons. What it means to call religion essentially contested is therefore that any definition of the religious and the secular is both fully political and fully theological. It is neither a nakedly rational thing to describe, if such a thing were possibly, nor is it a purely dogmatic or doctrinal concern, as though the consequences of sacred life are not obviously and powerfully transforming the social world. Precisely because we know these terms have undergone such fundamental transformations, responsible politics (and theology) demands such disclosure, to make sense of our own rivalries – certainly – but also to do politics in God’s Century. This, I believe, is the work of what I call political theology.

Notes 1 Evan Solomon, “In Defence of the Defunct Office of Religious Freedom,” Macleans, March 30, 2016. www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-defence-of-the-defunct-office-ofreligious-freedom/. Accessed August 17, 2016. 2 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 216. MacIntyre here says that “mythology, in its original sense, is at the heart of things.” 3 Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 7.

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4 Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004), 1. 5 Parts of this argument appear in Robert Joustra, “Revolutions in Political Theology,” in Whose Will Be Done? Essays on Sovereignty and Religion, ed. John Dyck, Paul Rowe and Jens Zimmermann (Lanham: Lexington, 2015), 189–208. 6 The Pontifex Maximum in Rome is a good premodern example of the commingling of political and religious authority. It was not a theocracy in the current understanding, simply a continuity of cosmic authority in an imperial mediator. A wide variety of premodern, and nonwestern, examples could also be given by the student of world history. 7 Wilfrid Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 18–19. 8 Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 2: 349–350. 9 See William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 62. 10 Including six times as a Latin translation for several Greek terms in St. Jerome’s Vulgate New Testament. In the King James Version of the New Testament the term religion appears only five times, for three different Greek words (Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence, 62). 11 Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence, 62. 12 Augustine, City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1972), X: I (373). 13 David K. Naugle, Reordered Love, Reordered Lives: Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2008). 14 Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion, 32. 15 John Bossy, “Some Elementary Forms of Durkheim,” Past and Present 95 (1982), 4. 16 Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence, 64. 17 This argument can be found in longer form in Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence, 64–69. 18 Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence, 65. 19 Ibid. Emphasis added. See for a fuller argument Aquinas’s treatise on habits and virtues in Summa Theologiae, I-II.49–70. The bodily aspect of religio is a point made at length by Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). 20 Mahmood describes her approach in Politics of Piety as a combination of Foucault and Aristotle. See also Saba Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015). 21 James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2015). See also the more academic version of this argument, James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011). 22 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II.52.2–3. 23 As quoted in Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1993), 138. 24 Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence, 68. 25 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II.81.4 ad 2. 26 Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence, 69. 27 Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge, MA: Belknap University Press, 2012). 28 Peter Harrison, ‘Religion’ and the Religions of the English Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 29 Ibid., 19–23. 30 John Calvin, Instruction in Faith (1537), trans. and ed. Paul T. Fuhrmann (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1977), article 16 (p. 42).

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31 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill, Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 3.11.1. 32 Philip Melanchthon, The Apology of the Augsburg Confession (New York: Scriptura Press, 2015), 126. 33 As quoted in James Payton Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 123. 34 Ibid., 131. 35 Irena Backus, The Disputation of Baden, 1526 and Berne, 1528: Neutralizing the Early Church, Studies in Reformed Theology and History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1993), 81. 36 As quoted in Payton, 139. Luther says this in his On the Councils and the Church, 1539, in Theodore G Tappert (Ed), Selected Writings of Martin Luther, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 243. Emphasis added. 37 Harrison, ‘Religion’ and the Religions, 23–24. 38 Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence, 73. 39 Smith, Meaning and End, 39. 40 Lord Herbert of Cherbury, De Religione Laici, trans. and ed. Harold R. Hutcheson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944), 129. 41 Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence, 78–79. 42 John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1955), 16–20. 43 See William T. Cavanaugh, Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011). 44 See chapter 7, “The Power of Protestant Propositions,” in Daniel Philpott, Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 123–149. 45 For a fuller discussion of the invention of religion and the Reformation’s role see William Cavanaugh’s The Myth of Religious Violence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) and Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. 46 Daniel Philpott, Revolutions in Sovereignty (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 148. 47 Jean Bethke Elshtain, Sovereignty: God, State, and Self (New York: Basic Books, 2012), 78. 48 These can be found in chapter 2 of Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), “Varieties of Secularism.” She lists in that chapter three major influences on the forms of secularism delineated in the book, José Casanova, Talal Asad, and Charles Taylor. See also Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and Linell E. Cardy (eds.), Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Hurd also serves as guest editor, with Winnifred Fallers Sullivan of “The politics of religious freedom” on The Immanent Frame: Secularism, religion, and the public sphere. The project is defined as an ongoing discussion that “considers the multiple histories and genealogies of religious freedom – and the multiple contexts in which those histories and genealogies are salient today.” http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/the-politics-of-religious-freedom/. Accessed February 27, 2013. 49 Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, 23. See also chapter 2 of The Politics of Secularism, “Varieties of Secularism.” 50 John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 200. 51 John L. Esposito, “Islam and Secularism in the Twenty-First Century,” in Islam and Secularism in the Middle East, ed. John L. Esposito and Azzam Tamini (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 9. 52 Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, 29. 53 Partha Chatterjee, “The Politics of Secularization in Contemporary India,” in Powers of the Secular Modern: Talal Asad and His Interlocutors, ed. David Scott and Charles Hirschkind (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 60.

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54 José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 215. 55 Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 191. 56 Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, 33. 57 Charles Taylor, “Why We Need a Radical Redefinition of the Secular,” in The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere, ed. Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 40. 58 Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, 35. 59 Charles Taylor, “Modes of Secularism,” in Secularism and its Critics, ed. Rajeev Bhargava (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 37. 60 Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 13. 61 Ibid., 14. 62 Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, 38. 63 Ibid. 64 Fr. De Souza was present at closed door consultations on the Office in October, 2011, one of six invited panellists. See Louise Elliott, “Religious Freedoms Panel Drawn Largely from Western Religions,” CBC News, December 7, 2011. www.cbc.ca/news/ politics/story/2011/12/07/pol-religious-freedoms-panel.html. Accessed February 28, 2013. He was also one of the few visited by the ambassador in the week of February 11, prior to Dr. Bennett’s appointment on February 19, 2013. 65 See www.cardus.ca/convivium/. The tagline of Convivium is “faith in our common life.” 66 See www.catholiceducation.org/articles/catholic_stories/cs0389.htm. Accessed February 28, 2013. 67 Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, 38. See Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984). 68 “About the Convivium Project,” www.cardus.ca/convivium/about/. Accessed February 28, 2013. 69 Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, 39. 70 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 292. 71 William Connolly, Why I Am Not a Secularist (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 24. 72 Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, 42. 73 Ibid., 43. 74 Richard John Neuhaus, American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile (New York: Basic Books, 2009), 117. 75 Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, 44. 76 A version of these arguments appears in a review of Beyond Religious Freedom and Religious Difference in a Secular Age in Review of Faith & International Affairs 14, no. 3 (2016), 120–133. 77 Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Beyond Religious Freedom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 5. 78 Ibid., 35. 79 Saba Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 11. 80 Ibid., 1. 81 Ibid., 33. 82 Hurd, Beyond Religious Freedom, 27. 83 Ibid., 120. 84 Ibid., 64. 85 Ibid., 108. 86 Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age, 177–178. 87 Ibid., 178.

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88 Ibid., 178. 89 Jonathan Fox, Political Secularism, Religion, and the State: A Time Series Analysis of Worldwide Data (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 90 Ibid., 31.

5

Revolutions in political theology

It is often said, for instance, that everyone has a “set of presuppositions” or a “perspective on reality” to bring to a theoretical inquiry. That may be true. But saying such things cannot be the end of the matter. It must at best be the beginning. – Nicholas Wolterstorff1 The end product of secular modernity, in fact, is a state that is unable to prevent its own collapse. – Nicholas Guilhot2

Daniel Philpott has famously argued that the ideas of the Protestant Reformation played an important role in revolutions in the practice and understanding of sovereignty in the post-Westphalian world.3 I certainly agree with Philpott and go one step further: the revolutions in ‘sovereignty’ in the post-Westphalian world not only had a ‘religious’ origin, but were revolutions in the whole way the religious and the secular were conceived of. The ‘social forms’ of the modern moral order, including the Westphalian state, are inscribed with their own meanings of the religious and the secular. Revolutions in sovereignty imply revolutions in political theology.4 Political theology is a somewhat surprising concept to find in foreign policy and international relations, not least for the perception that ‘political theologies’ are usually about embedding exclusivist divine revelations into a (therefore) increasingly fractious politics. The perception runs that political theology is the kind of concept that might be relevant to Iran, or the Islamic State, but hardly to mainstream foreign policy. This perception was not always the case. Political theology was once more commonplace in international theory, and has only slowly been reintroduced into the conversation on international relations since September 11, 2001. Nicolas Guilhot writes that international theory, in the early twentieth century, pointed to a “theological substratum that once provided an explicit background against which a number of central concepts of IR theory resonated.”5 Guilhot argues that one of the important, and progressive, innovations in the mid-century was the translation of these theological premises “into a structure of the saeculum.”6 In one sense, Guilhot is right that the core hypotheses of international theory owe much to these early theorists and their theologies. His point is repeated by

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others, such as Scott Thomas7 and Charles Jones.8 In his argument, Jones says that “at some point during the 1950s a change took place as though from sterling to dollar – leaving many Christians trading in secular currency, where formerly agnostics had quite comfortably used religious coinage.”9 Jones’s metaphor is instructive, suggesting that religious ideas about authority and politics did not so much disappear, as simply become installed as secular assumptions. The ironic consequence is that where previously this political theological content was advanced as intrinsically contestable, its secularization seemed to foreclose debate on those same basic commitments. Secularity, it could be said using Jones’s metaphor, is more an exchange in currency rather than a fundamental disruption of the intellectual and moral economy of the modern social imaginary. New understandings and practices were not introduced by the eclipse of the theological, the understandings and practices of the day were simply rationalized and secularized, installed as neutral assumptions. As Jones argues, this has put the discipline of international relations out of touch with some of its once fundamental sources, and left the discipline trying to buy and sell in political-theological markets with secular coinage. The often contestable, and sometimes religious, roots of the assumptions of the modern social imaginary are repurposed for the discipline as natural or secular, whereas for pre- or non-modern imaginaries, the political-theological contestation is only too obvious. One of the solutions in international relations has been to reach back into the twentieth century for theorists and thinkers who operated prior to, or who were deliberately opposed to, this secularizing shift in understandings and practices. Political theology, a term whose history goes back to Varro and a lineage stretching over the centuries,10 has been the concept of choice for those attempting to explain the secular and the religious.11 One of those early thinkers who is being appealed to in this conversation has been Carl Schmitt. Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology (1922) was one of the first, and arguably the most controversial, contemporary articulations of political theology. Political Theology, and his famous oft-quoted maxims that “sovereign is he who decides on the exception” and “all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts” stand out now as puzzling. But his original task, of challenging the dichotomy of the religious and the secular in modern liberal thought, is one that many of those influenced by his work have taken up, including Leo Strauss, Jacques Derrida, Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, Antonio Negri, Slavoj Zizek, and others. William Scheuerman has observed that a small cottage industry on Schmitt’s influences, especially on Morgenthau, has emerged.12 Schmitt’s reputation suffered from his association with National Socialism during World War II, but his criticisms of liberal modernity remained. Indeed, one need not adopt Schmitt’s cure to appreciate his diagnosis. Schmitt’s insights for this argument are especially important as they relate to the often theological content that persists in secularized form in international theory, and in what ways the boundaries between the religious and the secular are drawn. Vendulka Kubálková’s project of international political theology (IPT) is an example of a constructivist approach to the concept in international relations.

Revolutions in political theology 71 Kubálková writes that her approach to international political theology “does not go as far as political theologians claim” but nonetheless can account for the substantive content of religious belief. Kubálková’s approach adds significant value to the approach in this chapter. The social constitution of the religious, and the rules-based framework she uses to analyze the religious, yields a more accurate picture than many mainstream approaches, which often perceive the religious as a veneer for other, underlying factors. She takes the religious seriously by letting it set its own terms and rules, an important step to explaining rival versions of the religious and the secular. But by creating a framework and a project called international political theology, Kubálková deliberately contrasts IPT with other sub-disciplines, like International Political Economy (IPE). She hopes, therefore, to supplement mainstream approaches, not challenge their basic assumptions as derivative of the kind of secularity Taylor describes. Her approach has merit, but if political theology is to take Schmitt’s criticisms seriously, it must also attend to rival meanings of the religious and the secular, not simply install and then analyze these concepts as given. Daniel Philpott, Monica Toft, and Timothy Shah get the closest to the definition of political theology offered. In their book God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics, they write that political theology is “the set of ideas that a religious actor holds about what is legitimate political authority.”13 And further, that “religious actors arrive at their political theologies through reflection upon their religion’s texts and traditions and its foundational claims about divine being(s), time, eternity, salvation, morality and revelation.”14 This is a good definition, as far as it goes, but what it misses, like Kubálková, is the meanings of the religious and the secular, which make this definition intelligible. Who counts, for example, as a religious actor, or what counts as religious and what as secular, and why? Even in laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism there is debate over these boundaries, and certainly so in pre- and non-modern social imaginaries. If the definition of the religious and the secular is itself both a political and a theological statement, then any politicaltheological approach must clearly also study this demarcation, the practices and understandings it makes possible, and what therefore constitutes legitimate political authority. Legitimate political authority depends not only on what kind of perspectives are admissible (religious versus secular), but also on which perspectives count as belonging to each of those categories, and why. Therefore, the argument is finally for a definition, informed through critique of Schmitt, Kubálková, Philpott, Toft, and Shah, of political theology as the understandings and practices that political actors have about the meaning of and relationship between the religious and the secular, and what constitutes legitimate political authority. That definition expands on the more limited definition used by theorists in this chapter, and responds to the demonstrated problem of rival versions of the religious and the secular underlying religious freedom. It contextualizes the meanings of the religious and the secular within the systems of political authority which they generate.

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Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology Carl Schmitt, the famous jurist from the Weimar Republic, was a tragic intellectual whose legacy remains tarnished by his National Socialist politics. Yet in the years before and after the war, he provided some of the twentieth century’s most insightful political theory. Schmitt called this political theology, although most theologians would undoubtedly be perplexed to find very little of actual theological substance in either Political Theology or Political Theology II, the latter of which he intentionally tried to make more “theological.” The term itself seems an alien imposition to political thought. And if by it Schmitt only meant to argue, as Nicolas Guilhot and others have conceded, that a theological background to international theory once existed, then there may not be much more to the term than intellectual nostalgia. As Schmitt legal scholar Paul Kahn writes, “that political concepts have their origin in theological concepts is, to most contemporary theorists, about as interesting and important as learning that English words have their origin in old Norse.”15 Schmitt writes famously in Political Theology: All signification concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development – in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent God became the omnipotent lawgiver – but also because of their systemic structure, the recognition of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these concepts.16 The burden, then, is to suggest that what was true for Schmitt, or at least what he deemed to be true, that this theological substratum still had some kind of relevance, is also true for us, even over the ensuing decades of secularization. Writes Kahn: “political theology as a form of inquiry is compelling only to the degree that it helps us recognize that our political practices remain embedded in forms of belief and practice that touch upon the sacred.”17 Since Schmitt wrote his treatise, there has been a shift in not only the academy, but the culture of secular societies like North America. Theology is no longer a mainstream academic discipline, and it is no longer obvious why it is important in any kind of significant way to other disciplines of reflection. It is often taken for granted that theology is an intrinsically different subject to which rules of revelation, rather than rationality, apply. To complicate political theology further still, Schmitt’s original treatises suffer enormously from their obscurity. There are the usual issues with historically situated material, but Schmitt spends a great deal of time responding to ideas and theorists which have long since passed from the conversation. It is, as Paul Kahn says, “a virtually impenetrable consideration of lost German theoreticians.”18 Further, their work responding to and building a solution for the crisis of the Weimar Republic could hardly not go into history as one of its more spectacular failures. Lost jurists, using lost concepts, debating lost republics seems an exercise in obscurity, not contemporary international theory.

Revolutions in political theology 73 There is also the problem that Schmitt’s use of theology would upset actual theologians. His first argument, from Political Theology, is remarkable in part for its utter lack of theology. As a result, he takes his task in Political Theology II to be a correction of this. While this debate is more deliberately theological, it tends to read more as an extended debate, and one with rather petty moments, against his once-friend German theologian Eric Peterson. Peterson’s argument is that “political theology is theologically impossible for Christians, because the Trinitarian dogma does not allow a correlation between a political reality and a theological belief.”19 Schmitt’s response, and one with which I resonate, is that the political distinction of the religious from the secular is special to modernity, and of intrinsic interest to Christians because it has both political and theological effect on what counts as religious, and what doesn’t. Schmitt argues that this distinction also serves to obscure the often religious sources of the secular, including aspects of the nation-state, and its powers of life and death. Schmitt’s definition of theology is therefore somewhat synonymous with the religious itself, or metaphysics.20 There is a lack of dogmatic or moral questions. By political theology, Schmitt means a historical “sociology of juridical concepts,” one which discloses the contestable, and once theological nature of those same concepts.21 Schmitt’s conviction was that powerful theological concepts lived on in the secular state, although naturalized now under the category of secular rationality. It is important to recognize that despite this conviction Schmitt was not nostalgic. Contrary to the expectation that a theological, or political theological, analysis would be a simple restatement of a divine substratum ignored or neglected, Schmitt had no desire to return to Christendom or resurrect theocracy. This is not what he meant by political theology. In her foreword to Schmitt’s Political Theology, Tracey Strong writes: To say that all concepts in modern state theory are secularized theological concepts is not to want to restore to those concepts a theological dimension, but it is to point to the fact that what has been lost since the sixteenth (“theological”) century has amounted to a hollowing-out of political concepts.22 For his own part, Nicolas Guilhot argues: It is important to emphasize that Schmitt does not advocate a re-theologization of politics: rather, he defends the autonomy of the political, but also warns that this autonomy is premised on the historical constitution of a territorial order distinct from, but coexisting with, the moral order embodied by the ecclesial institutions of Christianity. Should secularization proceed to the extent that the state no longer understands itself in relation to (and in tension with) this background and conflates its own interests with morality itself – as in the case of liberalism – then it would assume again religious attributes and give rise to dangerous political regimes. By the same token, it would cease to act politically. The end product of secular modernity, in fact, is a state that is unable to prevent its own collapse.23

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Schmitt, then, gives an essential argument for any definition of political theology, that its work must be not only to disclose the religious ideas of religious actors, but also the once religious ideas that have in fact shaped what is known now as the secular. This includes, importantly, how those boundaries between the religious and the secular are constituted to begin with, and how their placement justifies certain kinds of politics, and invalidates others. This parallels Paul Kahn’s argument that political theology “raises fundamental questions about the nature of contemporary experience and of the place of the political . . . It brings to that inquiry a set of concepts – faith, sacrifice, the sacred – that are ordinarily excluded from political theory.”24 It helps explain, to paraphrase William Cavanaugh, why certain experiences, like killing for the state, are honourable, courageous, and praiseworthy, while killing and dying for one’s God is remarkable, possibly fundamentalist and pathological. By studying the meaning of the religious and the secular, and especially which practices and understandings have been naturalized as which, Schmitt’s analysis suggests that a better picture can be rendered not only of non-modern politics, but also of our rival versions of the religious and the secular right here at home.

Vendulka Kubálková, International Political Theology (IPT) Vendulka Kubálková’s proposal for an international political theology (IPT) is one of the more sustained interventions in international relations using Schmitt’s term. Kubálková, however, passes over Schmitt’s legacy quickly, anxious as she is to enlist it to Nicolas Onuf’s project of social constructivism. To begin with, Kubálková proposes an international political theology paralleled on the same disciplinary model as international political economy. It was not long ago, she recalls, that material and economic forces in international politics were eclipsed by the dominant theoretical approaches, which privileged power and anarchy rather than their constituent material forces. Into this confusion came the work of IPE, a conversation focused on understanding the relationship between the growing global power of markets and market economies and the political structures of the day. The example of IPE, then, is of a subfield grown out of an observed gap in analysis. To Kubálková, the surprise of religion and culture in international relations is an oversight of the same kind. It too can be corrected with an internal subdiscipline focused on the overlooked interrelationship of religion and politics. Her use of the term theology, she says, is intended “deliberately to shock.”25 But she also says it “does not go as far as political theologians’ claim that political theorizing should have its ultimate ground in religious revelations.”26 Kubálková is critical of mainstream approaches to religion in international theory, which she claims merely replicate the modern meanings of the religious and the secular. She writes that “within these positivist, materialist, and state-centric constraints, the mainstream by definition cannot theorize religion in IR.”27 Her own brief history of the problem of secularism in international theory does some of the same work Charles Jones and Scott Thomas have done in other places, namely pointing to the once understood theological substratum of theories of international politics.28 Interestingly, after largely dismissing mainstream international

Revolutions in political theology 75 theory as having a useful approach to the religious and the secular, she spends most of her time critiquing postmodern theories, emphasizing the theological roots of its methods of phenomenology and hermeneutics. She argues that these theories, often described as anti-foundationalist, owe a debt to religious discourse.29 Kubálková recognizes the difficulty in defining religion. She argues that the meaning of religion itself has basically been lost for analytical purposes, but that religions on the other hand, as institutions within the understandings and practices, can be usefully analyzed. The problem for international theory, she says, is when scholars want to come to terms with the non-modern religious, or with the fundamental assumptions of their own version of the religious and the secular. Here, she says, it is infeasible to discuss religion in IR without appreciating that the difference in religious and secular thought is ontological, that is, in what in each of them “counts for real.” All spiritual communities, all religions, Western and Eastern, share a distinction between ordinary and transcendental reality . . . A serious consideration of the role of religion in IR must start with the exploration of the ontological foundation of religious discourse.30 Schmitt would extend the argument even further, arguing that sometimes understandings and practices which begin as transcendental – or religious – ones, are then installed as ordinary. This, he says, has been the case with certain aspects of the modern state, and this, indeed, is the argument of Charles Jones, Scott Thomas, William Cavanaugh, and others. What is of special importance to international theory is not only that there is such a distinction, but how those distinctions are made, what understandings and practices fall on either side, and how that shapes political legitimacy. Her definition of religion, however, fails to recognize that the fundamental constitution of the religious and the secular is intrinsic to political theology. By religion, she means: 1 2 3

A system of rules (mainly instruction rules) and related practices, which act to Explain the meaning of existence, including identity ideas about self, and one’s position in the world, Thus motivating and guiding the behaviour of those who accept the validity of these rules on faith and who internalize them fully.31

What Kubálková offers is a reasonable enough definition of religion, provided that we already accept the demarcation between the religious and the secular, and the special modern history of their boundaries. A rules-based, constructivist system may function to explain religion in a modern society, but may just as well fail to account for the rival versions of the religious and the secular in pre-and non-modern societies. Further, it will also obscure implicit rivalries that still exist in certain modern societies, like the North American case, between laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism.

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This problem is instructive because a subfield of international political theology will only be helpful in international relations if it can analyze and explain not just religion but why some things are religious and some things are secular, and how that may shift – or be politically unstable or even dangerous – in some places. Kubálková is importantly right that merely adding religion to the mix, as another unit to account for, won’t be enough. The boldness of a new sub-discipline is certainly worth thought, but work must be done not only to account for a “new” thing but to look at the standards of accounting entirely: why do some things fit under the label, and others don’t? Her constructivist model undoubtedly has use, but only within a context that already follows certain prescribed meanings and practices.

Political theology in God’s Century God’s Century offers one of the clearest, most focused interventions on religion and foreign affairs in international relations. Its authors, Daniel Philpott, Monica Toft, and Timothy Shah are working in respected schools, Notre Dame, Harvard (at the time, now Oxford), and Georgetown, and they are each widely regarded as scholars and teachers in their own right. The book has been met with great acclaim if partly for that reason. But the book does a great deal more than simply paraphrase the debate to this point. In fact, its most interesting contribution is how quickly it moves beyond the secularization debate. The global resurgence of religion is taken as understood backdrop, not hypothesis, to the argument. Philpott, Toft, and Shah rush past this resurgence and move very quickly to their two core theses. These are: 1 2

That a dramatic and worldwide increase in the political influence of religion has occurred in roughly the past forty years. The great political variety among religions can be explained by what they call political theology, the set of ideas that a religious community holds about political authority and justice; and as corollary the mutual independence of religious and political authority can point toward a progressive or regressive relationship between political and religious communities.

They define religion as: By definition seek[ing] understanding of, and harmony with, the widest reaches of transcendent reality – the quality that distinguishes them from political ideologies such as Marxism or secular nationalism that are sometimes thought to be functionally equivalent to religion. Religions offer answers to universal questions about the origins of existence, the afterlife, and realities that transcend humanity; nations generally do not.32 There is nothing especially controversial about this definition, and God’s Century moves past its meaning quite quickly. It usefully gives real content to religion, but does not divorce it from social and political reality. Indeed, something that

Revolutions in political theology 77 gives answer to universal questions and realities that transcend humanity would seem, in some fashion, to have fairly radical political and social consequences. Their definition is a good one, then, which offers the possibility of what Schmitt, Guilhot, and others call the theological substratum that resonates underneath key concepts in international theory and politics. Political theology itself, they say is “the set of ideas that a religious actor holds about what is legitimate political authority.”33 And further, that “religious actors arrive at their political theologies through reflection upon their religion’s texts and traditions and its foundational claims about divine being(s), time, eternity, salvation, morality and revelation.”34 This is helpful so far as it goes. Political theology defined as what religious persons or communities do, on reflection of their basic convictions, and how they translate to political and social life is a real and important contribution to the work of international theory and religion and politics generally. Yet this is a somewhat different definition of political theology than either its Schmittian heritage or the constructivist project of Kubálková. Like Schmitt, God’s Century argues that religious ideas do have political consequences, and often important ones. In fact, they argue that in the new global politics it is probably impossible to insist on a social separation between the religious and the secular, at least insofar as the one is private and the other political and public. Like Kubálková they believe those ideas can, if understood properly, form a different picture or set of rules of political and social life, about what constitutes legitimacy. Unlike Kubálková, they do not think that political theology would necessarily function well as a subfield in mainstream disciplines, at least not without a major overhaul of some of the assumptions of those theoretical traditions. But further, unlike Schmitt, this definition of political theology misses out on two extremely important parts of the religious problem. First, its emphasis on ideas undermines the often embedded form that religious practices take, and the meanings that are carried with them. As Charles Taylor says, “If an understanding makes a practice possible, it is also true that it is the practice that largely carries the understanding.”35 Religious practices are not secondary to religious ideas, as though the ideas produce the practice in a straightforward, causal manner. Political legitimacy is not just a set of ideas, it is a set of social forms, forms that embed understandings within practices. This argument is not only academic because when it comes to questions of religious freedom we do not merely want to speak of ideas one can hold internally, but about practices and public manifestations. This matters for defining religion or political theology because when talking about religious freedoms, it is not only the freedom of belief, but the freedom of practice that is most often at stake. Take, for example, the work of Saba Mahmood on the Islamic piety movement in Egypt. Her findings lead her to argue against the dominant understanding of religion, that regards religion as a set of beliefs expressed in a set of propositions to which an individual gives assent. While this privatized and individualized

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Revolutions in political theology concept of religion has a Protestant genealogy, it has come to command a normative force in modernity and is often upheld as the measure against which the adequacy of other religious traditions is measured and judged.36

What Mahmood calls the Protestant conception of religiosity, that which “presupposes a distinction between a privatized interiority that is the proper locus of belief and a public exteriority that is an expression of this belief”37 is part of what I have called laïcité in the taxonomy of the religious and the secular. Contrary to this, she argues that the subjects of her study posit a very different relationship between outward bodily acts (including rituals, liturgies, and worship) and inward belief (state of the soul): “not only are the two inseparable in their conception, but, more importantly, belief is the product of outward practices, rituals, and acts of worship rather than simply an expression of them.”38 Her anthropological work with the women’s pietism movement in Egypt supported this. She argues that the veil, for example, is not merely a public manifestation of belief, but a productive act that makes a certain sort of person. She concludes, Outward bodily gestures and acts (such as salāt or wearing the veil) are indispensable aspects of the pious self in two senses: first, in the sense that the self can acquire its particular form only through the performance of precise bodily enactments; and second in the sense that the prescribed bodily forms are necessary attributes of the self.39 It is therefore especially important when defining the meaning of the religious and the secular that not only ideas, but also practices are studied. Second, while it may be implied, it is not clear that included in the ideas that religious communities have about justice and authority are also the very meaning and constitution of the religious and the secular. It could be argued that any concept of legitimacy must imply consensus on the meaning of the terms that lead to it, but the problem remains because the meanings of the religious and the secular are not, in fact, only in the power of religious communities and actors. This is the long point that New Critics like Elizabeth Shakman Hurd make in The Politics of Secularism in International Relations. The demarcation of what qualifies as religious and what qualifies as secular is both a political and a theological statement. The limiting and definition of one has an implicit effect on the other. They are, in my own language, essentially contested. This makes for my most controversial claim: if rival versions of the religious and the secular imply one another, and these shape political legitimacy, then it is not only religious actors that have a political theology. If, for example, laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism are both manifestations of this modern settlement that regards the religious and the secular as the inverse of one another, then it must be accepted that any work to politically define the secular is also a work to theologically define the religious. This means that political theology is not just a set of ideas that religious actors or communities have about what constitutes religious authority, it must also include the practices and understandings that all

Revolutions in political theology 79 political actors or communities have about what constitutes the religious and the secular to begin with. Political theology cannot skip this first fundamental question, because it is only after those definitions are rendered that an intelligible (and consensus) picture of political legitimacy can be given. This is very important to even dominantly secularist accounts, like laïcité, which are concerned to keep the religious from overwriting politics. That special concern means laicists must attend carefully not only to secular politics, but also to the religious, where and how it is operating, and what sorts of activities are appropriate in a secular society. This has been the finding of Jonathan Fox, as we saw in the last chapter. That as societies get more religious, their governments get more involved in religion policy; there is a competitive framework. And such is the reason that so-called secularists in, for example the Charter of Quebec Values, spend so much time defining and describing what constitutes a religious symbol or practice, even with such startling specificity as the size of crosses that can be worn. Such an attempt to proactively define secular space implicitly defines the boundary, and therefore content, of religion.40 My argument doesn’t invalidate the claims of God’s Century, which are important. Religious communities certainly do reflect upon their traditions and practices, and translate those basic theological claims into political ideals and programs, and the study of that process is the work of political theology. But it is also true that what qualifies as a religious text, tradition, or foundational claim can change, that – as Schmitt argues – “all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.” The defense of those concepts, now understood as a secular project, were once part of a series of theological claims, about global order, about justice, about the rightness of war, law, and more. Laicists, to pick a controversial example, may be defending what they now call a secular order, but it would not always have appeared so. At one time, their defense would have been called a very specific political-theological order, with definite, contestable, understandings and practices. By installing these concepts as secular, secular claims on social and political life often go undisclosed and uncontested. This creates major problems, fore among them the religious problem with religious freedom. This tension is manifest in debates over the Offices of Religious Freedom in America and Canada, but it is also suggestive of a far more radical tension that in more diverse settings, in societies that are struggling to make, or not to make, this same political-theological consensus. Paul Kahn’s longer and more controversial argument is that the modern shift in the meaning of the secular and religious actually installed several extremely important religious ideas at the basis of the secular nation-state. He says, Political theology argues that secularization, as the displacement of the sacred from the world of experience, never won, even though the church may have lost. The politics of the modern nation-state indeed rejected the church but simultaneously offered a new site of sacred experience.41 In some ways this is a paraphrase of Scott Thomas’s argument that we are witnessing not a “clash of civilizations” in global politics, but a “clash of rival

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apostasies.”42 By this, he means that religious ideas have indeed been installed and secularized at the basis of the nation-state, and that the very meaning of the religious and the secular is part of that basic installation, and so what qualifies some once-religious ideas – he calls them apostasies – as now being secular. Khan writes, “It is an accident of history that the struggle of the state to free itself of the church was framed not as a conflict of faiths but as a conflict over the place of faith in the organization of political power.”43 Suggestive as this argument is, this book can’t make it, except to sustain that defining the religious and the secular, and its derivative social forms is indeed both a political and a theological act, an essentially contested work, which demands the disclosure of a fuller political theology. Political theology must be self-critical if it is to be global. It must render intelligible meanings of not only the religious, but also the secular, at home and abroad, if the rival versions of the religious and the secular that underlie the religious freedom wars are to be disclosed and debated, and finally advanced.

Political theology, a definition The question for political theology I’m interested in is this: can political theology clarify rival versions of the religious and the secular underlying religious freedom? The political theological approach of Schmitt, Kubálková, Toft, Philpott, and Shah does begin to answer this, but is incomplete in at least two important respects. First, there is an overemphasis on religious ideas, as opposed to practices, which often carry the ideas themselves. Second, something with which at least Schmitt would agree, it is not enough to talk about how religious ideas and practices constitute political legitimacy; we must also talk about how defining the religious and the secular to begin with constitutes an important source of political legitimacy. It is not only the content of the religious and the secular, but how and why those lines are drawn that is significant to political legitimacy. That is, we must recognize these terms are essentially contested, and the act of definition is always at least in some part normative. So my definition borrows, with critical appreciation, from the thinkers in this chapter. My definition of political theology is the understandings and practices that political actors have about the meaning of and relationship between the religious and the secular, and what constitutes legitimate political authority. This definition is explained in four parts. First, an argument has already been made for understandings and practices, rather than only ideas, especially as it relates to religion and its freedoms. In God’s Century, part of the burden of the authors is to demonstrate that religious convictions are not merely manifestations of other material forces, so they argue at some length for the autonomous nature of religious beliefs and ideas. They write, “To claim that political theology reflects the political activities that religious actors undertake is to claim that religious belief is powerful, autonomous, and not simply the by-product of nonreligious factors. Ideas shape politics.”44 This is important and true as far as it goes, because, as they argue, one of the chief complaints of religious actors engaging with mainstream international theory is the assumption

Revolutions in political theology 81 that religion is either irrelevant or a manifestation of ideologically self-interested materialism, as in Marxism and some variations of liberalism. Either way religion is rarely taken on its own terms, as though the ideas and beliefs intrinsic to it are of actual, cosmic importance. God’s Century wants to take those claims seriously, and so it emphasizes the autonomous ideational nature of religion. However, it need not be argued that the religious is a secondary or tertiary series of beliefs or communities in order to say that its practices are also fundamental to its beliefs. Politics also shape ideas, even religious ones. As shown in the work of Saba Mahmood, it can be the case that while understandings do enable certain practices, it is also true that certain practices carry the understandings themselves. In her Aristotelian logic, repeated habits can make certain understandings in persons. This too is Charles Taylor’s argument when he says that the modern social imaginary cannot be only summarized as a series of beliefs, but is actually embedded in important social forms. Taylor says that “such understanding is both factual and normative; that is, we have a sense of how things usually go, but this is interwoven with an idea of how they ought to go, of what missteps would invalidate the practice.”45 So it can be suggested that religion is its own factor, has its own meaning, independent of being derivative of material, or ideological forces, while at the same time saying that religion is as much a practice, a way of life, as it is a set of beliefs or doctrines. The question, then, becomes not whether religion should be considered as a serious factor in international politics, but what practices, and what understandings qualify as religious, why, and what effects these have on political legitimacy. Given Philpott’s own work on the meaning of the religious, and that this argument parallels in many respects this work,46 this amendment to the definition of political theology can probably be considered friendly. Second, a major modification in this definition to that offered by Toft, Philpott, and Shah is referring to political actors, not just religious actors. To say that, for example, political actors, not just religious ones, have certain political theological assumptions that merit, even require, study is a significant claim. It is also a logical consequence of defining religion as essentially contested. It is a claim that God’s Century does not necessarily agree with, but it is one that is necessary if political theology is to usefully explain the rival versions of the religious and the secular. For example, laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism are not ideas held by only religious actors. In both cases, religious actors promoting religious ideas in politics is specifically illegitimate. What is essential to recognize is that this is not only a political decision, it is also a theological one. The prohibition against religious actors promoting religious ideas with political consequences not only creates a specific kind of meaning for the secular, but also creates a special kind of religion. It changes persons and communities’ religious experience and powers. This is not the preamble for theocracy, indeed scholars may be satisfied enough, as many are, with the boundaries that exist between the religious and the secular, but by ordering these boundaries in this way, specific things are said about both the religious and the secular and what constitutes political legitimacy. The very assumption that a theocracy is totally illegitimate deserves explanation (and increasingly needs one), an explanation that cannot be given without appealing to

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meanings of the religious and the secular, and why those meanings are preferable. Not only theocracy, but even rival versions of the religious and the secular in modern democracy, laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism, are hard to adjudicate without deliberately engaging the understandings and practices that political actors, not just religious ones, have about their meanings. Therefore, for political theology to serve as an approach that is capable of disclosing rival versions of the religious and the secular, it must be self-critical, and it must also include the understandings and practices that non-religious actors carry about the meanings of the religious and the secular. Third, this definition differs by qualifying both concepts, not only the effects that one of them, religion, has on political legitimacy. This is an extension, not a disagreement with what Toft, Philpott, and Shah are arguing. It is true that religious actors have ideas that help constitute what is and is not politically legitimate, but it is also true that who qualifies as a religious actor, and what qualifies as a religious idea, have shifted over time. Schmitt, for his part, argues at great length that the modern state is made possible by a variety of once theological ideas. Early Christian Realists like Martin Wight, Herbert Butterfield, Reinhold Niebuhr, and others argued in a similar fashion, debating the nature of the state and of the person theologically, not just in secular terms. Charles Taylor’s summative social forms of the modern social imaginary, the objectified economy, the pre-political public, and an increasingly radical self-government, are all understandings and practices that depend on revolutions in not only secular thought, but also in theological thought.47 The meaning of the religious and the secular is therefore not incidental to, but fundamental for the concept of political legitimacy. Laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism both depend on drawing these boundaries as a significant safeguard of the modern polity. Finally, the legitimacy of political authority depends on the often narratively defined interrelationship of secular and religious authority. In rival versions of the religious and the secular we have not just rival concepts but rival stories. When we look at both the meanings of these terms and what constitutes legitimate political authority, what can be seen are polarizing, powerful stories. Two dominant examples include laïcité, which absolutely denies the religious as a useful political entity, and Judeo-Christian secularism which sees religious authority as serving as a critical buttress for political authority. Therein lies a rivalry which cannot be purely solved by academic debate. Laïcité argues that the religious is not rational, and so its claims cannot be adjudicated in the public realm. It is therefore often a destabilizing social element, causing violent confrontation on irreconcilable first principles, unless it can be sequestered to the private realm of individual preference. Any eruption of the religious into the secular public is therefore cause for concern because a rational public square cannot survive the imposition of metaphysical totality. When God speaks, the response cannot be conversation, but simply obedience.48 Judeo-Christian secularism likewise agrees that religion should be disestablished from within the public realm, and that religious arguments should not be permitted in the public square. But it disagrees that religion is a necessarily dangerous or

Revolutions in political theology 83 unstable social element. Judeo-Christian secularism argues just the reverse: that disestablishment and public pluralism emerged from within the Judeo-Christian imagination, and so this tradition in particular sustains the virtues and reasons for a respect for pluralism in the first place. To critics of God’s voice overriding politics, Judeo-Christian secularists point out that many modern concepts of human rights, limited government, the dignity of human persons, and so forth are inheritances of, if not Judeo-Christian scriptures, at least the tradition of reflection upon those religious texts. The social forms of liberal democracy, in other words, are made possible because of the Judeo-Christian tradition, not despite it. Religion so defined is still distinct from the secular, as a parent is from a child, but such secularism fosters great public respect for religious tradition and inheritance. This definition of political theology which appeals to both understandings and practices, of actors both religious and secular, the meanings of the religious and secular, and how these constitute legitimate political authority, is able to show not only rival versions of the religious and the secular underlying religious freedom, but also explain why and to what extent they disagree. Whether practical resolution – how to live amidst this deep diversity – can be found in this case is the subject of our next chapters.

Conclusion I’ve now laid out an approach to political theology which takes religion as an essentially contested term seriously. It alerts us to the rival versions of the religious and the secular, and the normative, often narrative claims, that each definition makes. This approach addresses what Schmitt, Kubálková, Toft, Philpott, and Shah call political theology, while also extending their analysis. It asks after not only ideas, but also practices and understandings, not only religious actors, but religious and secular actors, and not only how religious authority relates to political legitimacy, but also how the relationship between the secular and the religious relates to political legitimacy. Political theology is what we need if we accept religion as essentially contested. It does not dismiss its meaning, but rather forces debate to shift to sustaining and defending meanings and practices of the religious and the secular. It doesn’t relativize the meaning, it simply demands that it be stated plainly so it is available for explanation and understanding. Political theology makes this conversation possible. It does not promise cosmopolitan unity, but it does hold the promise of what MacIntyre calls constructive disagreement. Given this, can such rival accounts be brought to resolution? Resolution in the form of agreement is unlikely, but a third option does exist, one which depends on what Taylor calls a radical redefinition of the secular, and which breaks with the binary logic of defining the religious and the secular in oppositional terms. The position I want to set forth is a version of a wider “principled pluralist” position, a tradition at large in both the European philosophical and political tradition, but also in certain Christian political theories. Filling in its promise is the aim of our final chapters.

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Notes 1 Nicholas Wolterstorff, Reason within the Bounds of Religion, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984), 22. 2 Nicholas Guilhot, “American Katechon: When Political Theology Became International Relations Theory,” Constellations 17, no. 2 (2010), 234. 3 Daniel Philpott, Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). 4 Robert Joustra, “Revolutions in Political Theology,” in Whose Will Be Done? Essays on Sovereignty and Religion, ed. John Dyck, Paul Rowe and Jens Zimmermann (Lanham: Lexington, 2015), 189–208. 5 Guilhot, “American Katechon,” 224. 6 Ibid., 248. 7 Scott M. Thomas, “Faith, History and Martin Wight: The Role of Religion in the Historical Sociology of the English School of International Relations,” International Affairs 77, no. 4 (2001), 905–929. 8 Charles A. Jones, “Christian Realism and the Foundations of the English School,” International Relations 17, no. 3 (2003), 371–387. 9 Ibid., 372. 10 Graham Ward, “Forward,” in The Future of Political Theology, ed. Peter Losonczi, Mika Luoma-Aho and Aakash Singh (Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), xii. 11 See for example the introduction in the edited volume The Future of Political Theology. The success over the last decade of the journal Political Theology is also an indication of how many thinkers, both theological and political, find the concept useful. 12 William E. Scheuerman, “Carl Schmitt and Hans Morgenthau: Realism and Beyond,” in Realism Reconsidered: The Legacy of Hans J. Morgenthau in International Relations, ed. Michael C. Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 87 fn. 2. 13 Monica Duffy Toft, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy Samuel Shah, God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), 27. 14 Ibid. 15 Paul Kahn, Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 3. 16 Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. George Schwab. Foreword by Tracey B. Strong (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 36. 17 Kahn, Political Theology, 3. 18 For an anthology of some of these writers in translation, see Arthur Jacobson and Bernhard Schlink, Weimer: A Jurisprudence of Crisis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). 19 Carl Schmitt, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Political Theology II: The Myth of the Closure of Any Political Theology, trans. Michael Hoelzl. Foreword by Graham Ward (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), 9. 20 Ibid., 5. 21 Ibid., 6–7. 22 Tracey Strong, “Foreword” in Schmitt, Political Theology, xxiv. 23 Guilhot, “American Katechon,” 234. 24 Kahn, Political Theology, 8. 25 Vendulka Kubálková, “Toward an International Political Theology,” in Religion in International Relations: The Return from Exile, ed. Pavlos Hatzopoulos and Fabio Petito. Culture and Religion in International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 80. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid., 81. 28 Ibid., 84–86.

Revolutions in political theology 85 29 Ibid., 84. For more on this conversation see, for example, Scott Thomas, “Living Critically and ‘Living Faithfully’ in a Global Age: Justice, Emancipation, and the Political Theology of International Relations,” Millennium – Journal of International Studies 39, no. 2 (2010), 505. 30 Kubálková, “Toward an International Political Theology,” 87. 31 Ibid., 93–94. 32 Toft, Philpott, Shah, God’s Century, 21. 33 Ibid., 27. 34 Ibid. 35 Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004), 25. 36 Saba Mahmood, The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), xiii. 37 Ibid., xv. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., 133. 40 Robert Joustra, “Quebec’s Charter Plan Is Not about Symbols – It Threatens Religion Itself,” Globe and Mail, August 22, 2013. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/quebecs-charter-plan-is-not-about-symbols-it-threatens-religion-itself/ article13913908/#dashboard/follows/. 41 Kahn, Political Theology, 26. 42 Scott Thomas, “Response: Reading Religion Rightly – the ‘Clash of Rival Apostasies’ Amidst the Global Resurgence of Religion,” in God and Global Order, ed. Jonathan Chaplin and Robert Joustra (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010), 187–203. 43 Khan, Political Theology, 23. 44 Toft, Philpott, and Shah, God’s Century, 29. 45 Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries, 24. 46 See especially Daniel Philpott, “The Challenge of September 11 to Secularism in International Relations,” World Politics 55 (October 2002), 66–95. 47 See Daniel Philpott, Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). Philpott addresses how theological revolution, in the form of the Reformation, was essential to revolutions in secular ideas like sovereignty. 48 For a more nuanced debate on this problem see for example, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim That God Speaks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

6

The politics of principled pluralism

We think that secularism has to do with the relation of the state and religion; whereas in fact it has to do with the (correct) response of the democratic state to diversity. – Charles Taylor1 There is no issue or incident that is only about religious freedom. – Chris Seiple2

Political theology has given us a picture of what we disagree about. That’s progress. But while it offers some description of our often-undisclosed deep diversity, it doesn’t offer resolution on how to live well amidst that diversity. Political theology, in short, alerts us to the religious problem with religious freedom, or more generally how the religious/secular relationship shapes political legitimacy, but it doesn’t tell us how to meaningfully adjudicate those claims; how, in essence, to do politics. If anything, it makes the prospects of meaningful adjudication more, not less, problematic. This can be a very frustrating and paralyzing place to be, especially for foreign policy actors who are not in the business of finishing their work after a few seminars in deconstruction. The political work of religious freedom has yet, in fact, to be appreciably buttressed by this analysis if we leave the conversation where people like Hurd and others do, that religious freedom must be ‘reimagined as a site of resistance.’ This is the promise of principled pluralism, a middle way between the false choices of ontological exclusivism and cosmopolitan paralysis. Remember that when defining the religious and the secular we found it important to show at length that these meanings have been variable. But it was also important to have real definitions, and more importantly, to sustain that just because meanings can be variable, does not mean some meanings are not better than others. An essentially contested term has meaning, it simply requires that we sustain the definition3 as itself having normative content. It means that our politics necessarily stake some existential and moral truths, however thin or thick these may be. This chapter gives a political framework for religious freedom under the conditions of deep diversity, part of a tradition called principled pluralism. I do this first by showing how political theology invalidates the other two dominant versions

The politics of principled pluralism 87 in North America, laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism. Political theology is, in the words of Heinrich Meier, “the counter concept of secularization.”4 It does not automatically invalidate these approaches, it simply shows they are not neutral, and hardly secular in the non-religious sense of the term. But the implication, I will argue, is that these are not good approaches for deeply plural societies, as they risk making second-class citizens of religious (or minority religious) people, and obscuring or hiding the rationale as to why. Principled pluralism is a practical consequence of a political-theological approach. Second, my definition of principled pluralism itself is advanced. It is predicated on what Taylor calls a radical redefinition of the secular, not as the inverse of the religious, as in laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism, but as the (proper) response of the state to diversity. Principled pluralism advances an overlapping consensus of strong public principles, without monopolizing the public logic, religious or otherwise, by which actors articulate their support for those principles. It is principled because it deliberately discloses the principles that constitute a ‘secular’ consensus, “strong philosophical” convictions Taylor calls them. It is pluralist because although it has definite content, it is crucially agnostic as to how actors arrive at them. It encourages actors to use the range of rationale, religious, secular, and otherwise, to find and justify an overlapping consensus called principled pluralism. Principled pluralism is, in this definition, an action verb: it is a process, not just an outcome; it advances consensus, it is not a one-time result. But there are, third, real limits to that process. The state remains a steward, not merely a repository of public justice. In adjudicating that process what is important is that the state not privilege one kind of reasoning above another. The state should defend the conscience of its citizens regardless of what logic those citizens bring to the table. But limitations exist. I outline a couple key limits of principled pluralism and they are discussed in turn: the constitutive virtues of what I call procedural pluralism,5 history and tradition, which impose practical limits.

Does political theology prefer principled pluralism? The special concern of political theology is the way that political legitimacy is shaped by defining the religious and the secular. This clarifies distinction between rival versions, as I have put it, but it also implies certain moral ends. Fore among these is that disclosure is better than non-disclosure, because this specifically enables the widest array of communities to participate in the project of political legitimacy. What is privileged here is a kind of principle of democratic inclusion. Although using a different definition of both political theology and secularization, Heinrich Meier gets the basics right when he says that “political theology . . . is the counter-concept of secularization.”6 To do political theology is to foreground the assumption that there are multiple meanings of the religious and the secular that deserve explanation, and whose relationship and meaning shape political legitimacy. Political theology makes secularity as the normalized inverse of the religious at least contestable, and at most it discloses it as its own unique political-theological arrangement.

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Political theology essentially denies that by expunging the religious from the public such a public can be practically neutral. In fact, if the arguments of those like Carl Schmitt are to be believed, sometimes when the line between the secular and the religious shifts, previously religious ideas are installed as secular. To even, therefore, speak of political theology is to abandon certain transhistorical definitions of the secular and the religious as tenable. Both laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism fail the challenge of political theology. Religious freedom defined by laïcité is something like private conscience. Religion is a choice, a tolerance, among other existential options, but it has no public role, no rational adjudication, no political application. The boundaries between the religious and the secular are fixed between the private and the public, beyond scrutiny, intrinsic to the free practice of democracy. This changes the way we understand ourselves, what knowledge counts as valid and public, and what realities and histories are politically legitimate. And it does most of this with the installation of background assumptions that are only rarely, if ever, disclosed in public, or are simply thought of as common sense. In some ways, Judeo-Christian secularism is less problematic than laïcité because it names and owns the political and theological choices that animate its definition of the religious and the secular. Unlike laïcité, Judeo-Christian secularism makes no secret of and no claim to ultimately neutrality. Judeo-Christian secularists imagine one tradition, the Judeo-Christian one, as the generator and incubator of the social and political virtues that make political secularism and religious freedom possible; laïcité certainly does not. Despite this, like laïcité, it still believes in the oppositional definition of the religious. So, under the JudeoChristian perspective, all religions should be treated fairly and equally by the state (even if the Judeo-Christian tradition is somewhat more equal than the others), but the mythology (and possibility) of state neutrality persists. The Judeo-Christian religion functions in similar ways to what Janet Epp Buckingham described as the original French and English compact of Canada. These remain the official languages of Canada, although others are welcome to come and practice their own languages, provided the understanding that the tradition of the land and the formal services of the state are predicated on French and English. In some areas, as in Taylor’s native province of Quebec, the political imposition of language – and indeed of secularism – is somewhat more pronounced.7 But despite JudeoChristian secularism’s more forthcoming disclosure for political theology, two serious issues invalidate this as qualifying religious freedom going forward. First, by being deliberately predicated on the overlap of two specific religious traditions, Judeo-Christian secularism runs the risk, and often afoul, of the basic test of state neutrality and public pluralism. This is the complaint of secular pundits like Doug Saunders and Arvind Sharma. Even Elizabeth Shakman Hurd issued a caution, that the prevailing culture of Judeo-Christian secularism in Canada (as she saw it) ran the risk of repeating what, in her mind, was the hegemonic definition and practice of religious freedom in the United States. Ultimate inclusivity is not necessarily a demand of political theology. Political theology looks for the forthright declaration of the meanings and relationship

The politics of principled pluralism 89 between the secular and the religious. Judeo-Christian secularism seems to pass this test, on the one hand, because it alerts actors to the very deliberate relationship between the Judeo-Christian tradition and the democratic secularism it makes possible. The two are distinct, but one produces the other. One may disagree quite strongly with this argument, as Saunders and Sharma do, but the privilege of disagreement is granted in part because disclosure has been made. It is, however, equally important to show that Judeo-Christian secularism leaves undisclosed the prior essential component of political theology: the definition of the religious and the secular itself. Both Judeo-Christian secularism and laïcité share the assumption that the religious and the secular are, in fact, oppositional. Judeo-Christian secularism has more enthusiasm for the role of the religious in creating and sustaining a secular public square, but it still assumes a naturalized separation of the two. The secular may owe a debt to the Judeo-Christian tradition, but it remains that which is the inverse of the religious. Judeo-Christian secularism is left with the unenviable task of defining something called religion, which is distinct from something called the secular, and dividing the two in public, in a similarly modern fashion to laïcité. This transforms not only politics, but also religion, marking which sorts of beliefs are religious and which ones are not. It should be added that exclusivist Judeo-Christian secularism is incompatible with principled pluralism in a way in which inclusivist Judeo-Christian secularism is not. It is, for example, problematic to argue that secularity only emerges from the Judeo-Christian tradition, and so monopolize the rationale by which secularity can be arrived at, in a way in which it is not so problematic to argue that democratic secularism has been partly derivative of the Judeo-Christian tradition in countries like Canada and the United States. In fact, insofar as advocates of Judeo-Christian secularism in Canada, like Fr. Raymond de Souza, have often and publicly suggested other traditions, including non-religious ones, can and do form part of the underlying rationale for Canadian principles, inclusive Judeo-Christian secularism may well be a subsidiary, and compatible approach with principled pluralism. Political theology is essential because it offers a more complete picture of political legitimacy. The uncommon effort to do this, however, is evidence in part of why Charles Taylor argues the social forms of the secular age are under-theorized. In the case of laïcité, there is the issue that its account is presented as rational, historical, neutral progress. This presentation is directly opposed to the point of political theology, whose principle task is disclosing the religious and the secular and its relationship, precisely because alternative arrangements and meanings are available. Political theology names the undisclosed political and the theological understandings. It clarifies political and theological choices that have simply been accepted as a neutral inheritance. Political theology is also directly contrary to liberal theorists, including Quentin Skinner, who write that “too much talk of ontology is bad for a pluralistic society.”8 It is, in fact, too little talk of ontology, too little description of the nature of reality, of the political, the secular and the religious, which can yield a hegemonic political logic. Jacques Maritain said that “we all agree on these rights provided nobody asks us why,” but it is forgotten that he quickly added, “God forbid that should say

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it does not matter to know which of [us] is right!”9 Maritain’s injunction was not to ignore foundational claims on rights, but rather in the process of deliberately engaging those foundational claims, to find points of practical consensus, despite disagreements on the rationale by which this consensus is arrived at. A consensus can never be found or enriched in the absence of such deliberative contestation. Daniel Philpott makes a parallel argument in his book Just and Unjust Peace, in which he looks at the often-important role that religious traditions and actors play in reconciliation, and especially in places with weak, or failed, states. He argues that religious arguments should be considered as part of this process of finding an overlapping (secular) consensus. He says, There is nothing inherent in religious rationales that prevents them from being the subject of meaningful and constructive conversations about fundamental matters of justice. Leaders from diverse religious or secular perspectives can seek to find an overlapping consensus on truth commissions, trials, and reparations, just as they might seek to find common ground on global warming, reducing their country’s debt, or protecting the rights of women.10 His book is largely devoted to presenting evidence in countries after large-scale injustice of just this kind of consensus on commissions, trials, and reparations. In advancing these views, Philpott argues that it may be useful to express, as much as possible, arguments in secular language, but this is not the same as accepting secular rationale. “Secular language,” he says, “is not the same as secular philosophy or ideology. It is rather a mode of expression – and not necessary inimical to religion.”11 Important political claims can be advanced using secular language, that nonetheless are compatible with, and derivative of, theological rationale. Religious proponents need not be asked to accept the justifications of secular philosophy that are not their own.12 He calls this kind of dialogue rooted reason, which is not best described as translation, which implies a process of beginning with a set of ideas from one tradition and aiming to re-express them in another. Describing rooted reason better is mutual resonance, involving a reciprocal back-and-forth process of comparison and efforts at mutual understanding, something more like a five-way intersection than a one-way street.13 Philpott’s mutual resonance gets closer to what is described as principled pluralism, and helps explain why both laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism are invalid as a way forward for religious freedom. Although distinct, and often at odds with each other, laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism are both models of secularism which presume the logic of the religious as the inverse of the secular, and of the two as practically and conceptually distinguishable in specific ways for public and private practice. They assume this modern shift, and the constellation of political power – public and private, and religious and secular – that ensues. The political theological preference for principled pluralism should therefore start to become clearer. Not only does principled pluralism deliberately disestablish

The politics of principled pluralism 91 monopolistic political rationale, it also disestablishes what Taylor calls, citing Rousseau, a “civil religion.”14 It restores the dignity of rationale of all kinds, including the religious, as genuine participants, not second class citizens, in the overlapping work of secularism.

Principled pluralism and religious freedom The tradition of principled pluralism I want to set out is part of a wider tradition with sources as diverse as nineteenth-century British Nonconformist campaigns and political equality, Dutch neo-Calvinist movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the defining Declaration on Religious Freedom emerging from Vatican II.15 What these sources generally share, however, is a special concern for three particular kinds of pluralism, what I will call directional, structural, and cultural pluralism.16 What these sources also generally share is a domestic orientation. These types of pluralism can be broad at home; they are startlingly diverse abroad. Directional pluralism, pluralities of religions, worldviews, fundamental orientations, or as John Rawls calls them “comprehensive doctrines,”17 is a defining feature of societies with deep diversity. This basic kind of pluralism is endemic of societies deserving of that title; to be a pluralistic society is, by definition, to have a society which includes directional diversity, and which allows and includes public manifestations of that diversity, even in political life. There is no reason, argues Jonathan Chaplin, for the state to single out and discriminate against religion as against nonreligious viewpoints. In contrast to understandings of secularism that fixate on the religious as the central problem, Charles Taylor – for example – offers an understanding of secularism predicated on balancing or adjudicating the claims of different goods that democratic societies take to be fundamental (Taylor calls these limits of pluralism the “constitutive values of a liberal democracy”).18 Taylor calls the secular state what I would call a diversity state, a state which safeguards the hermeneutical space for directionally diverse citizens to do politics with “the full weight of their convictions.”19 Interestingly, Taylor articulates something like the principled pluralist tradition when talking about his radical redefinition of the secular. He argues that such a redefinition depends on “moral aims” and “operative modes.” The moral aims, he says, are things like the equality of citizens, freedom of religion and belief, and the like. The operative modes, on the other hand, are those often-indispensable institutional arrangements which secure the moral aims. So, the separation of church and state is an often-essential operative mode which itself secures the larger moral aim of equality of religion and non-religion. The problem, he says, is that sometimesoperative modes are confused with, or even become prioritized over the moral aims. But when, for example, the separation of church and state is interpreted to mean the erasure of the religious from the public sphere, as in the case of laïcité fermée, directional pluralism can be compromised in the interest of an absolutized institutional arrangement. The ends of directional pluralism can be subjected to the means of separation of church and state. This is clearly not the intent. Freedom of

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religion cannot mean freedom from religion, any more than the freedom to accept or reject Marxism cannot mean the freedom from Marxist argument and practice. What Taylor drives us toward is the recognition that directional pluralism is enabled by careful, supporting structural pluralism. That is, there are institutional arrangements and structures of political life that safeguard directional pluralism. The first and foremost of these is simply the diversity of structures: families, schools, volunteer associations, places of worship, and more. Structural pluralism is safeguarded primarily by a limited state, a state which does not exhaust the rationale accepted, or the culture generated, in public life. But, for the purposes of religious freedom, structural pluralism is a secondary pluralism, it is the servant of directional pluralism. Freedom of religion or belief is often made possible by what we call the separation of church and state, and when we defend the latter we do so out of a conviction that its collapse would mean the former would be under threat. But this also means that structural pluralism can have multiple and competing forms. What we mean by the “separation of church and state” is not a simple, legal-political formula. France has worked this out in a very different way from America. Canada technically has no disestablishment clause, and while it practices a kind of separation of church and state, it relies on a very different institutional and structural arrangement than either France or America, and so forth. Structural pluralism, in other words, may look different for a variety of reasons, and there may be good cause for imagining that one set of institutional arrangements will not “fit all.” Finally, this is because cultural pluralism means some kinds of structural arrangements or developments will be impractical or other kinds will be necessary. Context matters. The roots of people, places, and languages means that some structural arrangements will simply fail in some places, whereas in others they are thought indispensable. The export of “democracy” bears the sad imprint of having missed this crucial insight. Notice this is not the same as saying that the aims of a diversity state should be abandoned, or that freedom of religion or belief is untenable in some places, simply that structural solutions cannot be engineered ex nihilo or flatly imported. Writes Jonathan Chaplin, “Indeed, cultural plurality and structural plurality are inseparable: families and states, for example, inevitably bear the imprint of their cultural context.”20 What this also means is that the mere appearance of structural pluralism does not equal the achievement of directional pluralism. This has been the hard lesson in states like Afghanistan, where freedom of religion or belief were written into a Constitution, only to find out that when tested21 this did not include the freedom to convert from Islam. Or lessons from Pakistan, where freedom of religion or belief may be pursued vigorously by Ministers of the government, only to be violently rejected by a culture and a population. Culture determines not just what shape structural pluralism can take, but also how the moral aims – the principles – themselves should and can be articulated. This is also why thinking of principled pluralism as a process is important; it is an orientation and aspiration toward certain principles whose practical manifestation may still be decades or generations away. It is a long game. So, we see these concerns produce the kind of definition I have argued for: the advancement of an overlapping consensus of strong public principles, without

The politics of principled pluralism 93 monopolizing the public logic, religious or otherwise, by which actors articulate their support for those principles. It advances a consensus which means it is a process, and that it is both dynamic – subject to change – and that it is not the same always and everywhere. Principled pluralism will look different, and have different articulations in north Europe, in southeast Asia, in North America. The American and the Canadian case have the privilege of such “consensus” existing in core political documents, charters, constitutions, the like. They are strong public principles because they pose real limits on pluralism in society, backed by the coercive power of the state, although they are also not themselves the exclusive possession of one or another religion or non-religion. They are public because they are widely shared and their articulation and defense is the subject of the full weight of participant’s convictions. This approach to religious freedom actively invites deliberative religion, however it may be defined, into the public square. It encourages its public, institutional, and practical input in the political process. It makes religious actors and institutions more than second-class citizens in a secular society, bringing them, together with utilitarians, Kantians, libertarians, and more, into the same public. And finally, they are principles because they have real definite, moral content. Examples include our own subject, freedom of religion or belief, but also the equality of men and women, freedoms of association, and others. We are, perhaps, more aware than ever that these principles of public life are less widely shared across the world than we may have once thought. We may say these are universal principles – we believe them to be true everywhere and for everyone – but that does not mean they are neutral. But the devil, as they say, is in the details of the principles themselves. “Strong public principles” can sound ominously like the “muscular liberalism” that David Cameron once announced after declaring the uncertain fate of multiculturalism. There are indeed limits, which are implied by directional, structural, and cultural pluralism. If the full weight of our convictions can and should be brought into public, and that public is defined by structural and cultural diverse communities, we have already implied constraints. This is the topic to which we now turn.

The limits of principled pluralism Pluralism has become one of the central concerns of political theory, often because it both lies at the heart of our most pressing disagreements, and itself structures how those disagreements should be handled. What Rawls called “the fact of reasonable pluralism” was a tacit recognition that there are limits to rationality, limits to the ability of reasoned, propositional argument to access and decide on the questions of ultimate meaning and the nature of human development and progress.22 The dominant strategy for managing this directional pluralism has been to conceptualize the answers to these questions as spiritual or religious, and so to privatize them, leaving to public debate those matters that can be ‘rationally’ deliberated. This is the strategy of both laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism. The strategy of principled pluralism is, in fact, to call for more, not less, public articulation of the

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deep reasons for our strong public principles, both as the condition for that consensus, and as the process by which pluralism is continually refreshed. Yet the state can hardly be indifferent to certain strong public principles intrinsic to the equality of persons and the freedom of conscience: human dignity, basic human rights, and so forth. This is the first major limit on pluralism that needs to be discussed, the constitutive virtues23 of what I call procedural pluralism. In Canada and America these constitutive virtues have an unsurprisingly liberal and democratic parentage. Taylor says, “They provide these systems with their foundations and aims.”24 These virtues are not neutral, even if we’re happy calling them universal. Taylor writes, They allow individuals to be sovereign in their choices of conscience and to define their own life plan while respecting others’ right to do the same. That is why people with very diverse religious, metaphysical, and secular convictions can share and affirm these constructive values. They often arrive at them by very different paths, but they come together to defend them. The presence of what Rawls calls an “overlapping consensus about the basic public values is the condition for the existence of pluralist societies . . . All of them agree on the principle, even though they cannot reach an agreement about the reasons to warrant it. The challenge of contemporary societies is to ensure that everyone comes to see the basic principles of political association as legitimate, based on his or her own perspective.25 So, a political community will be qualified not on the secular equivalent of religious doctrine but, rather, on a “range of values and principles that can be the object of an overlapping consensus.”26 By relying on common public values, the moral equality of all citizens is ensured and, at least potentially, all citizens may embrace the state’s own broad orientations from within the basis of their own conceptions of the good. This is a kind of cosmopolitanism but it is not ultimately inclusive. As suggested earlier, the state’s neutrality is not complete because certain basic virtues are constitutive of this process. These virtues have their own histories, their own cosmic and sacred dimensions. Taylor writes, In its neutrality toward citizens’ systems of beliefs and values, the state defends their equality and their freedom to pursue their own aims. The state thus takes the side of equality and autonomy, allowing citizens to choose their life plan and mode of life. As a result, believers and atheists alike can live in accordance with their convictions, but they cannot impose their conceptions of the world on others.27 The diversity state is not, in other words, strictly neutral. It defends the virtues that make procedural pluralism possible, which enable a degree of directional, structural, and cultural diversity. This is the conclusion that Jonathan Chaplin comes to as well, where he writes there is “no directionally neutral criterion of

The politics of principled pluralism 95 what counts as impartiality . . . available in a society characterized by deep diversity.” It follows that, The state – at least some of the time, at least on fundamental issues of justice – cannot avoid bearing the impact of and so in effect favoring a particular spiritual direction, either in respect of democratic inputs or outputs or both.28 This leads to two complaints. First, doesn’t this default to the kind of exclusivism that was a major problem with laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism? And, the reverse complaint, doesn’t defaulting on a thicker civil rationale for supporting these principles make for a riskier politics, a thin consensus that exacerbates rather than mitigates a politics of fragmentation? In the first place, it is true that principled pluralism has a spiritual parentage, one that has roots in Christian social democracy, and one which privileges certain virtues that are consistent (although not exclusive) to its history. There is, in my opinion, no evading the moral stakes that political communities will need to make. Certain virtues of public life will be privileged, and principled pluralism is no different. Certain virtues are necessary to enable the procedures that make the process of principled pluralism possible. The diversity state’s constitutive virtues are therefore neither neutral nor ultimately rationally defensible, but by stating them as principles they are at least disclosed. It may be the case that one or another religious tradition has a more developed political-theological tradition which articulates the roots of these principles from within their conceptions of the good life, which is certainly what JudeoChristian secularists would argue. But it is not invalid, it is in fact quite important, that varying religious traditions work internally to develop a political-theological hermeneutic which connects the constitutive virtues of principled pluralism to their own conceptions of the good life. To the second complaint, that of a too thin consensus, absent public rationale for its deeper meanings being unable to sustain political legitimacy, there is a parallel to laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism. Both laïcité and exclusivist JudeoChristian secularism monopolize the rationale which actors bring to politics. To break from civil religious unanimity animating national unity is therefore neither easy nor obvious. Taylor writes, “The model that bases the unity of the political community on the adherence of citizens to common political principles, despite their differences about the underlying reasons for them, is radically different.”29 Not only does unity not lie in this thicker unanimity of meanings, but efforts to establish, or re-establish, such uniformity are dangerous. The nostalgia with which certain conservative factions in Europe, America, and to a more limited extent parts of Canada, invoke a return to a founding moral or civil religious unity as the prerequisite to national unity is only one example. “The premise that national unity required unanimity regarding collective aims,” says Taylor, “has continued to exert a certain hold on people’s minds.”30 More than a few political theologians themselves have lodged their displeasure with this sentiment. Oliver O’Donovan, for example, is especially pessimistic that

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individuals and civil society can be counted on to spontaneously generate sympathy for pluralist principles of equality and conscience. O’Donovan disagrees, that justice must include confessional silence, even in the face of error. Which means that justice can be practiced in community only when shorn of its fundamental reasons – reminiscent of Jacques Maritain and those “private” reasons for teaching the democratic charter! The core of my anti-pluralism is the conviction that justice itself cannot survive such a scalping. Impartiality is not the essence of justice. Justice is a train of corrective reasoning about all the goods of human existence, from God to land allotments, and it can be nothing else. Cut it loose from such reasoning, and you have only an abstract formalism, a house swept and garnished waiting for seven worse devils.31 O’Donovan’s assessment of principled pluralism is undoubtedly that the thin public principles that it safeguards are too stripped of rationale for citizens or communities to embrace them.32 Principled pluralism leaves as an open question how it is that people come to support the diversity state. It is a gamble, and maybe a dangerous one in O’Donovan’s judgment. Politics for O’Donovan must be unidirectional to enjoy not only stability but also a coherent account for human flourishing. It is no surprise to see O’Donovan describing the writing of his book, The Desire of the Nations, in the preface to the paperback edition in this way: “I set out to discover the kingship of Christ, and ended up, as I am told, with a defence of Christendom.”33 What to make of O’Donovan’s complaint, then, except to say that the diversity state and the principled pluralism that enables it is a different conception of politics? Principled pluralism undoubtedly arises out of the conditions of deep diversity, so there is a pragmatic response in its articulation, but it also unapologetically prioritizes a thicker conception of freedom of religion or belief than O’Donovan’s defence of Christendom. O’Donovan’s project is more coherent in many respects, and a good deal less risky. But for the state to monopolize the rationale of public life in the way that he suggests, to supply a unidirectional telos would violate the constitutive virtues of principled pluralism, namely all three kinds of pluralism it is meant to safeguard: directional, structural, and cultural pluralism. The coercive power of the state cannot, and per principled pluralism should not compel the consciences of individuals and communities to adopt one or another comprehensive worldview. Directional pluralism therefore has limits. That diversity is contained by the need to accommodate other voices, procedural pluralism, and by the virtues that make that procedural pluralism possible: equality of individuals, freedoms of association, individual and communal freedom of religion, and so forth. We recognize these “strong public principles” as fundamental by legislating them in things like constitutions and charters of rights. These are not necessarily beyond reproach, and certainly how we order or prioritize them is up for debate, but they do provide a framework for the work of pluralism. They are the principles that delimit how capacious directionality can be, and set the conditions for public argument. These principles are not the only limits on principled pluralism. A second, important limit on pluralism is history and tradition, and especially religious heritage. Does principled pluralism, for example, require the sacrifice of a society’s

The politics of principled pluralism 97 religious heritage? Certain religious symbols persist in public places, symbols that seem exclusivist while at the same time representing a legitimate link to a political culture’s past. The cross on Mount Royal in Montreal, for instance, does not necessarily make Montreal a Catholic city, nor does it compel non-Catholics to act against their conscience. It represents a time in Quebec’s history, a symbolic reminder of those who came before, not a public identification with one or another religious tradition. This symbolic history can be more complicated, of course, when it is not a cross on a hill, but a crucifix in a legislature, as with that installed by Maurice Duplessis in Quebec in 1936. These will also be cases where even the diversity state will not demonstrate perfect neutrality. A notable example is the common calendar allowing citizens and institutions to coordinate and plan. Almost all widely used calendars have a religious origin. This explains why in many provinces businesses were closed on Sundays, and why most of the legal holidays in Canada and America coincide with Christian religious celebrations. It is hardly possible to create a purged calendar, even if it is possible to undo the old Lord’s Day Act which specifically prohibited businesses from being open on Sundays. Businesses are closed on Christmas and Easter, but not on Jewish or Muslim holidays, or for the Chinese New Year’s. This is impractical to overturn. Taylor argues, “The norms of a society are not determined solely as a function of abstract principles of justice: they are also determined by context (demography, history, and so on).”34 It is hardly possible to have fifty legal holidays in a calendar. The structural aspects of that pluralism will depend on cultural context, tradition, and history. This is where “reasonable accommodation” as a necessary virtue of principled pluralism becomes clear. It is simply not possible to purge the religious and spiritual heritage of a nation, nor is that desirable. Recognizing practical limits, justice in such contexts may mean – for example – a historic calendar of certain religious holidays, with exemptions or laws protecting other religious holidays and practices. This is not perfectly equal; in fact, it prejudices the historic spiritual tradition of a society in favor of what likely remains a majority. Hence, recognition and accommodation may be necessary. In this section I have discussed some of the limits on principled pluralism: the strong public principles themselves (which are not strictly “neutral”) which enable procedural pluralism, virtues such as equality of individuals, freedoms of association, individual and communal freedom of religion, and so forth; and the practical limitations of pluralism around issues of history and tradition, suggesting the virtuous public practice of reasonable accommodation. It enables a wide space in public life, what I have called a diversity state, but it does rule out those diverse others who are unable or unwilling to accept the conditions which make it possible.

Conclusion We are more aware of the limits of pluralism today than we have been in the past, when societies were more homogenous, or at least less self-aware of how they stood compared to other global communities with respect to directional, structural, and cultural pluralism. That awareness can produce anxiety and insecurity, but it can also produce a flourishing dialogue about why we hold those principles.

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Cosmopolitanism and globalization do not need to be, in short, a bad news story. Yes, there is a profound “challenge of September 11 to secularism” as Daniel Philpot says,35 but the winds of challenge bring collapse only when the underlying rationale is either badly absent or clearly wrong. Neither of these things is obviously the answer in the American and Canadian case, although there is unquestionably work to be done strengthening the rationale of North America’s many diverse communities for supporting these strong public principles. That, of course, is work that states are not well suited to, for the liberal democratic state cannot legislate the virtues or the rationales on which it depends to persist and flourish. We must also keep front of mind that as radically polarized as the conditions and conversations on religious freedom may seem at home, the polarization is a great deal more marked abroad. There is a great deal that can be said out of the strength and persistent public principles that have succeeded in galvanizing American and Canadian society, even while they are under concerted democratic contestation. It is not, as some pundits have suggested, that America’s and Canada’s foreign affairs must prove mute until resolution on all matters of rights and freedoms are resolved domestically. Not only is this entirely impractical, but it fails to recognize that principled pluralism is a process that does not expect final resolution. The directional, structural, and cultural pluralism of North American society may be an aspirational rather than fulfilled goal. It should not preclude robust engagement on the international scene by either government’s foreign policies or civil and non-governmental communities. Neither should it preclude advocacy and consensus building on other rights. A book about religious freedom might be badly read to suggest that religious freedom is the most important, or perhaps only important, policy priority of a government or national community. The foregoing argument would certainly suggest that no foreign policy in this century which, at least, takes its countries’ interests seriously can afford to avoid religious communities or their political theologies which assure their hermeneutic flexibility and steward the possibility of political solidarity. But on this point, it is very important to be clear: religious freedom is a fundamental, but never isolated right in the work of any government or community pursuing human rights abroad. As Chris Seiple from the Institute for Global Engagement argues, “There is no issue or incident that is only about religious freedom.”36 The framework which I’ve so far laboured to produce should suggest this. The principled pluralist model is sustained by a whole range of virtues, not just freedom of religion or belief. Insofar as freedom of religion or belief safeguards the bedrock freedom of articulating and advancing rival, even contentious, rationale – religious or otherwise – in support of strong public principles it is a freedom of the first order, but a first among equals. Religious freedom must be simultaneously realized alongside the other rights of human persons; it enables those other rights, it doesn’t replace them. This means that religious freedom cannot be advanced independent of the other fundamental human rights associated with the Universal Declaration. This case has been made empirically and legally in other places, by those such as Nazila Ghanea and sitting UN Special Rapporteur for Religious Freedom Heiner Bielefeldt.37 I have made the case philosophically, building an approach to religious freedom one

The politics of principled pluralism 99 block at a time which ultimately needs – indeed demands – the sustenance of thick rationale to sustain, even if that rationale proves divisive in the rest of the society. This is what I have called principled pluralism.

Notes 1 Charles Taylor, “Why We Need a Radical Redefinition of the Secular,” in The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere, ed. Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 36. 2 Chris Seiple, “Building Religious Freedom: A Theory of Change,” Review of Faith & International Affairs 10, no. 3 (2012), 97. 3 See Stephen K. White, Sustaining Affirmation: The Strengths of Weak Ontology in Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). 4 As quoted in Nicolas Guilhot, “American Katechon: When Political Theology Became International Relations Theory,” Constellations 17, no. 2 (2010), 233–234. 5 Charles Taylor names a similar set of limitations, what he calls the constitutive virtues of liberal democracy. Rowan Williams also argues for something similar, referring to “procedural secularism” which secures an open ground for the articulation of directional diversity with the state as mediator. He describes the outcome of this as an “argumentative democracy” marked by an “interactive pluralism.” See Rowan Williams, Faith in the Public Square (London: Bloomsbury, 2012). 6 As quoted in Nicolas Guilhot, “American Katechon: When Political Theology Became International Relations Theory,” Constellations 17, no. 2 (2010), 233–234. 7 See especially Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), Chapter 6: “LiberalPluralist Secularism: The Case of Quebec,” 53–61. 8 As quoted in White, Sustaining Affirmation, 43. Skinner also warns that Taylor has placed himself on a slippery, theistic-Hegelian slope, at the end of which lies intolerance and coercion. I do not share Skinner’s concerns, for reasons that should be made clear by this chapter. 9 Jacques Maritain (ed.), Human Rights: Comments and Interpretations. A symposium ed. UNESCO (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949), 9–17. 10 Daniel Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 112. 11 Ibid., 113. 12 Ibid., 115. 13 Ibid., 21. 14 Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, xx. 15 See the argument and footnotes of Jonathan Chaplin, “Liberté, Laïcité, Pluralité: Towards a Theology of Principled Pluralism,” International Journal of Public Theology 10 (2016), 364. 16 For a more complete discussion, see Richard J. Mouw and Sander Griffoen, Pluralism and Horizons (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993) and James W. Skillen, Recharging the American Experiment: Principled Pluralism and Genuine Civic Community (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994). Like Jonathan Chaplin, who follows Skillen, I find Mouw and Griffoen’s use “associational” less helpful than “structural pluralism.” See Jonathan Chaplin, “Rejecting Neutrality, Respecting Diversity: From ‘Liberal Pluralism’ to ‘Christian Pluralism’,” Christian Scholars Review 35, no. 2 (Winter 2006), 146–148. 17 John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 58. 18 Taylor uses the language of values, whereas I prefer the language of virtues, the reasons for which are laid out in the next chapter in greater length. I include the language of values here only when it is a direct citation of Taylor, and therefore would be incorrect to use my own preferred language.

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19 Jonathan Chaplin, “The Full Weight of Our Convictions: The Point of Kuyperian Pluralism,” Comment Magazine, November 1, 2013. www.cardus.ca/comment/article/4069/ the-point-of-kuyperian-pluralism/. Accessed November 1, 2016. 20 Chaplin, “Rejecting Neutrality, Respecting Diversity,” 147. 21 See for example the case of Abdul Rahman in Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, Silenced: How Apostasy & Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 101–116. 22 This is also the effective argument of Alasdair MacIntyre’s important book Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), who thinks that Rawls’ tacit recognition is not quite tangible enough, with which I agree. 23 I use the language of virtue deliberately as “practices” or “habits” that must be cultivated to enable the kind of strong public principles this chapter has in mind. 24 Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, 11. 25 Ibid., 11–12. 26 Ibid., 15. 27 Ibid., 17. 28 Chaplin, “Rejecting Neutrality, Respecting Diversity,” 173–174. 29 Ibid., 17–18. 30 Ibid., 18. 31 Oliver O’Donovan, “Response to Jonathan Chaplin,” in A Royal Priesthood? The Use of the Bible Ethically and Politically: A Dialogue with Oliver O’Donovan, ed. Craig Bartholomew et. al., Scripture and Hermeneutics Series, Vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 313. 32 See O’Donovan’s dialogue with Chaplin, A Royal Priesthood? The Use of the Bible Ethically and Politically. 33 Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), ix. 34 Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, 68. 35 Daniel Philpott, “The Challenge of September 11 to Secularism in International Relations,” World Politics 55 (October 2002), 66–95. 36 Chris Seiple, “Building Religious Freedom: A Theory of Change,” Review of Faith & International Affairs 10, no. 3 (2012), 97. 37 For an example of this in their interaction with the Canadian Office, see “Discussing Freedom of Religion or Belief” at The Canadian International Council’s online hub for world affairs, OpenCanada.org. http://opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/video/ discussing-freedom-of-religion-or-belief/. Accessed November 23, 2013.

7

The practices of principled pluralism Making foreign policy in a religious world

Do not forget that the social need is a world problem. The social question has an international character, and therefore can never really be settled within the narrow confines of our small nation.1 – Abraham Kuyper

There is a cottage industry in political philosophy about whether values or virtues should be used when clarifying principles or practices fundamental to a society. I have used the term virtues deliberately, in part because it implies an Aristotelian subtext. Virtues are good moral habits.2 They happen through practice. They take exercise. They are not simply abstract or competing ‘perspectives’ on the world, they are embedded and embodied, not simply balls of interchangeable ideas that are volleyed to-and-fro. Values seem replaceable like parts of a car; changing virtues means upending your habits, your way of life, your very self. Values is a matter of preference. Virtue is a matter of life and death. So, when we talk about the virtues of principled pluralism we mean tangible practices that enable its strong public principles. We mean more than what a society should ‘hold in its hearts.’ We mean that what a society holds in its hearts is determined, more or less, by what it does with its hands. We take pages out of Aristotle’s Ethics, Augustine’s City of God and Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae to say that what unites a people may be common loves (“strong public principles”), and that love is itself that ordering virtue of those loves, and that it takes practice.3 In this chapter I want to offer practical steps from principled pluralism in the abstract to principled pluralism in practice. I want to talk about the public habits that make the process of principle pluralism possible, and its strong public principles realizable. It is through such practices that the diversity state becomes possible. The surest way to undermine that state is to hope that paper laws will somehow rescue a culture out of the habit of pluralism. Those laws will not long survive the collapse of practiced pluralism. But, on the reverse, such practices may enable the kind of policy, and foreign policy, that has been our aim. The argument of this chapter rests, first, on outlining six “practices” of principled pluralism,4 the sorts of specific disciplines that I summarize in the second part as a new approach called Track 1.5 Diplomacy. Rooted in the framework of principled

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pluralism, Track 1.5 Diplomacy works “top down” and “bottom up” with a priority on freedom of religion or belief; a freedom that is “first among equals,” to put it in a very Canadian way, as primary catalyst for the process of principled pluralism in settings of deep diversity. Finally, I outline how this approach would adapt to current practices of freedom of religion or belief in one of our cases, the middlepower experiment with the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom.

The practices of principled pluralism: six habits for “virtuous states” This section lays out six broad practices which I believe are necessary to enable principled pluralism. Several of these imply attitudes and practices on the part of the state, but the state does not exhaust the practices that make principled pluralism possible. In fact, the list moves from practices that are the special obligation of the state to practices that would be much more widely shared, by institutions like media and schools, but also other associations, groups, and finally individuals themselves. Pluralism is a team sport, and to play it well we need to practice together. First and foremost is the practice of political humility on the part of the state. Humility is a kind of virtue in the medieval canon, but the special kind of humility that the state needs to adopt here could also be akin to something like restraint, or temperance. The power of the state, whether diversity or otherwise, remains significant, and its challenges in the setting of deep diversity are equally so. The temptation in times of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty for the state to step in and provide a thicker civil religious account, to install a more obvious, less inclusive political theology, will always be present. The resolution to diversity by legislating it away by controlling the kinds of speech, the mode of argument, or the practices of communities is one that constantly tempts those at the center of power. It is a resolution, as Taylor writes, that “has continued to exert a certain hold on people’s minds.”5 The first word to political communities interested in the goods of principled pluralism then is restraint. It is not powerlessness, but the practiced silence of the chair of a meeting, who should not dominate or overrule the deliberation, but whose careful facilitation elicits the fullest range of opinions, arguments, and ideas from the room. It stewards the space for the deliberation, and so is hardly powerless (as any chair will know), but it does not itself exhaust the debate. Even when it has very strong opinions, opinions and ideas “it knows” are better, more rational, more enlightened, than what the others around the table have brought, it cultivates a stewardship of silence. This is for several reasons. The state is not, for example, competent and is not recognized as competent to make ontological or confessional claims about the world. The diversity state is tasked with justice, which requires certain overlapping conceptions of the good, but it does not – and cannot – require total confessional obedience to one or another creed. For the state itself to charge into such conversations would make it a powerful and unequal partner, one that could quickly violate the conditions of diversity which are its goal.

The practices of principled pluralism 103 This already suggests a certain kind of practice, namely restraint in the work of dialogical political theology, but there are other practices that could also be nested within the virtue of temperance, which will emerge in this list. However, the first – and foremost – of these must be a kind of restraint on the part of the community whose right is the monopoly on coercive force. The state is not like any other actor, it is responsible for balancing our “strong public principles” and ordering them rightly. It is the repository of our broadest and most common loves, and at least in that sense it has a clearly sacred duty. The second, and perhaps counterbalancing, virtue is also a practice of the state: what I call vigorous proselytization of its strong public principles. While the first practice stewards space for pluralism from “the bottom up,” this second practice, or set of practices, concerns the crucial role of the state in enabling procedural pluralism. The state may be practicing temperance and restraint in the face of confessional and ontological argument, but it is anything but restrained in the overlapping goods that are the fruit of principled pluralism. It is, in fact, their most vigorous and passionate public defender. Jonathan Chaplin lists as his fifth practice of principled pluralism the “clear specification and consistent enforcement of the minimum obligations of citizenship.”6 This is part of what I mean. It is, obviously, critical – as Chaplin argues – that the state practice regular, clarifying, disclosure of the minimum obligations of its citizens. Writes Chaplin, in order to pre-empt needless clashes with citizens’ particular beliefs and identities, the minimum expectations of ‘good citizenship’ would be drawn tightly and would consist, for example, of basic obligations such as law-abidingness, payment of taxes, willingness to learn a host language as a condition of permanent residence, commitment to fundamental political virtues such as peaceable coexistence with ideological opponents, readiness to accept the outcomes of democratic decisions, civility of tone in political debate, and so forth.7 He argues further that political leaders should resist the ambiguous language of ‘national values’ (as in the “Charter of Quebec Values”) or a ‘national narrative’ partly because these either restate virtues implied by procedural pluralism, basic rights of a state’s constitution, or that these reach beyond those things and begin to require a kind of cultural and ontological conformity that violates political humility and restraint. But I think we need to go one step further than the state’s specification and enforcement of the obligations of citizenship. I believe we must argue that the state does have a moral duty for the basic formation of its citizens, affectively, toward the goods of its strong public principles. It is not enough for political leaders to publish clear documents on what those principles are – arguably this is already done in Charters of Rights and Constitutions – political leadership must celebrate and enable both models and habits of these public principles. This can include the simple work of requiring education, and forming students and young people in their desires to want the goods of the diversity state. It can include instituting

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formative practices like public holidays which celebrate and model specific goods the state feels are endemic to its strong public principles. Provinces in Canada, in some respects in search of a February public holiday, have nonetheless begun to settle on a “Family Day” in that dark month. The state cannot compel fathers and mothers to love their children, but it can create spaces for connection, openings in the day-to-day which flag particular institutions, communities, habits, or memories as substantive to what is of essence to the state. Make no mistake that this is a kind of vigorous proselytization, even though it doesn’t sound like a knock on the door to ponder our eternal futures. These are public habits that model and practice certain kinds of dispositions that make for good citizens. It is more than a publication of what we commonly find important, but it is also less than civil religious evangelism. The question for political leadership is that if the goal is to help form citizens affectively toward the common goods of our public life, what models (exemplars) and what habits (practices) would make these most widespread. This is hardly agnostic indifference on the part of political leaders. It is a very vigorous project of normative entrepreneurship. It is also, of course, work for which political leaders and the state are only partly suited. Things like education, public holidays, or on the failing end coercive enforcement, are important but they are hardly the panacea. They are, perhaps, barely the tip of the iceberg. The heavy lifting of proselytization is more effectively done with deeper rationale. If we want to form desires, to orient citizens affectively, we need to get deeper into our loves than the short list of desires we hold in common. We need to get religious. Therefore, third, perhaps the most important practice of principled pluralism is what Jonathan Chaplin calls the “active facilitation of representational openness”8 or what I have called dialogical political theology. We have discussed in the latter chapters how principled pluralism is prejudiced toward a kind of democratic inclusion, a moral aim on the one hand, and a pragmatic necessity of the diversity state on the other. Dialogical political theology is the set of habits and practices of diverse communities and traditions within a political community teaching, expressing, and debating their own “thick” rationale for the diversity state’s strong public principles. Freedom of religion or belief is clearly a right or good of the first order if the goal is a kind of diversity state. Religious freedom is the thing that enables dialogical political theology. Without the hermeneutical space provided to diverse communities, religious and otherwise, to debate, contest, even challenge how their ultimate commitments and practices relate to the common life and goods of a society, there can be no diversity state. There can be only a kind of hegemonic installation of one or another kind of political theology, a kind of exclusivism reminiscent of both Judeo-Christians secularism and laïcité. Writes Chaplin, A commitment to freedom of religion for all naturally implies support for extensive freedom of expression for all serious faith-based political convictions, including those that some might find uncomfortable, jarring, or eccentric.9 This practice is essential to principled pluralism because without it the strong public principles are either not a consensus at all (in other words, not public) or they

The practices of principled pluralism 105 are a consensus frozen in time (historic consensus that no longer seems relevant), for which there is no possibility of rootedness, reform, or refreshment on the part of the current generation. Both possibilities are real, and we can undoubtedly conjure up countries whose problems are reminiscent of them. But principled pluralism is a process designed specifically to prevent either tyranny, on the one hand, or stagnation and fragmentation on the other. The problem for the diversity state, or rather the challenge which temperance demands, is while it can do its very best to facilitate the kind of representational openness which Chaplin has in mind, it can hardly legislate or coerce it. What that means is that while this practice is certainly about the state securing the hermeneutical space for the free exercise of religious and non-religious convictions as they relate to common goods, it is probably more fundamentally about the vitality of those communities having any kind of interest in that space. In other words, dialogical political theology is not something the state actually does, it’s something that the state has a vested interest in, even a life and death stake on the outcome, but it cannot itself supply the creative political theology necessary to sustain its strong public principles. This has been a fine line in religious freedom advocacy abroad, especially when it comes to conceptions of Islamic pluralism and Islamic democracy, a problem to which we return in this chapter. What role, if any, can especially foreign states play in helping other communities facilitate such representational openness? Does the state necessarily get caught in the good/bad religion industry, as Elizabeth Shakman Hurd puts it, by choosing which (often labelled “moderate”) political theologies it likes, and using its coercive arm and development budgets to incentivize them? Would this violate the virtue of temperance and political humility? These are real problems which Hurd, and others, alert us to which the practice of dialogical political theology faces. It is enough to say, for now, that the state should adopt procedures and policies which secure the broadest possible set of articulations of the common good. It is a recognition that the common good emerges not as a singular reality but is “composed of multiple common goods”10 and that the state’s obligation is to enhance to the best degree it can representational openness. Here we see that the habits and practices of principled pluralism pivot, inevitably, from the state to the character of the communities which make it up. Fourth, then, communities themselves need habits and practices that cultivate what I call empathy, what others like Daniel Philpott call a search for mutual resonance.11 John Rawls has called this “translation,” a way for diverse communities to express their basic convictions in “public language.” There is good reason not to use this term, partly because, as Philpott says, this implies having to scalp the rationale of one’s communities and install another, acceptably public, kind. Rather, we should think of it as a reciprocal back and forth process aimed at mutual understanding, what Philpott says is more like a five-way intersection than a one-way street. Why call this fourth practice empathy? I call it empathy because it is about not merely accepting faith-based reasoning in public, it is about how that faithbased reasoning works to connect itself to broader conceptions of the common

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good. While competing religious and non-religious worldviews may articulate their own rival rationale for strong public principles, in order to ever come into an argumentative public space, they will need to work diligently to understand the other religious and non-religious worldviews. While the state secures the room for dialogical political theology, it cannot endorse one or another of those thicker rationales without defaulting on its diversity status. This has the pragmatic consequences of likely requiring successful public debate to minimize the invocation of religiously exclusive language. In other words, if agnostics, atheists, Christians, Muslims, and so forth, are committed to a set of common goods, then they need to learn to communicate their convictions and rationales in a way that may convince others that their prioritizations or arguments are the best. Exegetical arguments from the Christian Scriptures may, for example, be essential in the dialogical political theology internal to a Christian community, but it will necessarily be less successful – even somewhat inappropriate – to thunder its verses in public forums and expect the devout Muslim, the convicted atheist, or the liberal Kantian to be convicted and convinced. In fact, this would be bad neighbourliness and bad empathy. It is a failure to imagine how to be part of a diverse political community together, and it drives those communities further apart, rather than working to find the common ground which enables the diversity state. Empathy is a virtue precisely because it requires the habitual practice of this kind of imagination. Religious and non-religious communities which fail this basic test of virtue are not well suited to the diversity state, which does not rule them out of bounds, but it does make them more likely to be polarized between domination (the installation of their own civil religion) and isolation (marginalization because of an incapacity to work within the conditions of deep diversity) within a political system. Neither proclivity is one that makes for a resilient diversity state. Thus, empathy is crucial. It is not the scalping of deep rationale, as Oliver O’Donovan fears it, it is imagining how to express those deep rationales in ways that are more widely, or publicly, accessible. It is the essence of neighbourliness in a society characterized by deep diversity. Writes Jonathan Chaplin, For the most part, religious believers will not, after all, normally need to make the religious foundations of their public reasoning explicit. This is because it is perfectly possible, and in practice necessary, to enter (and then voice the implications of) a chain of public reasoning ‘downstream’ of one’s deepest convictions. A specific proposal on banking reform, for instance, will not normally require advocates to make explicit that they are most deeply motivated by, say, a libertarian philosophy of freedom, an Islamic conception of usury or a Catholic personalist understanding of the ‘priority of labour over capital.’ I doubt that even the Archbishop of Canterbury when sitting as a member of the UK’s Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, was called upon all that often to speak in openly theological voice.12 What is required in order to hold that chain of public reasoning with integrity is both the deep, cultivated rationale of one’s own tradition, and feeling comfortable

The practices of principled pluralism 107 enough in one’s own skin to imagine and practice inhabiting another’s skin to articulate those convictions in a way that our neighbours can hear them. That is about more than language, it is about virtues like empathy and neighbourliness. This virtue is obviously in short supply, and one does not need to travel abroad to know it. Its source is a constant source of anxiety in political writing today. Where does this empathy come from? Can the state prioritize it in education, through things like worldview or religious instruction? Can the state model it in its exemplars, creating icons of diversity to which its citizens can aspire, or which can implicitly teach them that diverse others can also articulate the same public principles they hold dear? The near collapse of public rituals and public liturgies is part of the challenge that thinkers like Yuval Levin and James K. A. Smith13 have taken up in the tradition of Alexis de Tocqueville. Matthew Kaemingk, for example, following John Calvin says that religious communities, churches in particular, have a special burden for cultivating this kind of empathetic disposition among worshippers. Worship, he argues, quoting John Calvin, is a gymnasium; but the question is begged: a gymnasium for what? Are religious communities, churches in particular, good at cultivating the kind of empathy that makes them citizens of the diversity state, or are they building communities with prejudice toward outgroups?14 Further, what teaching and practices actually make for empathy? Is, for example, the “drive by pluralism” which state or church education often practices helpful for building genuine empathy, or does it simply exacerbate boundaries that already exist between in and out groups? Social psychology is beginning to come to some worrying conclusions about practices that simply ‘expose’ people to diverse perspectives or different others without establishing longer-term relationships. And this is about more than simply religion versus other religions or non-religion. This is about class, socio-economic divides, and the kind of fracture evidenced in Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, an academic prophecy of a 2016 US election which shows empathy is about more than religion. The drive-by pluralism of so much education and entertainment may not be enough; it may even be part of the problem in cultivating genuine empathy. Maybe, in fact, we need the practices of common problems to build empathy. Maybe sewage and parking are the stuff of pluralism, rather than dialogues and reading groups. But regardless of its source, principled pluralism cannot survive without its careful practice. Fifth is the practice of receptivity and cooperation on the part of the statereligion relationships. Chaplin, in his second practice, calls this “nurturing a culture of receptivity to faith-based reasoning,” making faith-based public reasoning “accepted as legitimate in deliberative and representative fora, and neither frowned upon as a discursive intrusion or merely tolerated as a regrettable price to pay for political peace.”15 Such reasoning can be deployed on a range of issues, not only on so-called religious-ethical issues of life, but in ways that may surprise some on issues of climate, poverty, incarceration, and labor. Receptivity to these arguments is not the same as adopting their rationale, but rather it is carefully listening and attending to their arguments as legitimate ways of approaching the issue in question, and working diligently to find common ground.

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Jonathan Fox, in his latest survey of state-religion relationships in Political Secularism, Religion, and the State,16 argues that there is a competition heating up across the globe between states and political religions. This cycle of competition is increasing as religions become more political and states become more activist to balance and restrain them, and religion responds, and so forth. It is a simple model, although highly relevant for the data that Fox captures, but it points to a major issue that Toft, Philpott, and Shah also flag in God’s Century: namely, that the more states get involved in religion, especially the more they repress and regulate it, the more blowback they’re likely to get from the religious communities themselves. “Keeping religion out” is therefore no longer, if it ever was, a winning strategy for countries trying to cope with deep diversity within their borders. Chaplin’s third practice is aligned specifically with this problem, that principled pluralism would support “cooperationist models of state-religion relationships” especially those in public areas such as “education, health care, and social services” that “make room for a diversity of faith-based providers.”17 This kind of cooperation is exactly the kind of practice of principled pluralism that itself may generate empathy. As diverse communities join, for their own reasons, in public projects like education and health they may develop longer term affinities for not only the strong public principles of which they partake but also the many different communities, and many ways, that this may be done. This may be implied in some religious traditions, where the public dimension of their faith compels them to be active in education, health care, and social service. But it is also a way that the state can engage diverse communities in the common problems that the whole society shares, a way to operationalize not only other economic assets, but also other moral and spiritual assets. In this kind of environment, we see that not only religious freedom for individuals is essential but institutional religious freedom, the freedom of communities and organizations to be collectively defined by and manifest their ultimate aims and concerns.18 Cooperation which depends on diverse communities sacrificing their identity, or on the state simply acceding whatever the beliefs of a community happen to be, is not balanced. The state does have concerns, in the form of its strong public principles, which it must balance against the diversity of its communities, but so also the communities themselves should be free to the greatest extent possible to manifest their ultimate aims in the practices and the language that suits them. This leads to a final practice. The final and sixth practice is one we’ve already touched on in previous chapters, and that is what has become known in Canada and parts of Europe as reasonable accommodation. Any account of pluralism which includes practices like cooperation and receptivity needs to recognize that there will be limits to cooperation, and that occasionally exceptions or exemptions will be necessary for individuals and communities in balancing strong public principles. These are called accommodations specifically because they are not general rules. Their widespread adoption could lead to a systemic misbalance, but that there is compelling reason in some cases for certain allowances. These exemptions may be simple, as in Canadian or American society where public holidays are determined by the Christian calendar. Muslims, Jews, Baha’is, and others should be granted the rights of religious

The practices of principled pluralism 109 observance which are not available to the broader society. But these exemptions may also be a good deal more complex, as in the case of faith-based organizations who reserve the right to discriminate based on religious conviction as fundamental to their identity and service. This is a kind of discrimination, but it may be that a cooperationist practice recognizes the reasonableness of accommodating it as intrinsic to the identity of the community. This is a practice that will necessarily look different in different legal and political jurisdictions. This is not simply as a matter of different legal contexts, but as a matter of different cultural and historical traditions. What is reasonable in one setting may not be in another, and what is determined to be the priority of strong public principles in one jurisdiction may not be in another. Some diversity is possible here, even while maintaining the principles that make procedural pluralism possible. The standards of reasonableness may fluctuate, not only abroad, but also over time at home, although not so widely as to violate the conditions of the diversity state. Where the other virtues of principled pluralism are regularly practiced, it would not be difficult to imagine accommodations made reasonably, but where these virtues are seldom if ever practiced reasonable accommodation can quickly become a battleground of “rights talk,” the hierarchy of which becomes a judicial matter for settling society’s deepest questions. It hardly needs saying this is not a healthy pluralism, and the diversity state cannot long depend on the coercion of its courts and its lawyers to sustain such a fractured common life. In fact, none of these practices of principled pluralism can be realized in isolation from one another. As with all virtues, they build on and depend on each other. There is a “simultaneous realization of norms” that is necessary to enable the diversity state, and these include political humility, vigorous proselytization of strong public principles, dialogical political theology, empathy, receptivity and cooperation, and only – finally – reasonable accommodation. The latter without any of the former will quickly become empty formalism and the realpolitik of a society characterized not by common loves, but communities coming apart lashed together by little else but a retreating history and judicial exercise. Any diplomacy that depends on legal frameworks alone may see short term successes, but the long game of politics is won and lost in the culture, and in its creative, conflicting, and overlapping political theologies.

Track 1.5 diplomacy: six ideas for foreign policy in God’s Century These practices suggest not only an outlook but also particular policies in the foreign affairs of countries like the U.S. and Canada. They set us up with a repertoire of practices, a worldview, but also tangible actions that help foreign policy makers, especially, escape the often-binary poles of one specific religious-ethical tradition on the one hand (Judeo-Christian secularism), or a none-too-neutral civil religious secularism on the other (laïcité). They point us toward the kind of foreign policy a diversity state could adopt, one that neither exports its own civil religious extremes (either Judeo-Christian or laïcité) nor imagines a plainly universal experience of

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the religious and the secular. It situates the diversity state within a repertoire of virtues, real habits that bespeak concrete beliefs, and so does not hamstring it with false promises of universal cosmopolitanism. In this section, I want to lay out some of the policy implications of the practices of principled pluralism for foreign policy makers. I do this, first, by discussing how the practices of the last section can be imagined within the world of foreign affairs. What are the foreign policy lessons that diversity state can take from a principled pluralist account of politics? Second, I summarize these lessons within the framework of what Chris Seiple and the Institute for Global Engagement have called Track 1.5 Diplomacy, a theory of change they call “bottom up” and “top down.” I will argue that this model of diplomacy is a good account of the kind of foreign policies of a principled pluralist. Testing that framework against the examples with which we started this book, the Offices of Religious Freedom, is the work of our final section. The first, and perhaps most fundamental, policy priority that a principled pluralist account alerts us to is the essential nature of freedom of religion or belief. Freedom of religion or belief has been assailed in Canada, and in the United States to a degree, for being elevated with their (one-time) Offices in an inappropriate way. Human rights, we saw the argument made, are indivisible. They also must be simultaneously realized, for what good does it do a society if religion can be publicly manifested, and its consequence is the degradation of women, the dissolution of education, and the weakening of the public project of the state. These are important arguments, and it is of course true that other human rights are also an essential component of the diversity state, but they miss why freedom of religion or belief is – to put it in a very Canadian way – a first among equals. The reason that freedom of religion or belief should be prioritized, even with its own Office is because it is the fundamental catalyzing right for the virtues of a diversity state. If, as I have argued, one of the virtuous practices of principled pluralism is political humility, restraint or temperance on the part of the state, then the limits of state-based foreign policy should start to become clear. In a world where strong religions and weak states are often still the rule, this is even more important. After all, in a dominantly non-Judeo-Christian society, what are the prospects of success attempting to export a Judeo-Christian framework or a civil religious secularism? Both will appear be to assaults on the character and identity of the culture, and they will be. If something like principled pluralism is our goal, our north star in relations in foreign states, then we must habituate the virtue of restraint and humility: no government, not even mighty, wealthy governments like America, can through force of arms, strength of diplomacy, or threat of sanction enforce the creative, hermeneutical work necessary for native religious and ethical worldviews to support the diversity state. That work can only be done by communities and traditions in those contexts. Ziya Meral, for example, argues that “religious freedom advocacy is most effective in mobilizing governments, international bodies, and mass media when it appeals to international law rather than theology.”19 States, and Offices of states, cannot do political theology for its citizens. Meral writes,

The practices of principled pluralism 111 To use theological and cultural discourse to ask for a blanket condemnation of the treatment of converts from Islam is counterproductive, as Muslims perceive this as an attack on Islam and a patronizing dictation of what Islam should or should not teach. Only Muslims can reform their own religious traditions, and this is outside of the scope of non-Muslim RFA [religious freedom advocacy].20 To use Meral’s example, if the key for widespread social transformation in dominantly religious societies is revolutions in political theology, then the catalyzing right which should be a fundamental focus of a diversity state’s foreign policy should be freedom of religion or belief. Only once a necessary, safe space has been secured for this kind of hermeneutical creativity and its public manifestation is there likely to be long-term change. In Iran, Geoffrey Cameron, principal researcher for the Baha’i Community of Canada, argues, It would not be overstating it to say that when the day comes that there are those in Iran who stand between harm and other [minority] religious communities, it will be those acting on faith and the best of their theology to defeat the worst of human tyranny.21 Religion freedom advocacy should prioritize the protection of minority religious dissenters within majority religious cultures, sharply criticizing blasphemy and apostasy laws which make political-theological innovation impossible. Write Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, “Just as the institution of slavery, which garnered Muslim and other consensus in the past, has been dropped, punishments for blasphemy and apostasy can also be revised.”22 The practice of restraint and political humility recognizes a key role for the state in a kind of political-legal advocacy, mobilizing non-governmental organizations, media, law, and more, but it refrains from any attempt at “patronizing dictation” of what the “true” religion, or culture, or context of a region or country may be. In the words of Meral, “only Muslims can reform their own religious traditions,” or as Chris Seiple says, “Only good theology beats bad theology.”23 For the panacea of rights, the indivisible package that opponents of Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom rightly prize, to become domestic rights, not simply foreign impositions or economic concessions, freedom of religion or belief is a first order priority. In this argument, an Office of Religious Freedom is hardly a competitor for that package of rights, but rather the trailblazer, the first right that protects and enables a religious world to come to their own religious rationale for the rights the diversity state so prizes. Second, however, this shows a very positive, specific task for the state in freedom of religion or belief: the vigorous proselytization of principled pluralism. The foreign policy of states may not be well suited to the long-term work of contextspecific political theology, but is very well suited to state building, to encouraging clear definitions of citizenship, and to advocating, through its legal, economic, and political means, freedom of religion or belief. The foreign service obviously does

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not have the kind of institutional capacity which domestic departments enjoy for this proselytization: public education, public holidays, and more. But that does not mean that the foreign service doesn’t have powers of its own, including building up state capacities for the rule of law, training for lawyers, for politicians, and others on issues of pluralism and religious freedom. Marketa Geislerova, at Canada’s then Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (now Global Affairs Canada), argues that the bulk of the state’s work should be under what he called a “facilitative” approach, one which focusses on the apparatuses of states and the norms which accompany them.24 Geislerova argues, Canada could build on its considerable reputation as a peaceful, diverse society and assert its influence on the global stage by developing an expertise in facilitating safe and inclusive forums for contesting ideas with religious dimensions. The ultimate goal of these forums would be to promote cooperation, ease tensions, encourage pluralism, and promote human rights. In these efforts, officials would function as facilitators and enablers – rather than spiritual soulmates, a calling not all of them would be able (or would wish) to fulfill.25 Such a practice could also tap “more effectively into the networks and activities of Canadian faith-based organizations, religious communities, diasporas, experts, as well as theologians.”26 In other words, according to Geislerova the foreign affairs should help facilitate progressive political theology, a primary way of doing so being making a safe space for it. In fact, Geoffrey Cameron has argued that the real promise of things like Offices of Religious Freedom lies not so much in what modest work they may get done. Important as these projects may be, the real power of these Offices, in Cameron’s opinion, is in their ability to affect the entire prism of foreign affairs. Moving forward we must focus on the status of religious freedom as a ‘global norm.’ Of the Canadian case, he wrote: In addition to the creation of the Office and the appointment of an Ambassador to lead it, the Government of Canada has also made religious freedom a key foreign policy priority. Therefore, quite apart from what the Office does, we should assume Canadian missions abroad will be reporting to headquarters on issues of religious freedom in their country. We will see them convening seminars on religious freedom, and talking to religious and political leaders about the religious fault-lines of conflict and the legal framework that protects minorities. These bilateral efforts will be happening regardless of the work of the Office of Religious Freedom. Likewise, at our multilateral missions – for instance at the UN, and in our work through regional organizations – we should expect Canadian diplomats to be inserting language about religious freedom into resolutions, co-hosting side events to ministerial meetings on issues related to religious freedom, building relationships with relevant think tanks and academics. These are important ways in which diplomats advance our foreign policy.27

The practices of principled pluralism 113 This facilitative, diplomatic work is the kind of vigorous “public” proselytization that would be a key to the foreign policy of a diversity state. Third and fourth, we recognized the call for dialogical political theology, active representational openness, and the empathy that makes this possible. Here too, there can be work for the diversity state abroad, limited – necessarily – because cultivating empathy and openness are hardly mainly state concerns, but crucial nonetheless. Writes Geislerova, for foreign policies to resonate “they should reach out to people as well as governments, stretch their epistemological boundaries a little further to include non-Western voices and local sources of knowledges.”28 There is enormous work to be done, for example, in knowledge sharing across traditions, seminars, and training on not only religious freedom but also on the diversity of political theologies in a region or state. A first crucial step to dialogical political theology is education, and not drive-by-pluralism we must hasten to add, but the kind of sustained contact between people and communities that genuinely “stretches epistemological boundaries” in the words of Geislerova. One of the ways he suggests the foreign service may do this is by deliberately enlisting diaspora communities at home with relationships or ideological connections to areas of concern. Whether, for example, co-religionists might hinder more than help is a matter for debate, although there could certainly be some instances where state departments and foreign affairs could at least begin stretching their own “epistemological boundaries” by beginning at home. This suggests the issue of training in the foreign service should also be a priority. General knowledge of world religions is fundamental, and so are the legal and cultural contexts within which freedom of religion and belief is understood and implemented. Training for all diplomats, not merely those assigned to human rights files, is essential if the ‘facilitative’ approach envisioned is to succeed. The foreign service itself must diligently cultivate the kind of empathy and active representational openness that are fundamental aspects of the diversity state. The investments states can make are therefore two-fold: first, in the education and openness of its own representatives, its diplomats, ambassadors, and regional officers. But second, as a vigorously interested facilitator abroad, using dialogues, seminars, education, and long-term relationship building. This is no silver bullet, and the latter may sometimes do more harm than good, so it is important to keep these policies in mind as a “general set of ideas” rather than applicable in all contexts and circumstances. Fifth, receptivity toward religion or cooperation with religious groups is a pragmatic fact of life when governments go abroad in God’s Century. Jonathan Fox’s competition matrix for religion/state relationships shows that the cycle of conflict is only intensifying. This means that the foreign service must abandon either implicit or explicit policies of exclusive laïcité or exclusive Judeo-Christian secularism. State/religion models will differ by fact of history, culture, and political theology, and models for cooperation need to be considered legitimate. The foreign service should build receptivity for dealing with religious communities, especially where strong religions and weak states are the rule. A cooperationist approach does not mean a soft acceptance of theocracy or established religion, but it does mean we

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should expect religion to play a larger role, and begrudge religious communities those roles in undergoing their own processes of principled pluralism. It does not mean abandoning the limits of procedural pluralism, but it does mean accepting those who are willing and able to express themselves within those limits, including religious voices. It means accepting religion is now a permanent part of the equation when doing foreign policy. Finally, it means that some room must be made for reasonable accommodation, which I take to mean at least two things in the world of foreign policy. First, it means that there are practical realities which mean other states will look very different from our experiences at home. The case of America and Canada in this argument has shown the diversity even within two culturally similar, neighboring, Western nations. The diversity abroad will be more marked still. If we find at least six rival versions of the religious and the secular at home, what will we find when we leave the shores of North America? The accommodation here remains reasonable, however. Institutional arrangements and expressions may differ, but the virtues themselves, and the limits imposed by procedural pluralism remain universal. We are not in the business of making “little Americas” but we are in the business of policies that replicate its best, most universal essence in their own plural contexts. Second, it means that supporting the growth of diversity states and their virtues is a goal of foreign policy, not an easily or even obviously reached outcome of foreign affairs. It means we cannot hold countries to unreasonable accounts, even while challenging them, working alongside them, or in cases sanctioning them for violations we consider fundamental. Governments, too, can only work at a pace that their culture and population will allow, a story which is the larger truth underlying challenges in religious freedom in countries like Pakistan. “Naming and shaming,” as is sometimes the fear of the diplomatic corps in religious freedom advocacy, can sacrifice the possibility of proximate success for an idealized end state. These are the ideas that I think are a natural consequence of a principled pluralist foreign policy: (1) that freedom of religion or belief is a first among equals, a legitimate priority for the diversity state; (2) building state legal/political capacity and norm proselytization; (3) training and education of the foreign service, at home and abroad; (4) training and education abroad, a ‘facilitative’ role in dialogical political theology; (5) religious permanence, learning to cooperate where possible, make peace where not; (6) and finally making peace with proximate justice, a reasonable accommodation of cultural pluralism and the pace of cultural change. This is Track 1.5 Diplomacy. Where Track 1 is state-to-state and Track 2 is community-to-community, Track 1.5 Diplomacy recognizes that in the work of principled pluralism these tracks will get necessarily crossed over. On the one hand, there are strategies that advocate religious freedom which tend toward a public process, and tends to be the domain of Track 1 diplomacy – state to state, or in some cases advocacy and intervention by groups like the Becket Fund at the state or legal level. It leverages the traditional apparatus of the political community, rights based frameworks, and international law. This approach generates not only awareness, but also much more immediate results. In the words of Chris Seiple, it gets people out of jail.29 But this process also has its limits. Criticisms of

The practices of principled pluralism 115 the advocacy approach cite a strategy that seeks to “name, blame, and shame” a government to little or no effect, because few political cultures invite and respond well to public embarrassment and browbeating. The other side of advocacy is building religious freedom. Building religious freedom rooted in communities tends toward private, people-to-people, or Track 2 diplomacy. It engages government officials, but also religious and community leaders, theologians as well as statesmen. It attempts to operationalize those ‘deep reasons’ for the rights we agree on, in full knowledge that the deep reasons may never find agreement, but that the outcomes of this secular-consensus are sustainable. It is a grassroots strategy for transformation, one which engages specifically with local political-theology. These tracks are not so easily disassociated as we might think; the work of advocacy cannot produce fruit apart from building political-theological consensus, and the work of building will hardly be more than a cosmopolitan potpourri without the space and consolidation of what International Justice Mission’s Gary Haugen calls properly functioning systems of public justice.30 Chris Seiple writes, “It is the public-private nexus that will yield the partnerships necessary to tackle our common, global challenges in a manner that preserves and balances religious freedom in community.”31 This nexus is Track 1.5 diplomacy: the essential recognition that states can and must engage local, increasingly highly religious, communities. And, further, the humble recognition that state actors themselves may not be best placed, may in fact be badly placed, to do any more than merely facilitate the political-theological hermeneutics and innovation necessary to root liberal rights in indigenous logic and rationale. In short, understanding that official foreign policy partnerships must take many and variable forms, not merely with religious communities in their specific regions of interest, but with those communities in other regions who may have the capacity, insight, and literacy necessary to engage that state actors lack. In a developing world where strong religion and weak states are increasingly the norm, the integration of Track 1.5 diplomacy is vital. The goal of Track 1.5 diplomacy, per Seiple, is to build sustainable environments for religious freedom, top-down (Track 1), equipping governments to enable religious freedom, and bottom-up (Track 2), equipping citizens to exercise religious freedom responsibly. It is aimed at an ‘argumentative civil society’32 and a stable state that fosters a sustainable and systemic environment for that kind of contestation. A practical test for these virtues and practices is found in our last case, the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom (2013–2016), and a retrospective analysis of its policies and activities.

Religious freedom in Canadian foreign policy: a principled pluralist case What would it look like for these policies to be embedded in an actual foreign policy environment? The argument of this section is we can see a good snapshot of Track 1.5 Diplomacy at work in the record of Canada’s short-lived Office of Religious Freedom. Reviewing its record, we see evidence of, obviously, the high

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priority of freedom of religion or belief, but also unapologetic normative proselytization, a facilitative approach which singled out training at home and education abroad, a cooperative and receptive engagement with permanent religious presences in key regions, and a ‘reasonable accommodation’ which, while firm on the virtues of principled pluralism, allowed flexibility for cultural pluralism and historic context. Although short-lived, this is an experiment worth emulation in like-minded countries, and worth the support of the diversity-minded state. The task of the Office was the promotion of religious freedom as one of these ‘strong public principles’ in Canadian foreign affairs. Its mandate was to “promote Canadian values of pluralism and tolerance throughout the world” which included: (1) the protection of and advocacy for religious minorities under threat; (2) the opposition to religious hatred and intolerance; and (3) the promotion of Canadian values of pluralism and tolerance abroad.33 This mandate, and its activities, can be reviewed against Track 1.5 Diplomacy, both “top down” and “bottom up.” First, the Canadian ORF “top-down” diplomacy includes both the norm catalyzing work, inside the foreign service, and abroad, and a ‘facilitative’ and cooperative approach with religious communities. The effects of this are harder to measure, and expectations should be modest for long-term systemic change in foreign contexts on this track. The Office may, for instance, denounce religiously motivated attacks in Pakistan,34 express its distress at the destruction of sacred sites,35 or deplore the targeting of religious minorities in Iraq,36 but the effect of these statements alone may not move actors or issues forward. The Office was indeed busy in the person of its ambassador, travelling the globe advocating on behalf of religious minorities, and releasing an array of statements both via the Office and via the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself. It is less clear how well integrated the priority of religious freedom became in other parts of Canadian foreign policy, but given the focus of the ORF on “countries or situations where there is evidence of egregious violations of the right to freedom of religion”37 it was also unlikely that issues of religious freedom would be central in, for example, trade negotiations. However, some sanctions, as in the case of Russia, were authorized, which may have at least some background in religious freedom issues, given the ambassador’s priority on that region and the conflict in Ukraine.38 The promise of the Office was also in its diplomatic work inside foreign affairs, bringing religion mainstream in its analysis.39 The ORF and its ambassador were key players that could leverage Canada’s other departments and priorities, as in the case in the Levant for which the federal government – not just the ORF – dedicated an additional five million dollars in aid to assist religious minorities (Yezidis, Christians, and others) in Iraq. As argued by then Prime Minister Stephen Harper, “The very notion of religious freedom is what the Islamic State is working to eradicate, and what the Iraqi and Syrian people and the international community cannot surrender.”40 The ORF punched above its weight in a government that took religious freedom as an essential policy priority in the whole of foreign affairs. The ORF also launched an External Advisory Committee (EAC) in June of 2015, a group that convened to both advise the Office on its work, and network religious voices into the work of foreign affairs.41 Together with internal training

The practices of principled pluralism 117 seminars, conferences, and dialogues the EAC was part of an effort to both bring religious communities across the country together on the common work of building religious freedom, and to network these groups to foreign service officers. It was a facilitative approach, one which both served to educate and advise the ORF, and educate and advise foreign affairs more generally. Among its promising, early work, the ORF also labored to train diplomatic staff around the world on the issue of religious freedom. In an interview with World Magazine in the summer of 2013 its ambassador said, We push religion so far into the private sphere that we forget to engage in the public sphere on matters of religion and faith. My goal is that Canadian diplomats abroad are the go-to people on religious freedom issues.42 Practically, the ambassador encouraged foreign service officers to sit in on court proceedings for individuals facing charges related to freedom of religion or belief. In the same interview, he said, “It’s amazing how the presence of a Canadian diplomat in court can change how the procedure is carried out.” The message was not about Canada’s coercive power, of which it possesses little enough, but rather that this is an issue Canada cares about; maybe most simply of all, these are charges, trials, and oppressions that someone cares about. People are watching. While statements, roundtables, and diplomatic visits attracted a great deal of political attention, the bulk of the assets of the Office ($4.25 million out of its annual $5 million budget43) were dedicated to the subtler, less eye-catching work of the Religious Freedom Fund. This was the work of “bottom-up” facilitation. The fund itself was designed to raise awareness, conduct research, support projects for dialogue among different religious groups, and provide legal and legislative aid to build the capacities of religious freedom (both in state and civil society).44 Partly because of its modest endowment, but also because of its actual strategy for change, the Fund was expected to partner abroad; to support, facilitate, empower, and ennoble efforts already underway. The track record for this fund is short, but not insignificant. The first round of funding from the Office was released on August 26, 2013, briskly on the heels of a February launch and appointment. Interestingly, the three projects that were funded, one in Nigeria, and one in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus, and one in Indonesia all focus in some respect on what is essentially indigenous, dialogical political theology. In Indonesia, a partnership with the SETARA Institute for Democracy and Peace was announced August 23, totaling $260,000, to produce an annual report on freedom of religion or belief in Indonesia, and increasing “understanding by religious communities of their constitutional rights; the provision of advocacy and networking tools for religious communities; training for teacher on tolerance and pluralism.”45 The project in Nigeria, a two-year project totaling $553,643 focused on promoting intercommunity dialogue and conflict mediation in Jos and in other parts

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of Nigeria’s Plateau State, where violence has been marked in the past, was designed to: establish a road map with the support of all actors involved in the conflict between Muslims and Christians in Jos and elsewhere in the Plateau State; will develop local mediation capacity and create dialogue opportunities between community and religious leaders; and will train 10 senior government officials and key persons from institutions dealing with peacemaking to strengthen the federal government’s capacity to support conflict management and resolution.46 The third, a three-year project totaling $672,000 was designed to recognize religious or belief communities in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the South Caucasus. The project will involve a total of six national training events for government officials and civil society actors in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and South Caucasus; funding for up to 10 small-scale projects seeking ways to address violations of freedom of religion or belief at the national level; the launch of guidelines on the recognition of religious or belief communities at the national level (including one launch in Eastern Europe, Central Asia or South Caucasus) and international level; and three events on the implementation of the guidelines, with government officials and civil society participants invited to ensure that recommendations are taken up at the national level by Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) countries.47 A second round of funding was released on the visit of the ambassador to Pakistan in April, 2014, including two new projects there. The first, a two-year project ($1,000,000) called the “Leaders of Influence Initiative” was designed to “advance the implementation of the rights guaranteed in Articles 20 and 28 of Pakistan’s Constitution, the associated rights of religious communities, and Pakistan’s international human rights obligations” via caucuses within the Pakistani Parliament and in Pakistan’s provinces.48 It was also to establish a National Commission for Human Rights, provide training for media, disseminate materials and host regional workshops on inclusiveness. The second project on the state of minorities and freedom of religion in Pakistan ($200,000) was a one-year project to document injustices faced by non-Muslim Pakistanis, including consultations and testimonies by religious communities. A third round of funding, announced in October 2014, was made after the ambassador’s visit to Ukraine. Two projects stood out from this funding. The first, a three year project totaling $950,000 in partnership with the OSCE and the ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights), was designed to increase awareness and education of standards of freedom of religion or belief among civil and religious actors, and indeed to explicitly “enable dialogue among civil society institutions, religious or belief groups and local and regional authorities

The practices of principled pluralism 119 about security of religious and belief communities.”49 A second project, totaling $240,000 over two years, was a partnership with the Catholic Near East Welfare Association designed to deepen inter-cultural and inter-religious understanding in Ukraine. It was intended to “provide a better understanding of the challenges to freedom of religious expression, [and] an increased level of religious tolerance in Ukrainian society based on better knowledge of historical facts and rejection of Soviet stereotypes.”50 These are just some examples of projects that span the African, Asian, and European continents, but are united by their aims and methods to work with local contexts and local actors, to fund and support the development of conversations and guidelines rooted in and resulting from those same actors. Not only is this collaborative approach to foreign partnership consistent with principled pluralism, it also pivoted the Office into a non-redundant place in the international religious freedom community. The modest $5 million a year ($20 million over four years) endowment of the Office, out of which both the fund itself and the operating costs of the Office were withdrawn, was not nearly enough to make Canada a major donor or resource on the international scene.51 Happily, the Office never attempted to make use of these modest resources to replicate the work of other Offices, like the American one, or the reports issued by the Commission, or even the wellrespected research of the Pew Forum. All three have been consistent partners, and the then-U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s Vice Chair, Katrina Lantos-Swett, and Brian Grim himself both addressed the first religious freedom seminar in Ottawa in October 2013. It was an encouraging and collaborative beginning. It was an excellent example of a ‘facilitative approach.’ Much more can, and will, be said about the short-lived experiment of the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom. In many respects, it is too short-term a case to definitively address the practicalities of principled pluralism. The ink on international partnerships was barely dry before the Office was shuttered. But the approach, both “top-down” and “bottom-up”, and within foreign affairs, and abroad in Canadian missions, was a good, if too brief, snapshot of Track 1.5 Diplomacy. Other countries could do much worse than emulate its spirit and its practice.

Conclusion This chapter applied the framework of principled pluralism through a series of ‘virtuous practices,’ understandings and practices that make possible a kind of diversity state. Some of these practices are not entirely new, especially within the world of domestic affairs and domestic political theory. But this chapter also took these practices and imagined what they would look like within the foreign policy of a diversity state. How would the understanding and practice of principled pluralism adapt outside of itself, in relations to others, and what would such a mode look like? I suggested six ideas for such a foreign policy, especially well-suited for an increasingly religious world. These included (1) that freedom of religion or belief is a first among equals, a legitimate priority for the diversity state; (2) building state legal/political capacity and norm proselytization; (3) training and education

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of the foreign service, at home and abroad; (4) training and education abroad, a ‘facilitative’ role in dialogical political theology; (5) religious permanence, learning to cooperate where possible, make peace where not; (6) and finally making peace with proximate justice, a reasonable accommodation of cultural pluralism and the pace of cultural change. I called their sum Track 1.5 Diplomacy, and then applied that standard against the record of the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom to demonstrate that it was a good, practical attempt at many of the virtues this chapter lists as intrinsic to the diversity state. Over against both laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism, this approach comprehends the ‘religious problem with religious freedom,’ and moves us in a coherent, constructive, and just way forward. It is neither unlimited nor unrestrained cosmopolitanism, but it might – just – be part of a recipe for how to believe, how to live, and how to survive in God’s Century.

Notes 1 Abraham Kuyper, The Problem of Poverty, ed. James W. Skillen (Sioux Center: Dordt College Press, 2011), 70. 2 James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011), and You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2016). 3 See for example John Milbank and Adrian Pabst, The Politics of Virtue: Post-Liberalism and the Human Future (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). 4 Jonathan Chaplin also lists six practices of principled pluralism in his article “A Theology of Principled Pluralism.” See especially pp. 370–380. These are a different but also compatible list of practices, some more suited toward talking about foreign policy. 5 Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 18. 6 Chaplin, “A Theology of Principled Pluralism,” 374–375. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., 370. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 371. 11 Daniel Philpott, Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 21. 12 Chaplin, “Theology of Principled Pluralism,” 372. 13 See for example Yuval Levin, The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in an Age of Individualism (New York: Basic Books, 2016) and his interview with James K. A. Smith, “Openings in our Fractured Republic,” Comment Magazine, Fall 2016. www.cardus.ca/comment/article/4929/openings-in-our-fractured-republic/. Accessed November 11, 2016. 14 This was one of the topics discussed at the Summer Seminar at Calvin College hosted by James K. A. Smith and Kevin den Dulk in the 2016, including chapters by Matthew Kaemingk on worship and pluralism (forthcoming). 15 Chaplin, “Theology of Principled Pluralism,” 371. 16 Jonathan Fox, Political Secularism, Religion, and the State: A Time Series Analysis of Worldwide Data (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 17 Chaplin, “Theology of Principled Pluralism,” 373. 18 See especially Stephen V. Monsma and Stanley W. Carlson Thies, Free to Service: Protecting the Religious Freedom of Faith-Based Organizations (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2015).

The practices of principled pluralism 121 19 Ziya Meral, “International Religious Freedom Advocacy in the Field,” Review of Faith & International Affairs 10, no. 3 (Fall 2012), 30. 20 Ibid. 21 Geoffrey Cameron and Robert Joustra, “One Brave Ayatollah Sparks a Light in Iran,” Embassy, April 29, 2014. 22 Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, Silenced: How Apostasy & Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 326. 23 Chris Seiple, “Say No to ‘Jihadis’, ‘Islamic Terrorism’ and ‘Islamo-Fascism’,” Washington Post, July 13, 2010. http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/ chris_seiple/2010/07/say_no_to_jihadis_islamic_terrorism_and_islamo-fascism_1. html. Accessed March 21, 2013. 24 Marketa Geislerova, “Negotiating the Religious Dimension in Foreign Policy,” Canadian Public Policy 37, no. 1 (March 2011), 125. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Geoffrey Cameron, “Religious Freedom: Idea, Human Right, and Process,” in Ecumenist (in press). Manuscript obtained and quoted by permission of the author. 28 Geislerova, “Negotiating the Religious Dimension in Foreign Policy,” 125. 29 Chris Seiple, “Building Religious Freedom: A Theory of Change,” Review of Faith & International Affairs 10, no. 3 (2012), 98–99. 30 Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros, “And Justice for All: Enforcing Human Rights for the World’s Poor,” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 3 (May–June 2010), 61–62. 31 Seiple, “A Theory of Change,” 100. 32 See, for example, Rowan Williams on an ‘argumentative democracy.’ 33 Global Affairs Canada, “The Office of Religious Freedom.” www.international.gc.ca/ religious_freedom-liberte_de_religion/index.aspx. Accessed November 23, 2013. 34 Andrew Bennett, “Canada Denounces Religiously Motivated Attacks in Pakistan,” Global Affairs Canada, July 28, 2014. www.international.gc.ca/media/orf-blr/newscommuniques/2014/07/28a.aspx?lang=eng. Accessed August 19, 2014. 35 Andrew Bennett, “Canada Appalled by Destruction of Jonah’s Tomb in Iraq,” Global Affairs Canada, July 25, 2014. www.international.gc.ca/media/comm/newscommuniques/2014/07/25a.aspx?lang=eng. Accessed August 19, 2014. 36 Andrew Bennett, “Canada Deplores Targeting of Christians in Iraq,” Global Affairs Canada , July 20, 2014. www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/newscommuniques/2014/07/20a.aspx?lang=eng. Accessed August 19, 2014. 37 Global Affairs Canada, “Mandate of the Office of Religious Freedom.” www. international.gc.ca/religious_freedom-liberte_de_religion/mandate_mandat.aspx? lang=eng. Accessed August 19, 2014. 38 Global Affairs Canada, “Ambassador Bennett Concludes Visit to Ukraine,” January 26, 2014. www.international.gc.ca/media/orf-blr/news-communiques/2014/01/26a. aspx?lang=eng. Accessed August 19, 2014. 39 Robert Joustra, “Bringing Religion into Foreign Policy,” OpenCanada.org, June 27, 2013. www.opencanada.org/features/bringing-religion-into-foreign-policy/. Accessed November 18, 2016. 40 Andrew Bennett, “Canada Raises Its Voice in Defence of Middle East Christians,” National Post, August 22, 2014. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/08/22/ andrew-bennett-canada-raises-its-voice-in-defence-of-middle-east-christians/. Accessed August 22, 2014. 41 Global Affairs Canada, “External Advisory Committee to the Office of Religious Freedom.” www.international.gc.ca/religious_freedom-liberte_de_religion/eac-cce. aspx?lang=eng. Accessed November 18, 2016. 42 As quoted in Emily Belz, “Northern Reinforcements,” World Magazine, June 18, 2013. www.worldmag.com/2013/06/northern_reinforcements. Accessed November 23, 2013.

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43 “The Importance of Religious Freedom,” Office of Religious Freedom. www.international.gc.ca/religious_freedom-liberte_de_religion/assets/pdfs/ORFInfosheet-eng.pdf. Accessed August 19, 2014. 44 Global Affairs Canada, “The Religious Freedom Fund.” www.international.gc.ca/ religious_freedom-liberte_de_religion/fund_fond.aspx. Accessed November 23, 2013. 45 Global Affairs Canada, “Canada Strengthens Partnership with Indonesia on Security and Human Rights,” August 23, 2013. www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/newscommuniques/2013/08/23a.aspx. Accessed August 23, 2013. 46 Global Affairs Canada, “Backgrounder – Two Projects Funded by Religious Freedom Fund,” August 26, 2013. www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/newscommuniques/2013/08/26a.aspx?lang=eng. Accessed November 23, 2013. 47 Ibid. 48 Global Affairs Canada, “Canada Announces Support for Religious Freedom in Pakistan,” April 11, 2014. www.international.gc.ca/media/orf-blr/newscommuniques/2014/04/11a.aspx?lang=eng. Accessed August 19, 2014. 49 Global Affairs Canada, “Canada Announces Support for Religious Freedom in Ukraine,” October 8, 2014. www.international.gc.ca/media/orf-blr/newscommuniques/2014/10/08a.aspx?lang=eng. Accessed October 15, 2014. 50 Ibid. 51 Robert Joustra, “Religious Freedom Beyond Rights: Retrospective Lessons for Canada from America’s Office of Religious Freedom,” Review of Faith & International Affairs 11, no. 1 (2013), 87–89. See also Richelle Wiseman and James C. Wallace, “The Promise of Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom,” Review of Faith & International Affairs 11, no. 3 (2013), 52–60.

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Conclusion

Knowledge is never purely the work of the intellect. – Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate Hope is not a political virtue; it is a theological virtue. – Martin Wight1

Admittedly, there is a small tenor of realism underneath the argument of this book: mainly, that a coming cosmopolitan unity or agreement on fundamental issues is not only unlikely, but not even necessarily preferable. My goal has been not to produce agreement, but rather better structures of disagreement, to – as Alasdair MacIntyre writes – “render our disagreements more constructive.”2 A constructive disagreement, Jacques Maritain might agree, is not a bad framing for the debate that originally produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The brewing religious freedom wars are unlikely to be conclusive in part because of the religious problem with religious freedom: because we are not at all clear what exactly is being disagreed over. Political theology clarifies that disagreement, structures a process of constructive disagreement, and presents practical definitions for and diplomatic approaches to religious freedom. Undoubtedly these can be improved on. But I am also confident that these definitions and approaches are better than others, specifically the often-dominant traditions of laïcité and exclusive JudeoChristian secularism. But I’ve left some extremely complicated questions in the wake of the argument. Three, specifically, stand out as unresolved. The balance of this conclusion takes a careful look at those rough edges, where more work is needed, or where different work is obviously demanded. First, political theology itself as a sustained inquiry, which is only stated in the most basic terms here, is a field that is flourishing outside of international relations. The work of top political theologians, particular those like William Cavanaugh and Paul Khan, who have only recently begun to be used by international relations scholars, deserves much more extended and protracted treatment. Their striking and disturbing claims, that the nation-state is its own kind of sacred entity, with demands of life and death, that does not merely supplement other religious

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communities but is in active rivalry to supplant them, is a major criticism that deserves further consideration. I have argued that the demarcation of the religious and the secular, and the social forms of the secular age, are indeed both political and theological arrangements. But the claim that those arrangements are exclusive of, or hostile to, certain forms of religion is a very important one for scholars who are serious about the reception of liberal democracy, and the social forms of the nation-state, in other societies abroad. Is it, as Scott Thomas has somewhat ominously suggested, that we are living not, perhaps, in a clash of civilizations, but amidst a “clash of rival apostasies”? Second, a more protracted engagement with international theory itself, and whether and in what fashion it is secular, as Elizabeth Shakman Hurd says, needs to be made. An exceedingly lengthy scholarly engagement landed, sadly, on the cutting floor of this manuscript, but a clear supplementary question to this book is: in what fashion do dominant paradigms of international relations and foreign policy either obscure, or inform, this political theological approach? How does political theology fit with these approaches? Does it supplant or buttress them; does it qualify as a new paradigm altogether? I already suggested at several points that the early English School, and especially scholars called Christian Realists, or what Jodok Troy calls soft realists, may have some ready answers for this. Political theology, with its emphasis on the socialization of the religious and the secular and how this shapes political legitimacy, takes as read Schmitt’s claim that many significant secular concepts have a background in theological ones. A return to such foundations not only puts this conversation in touch with those early thinkers, like Martin Wight, Reinhold Niebuhr, Herbert Butterfield, and others, it also takes a renewed look at how their thought might serve contemporary issues in international relations. It is, for example, Jodok Troy’s argument that a classical English School approach, with its candid debates on foundations and political theology, can help render a better picture of the global resurgence of religion, and religion in international relations more generally. Third, and finally, from the work of political theology, and a renewed theoretical articulation of it in international relations, a priority not only for religious freedom in foreign policy but of religious literacy and engagement in foreign relations more generally becomes clear. A principled pluralist approach to religious freedom makes it not an isolated right, but a catalyst for the simultaneous realization of rights across a broad spectrum. Freedom of religion or belief is fundamental because it underlies the understandings and practices of communities’ most basic commitments as they relate to political legitimacy. This is not somehow rival to, or isolated from, other basic freedoms, like freedom of press, or freedom of association, and so forth, but it is intrinsic to and suggestive of them. Religious freedom is, therefore, not just for religious freedom advocates, but an approach that is necessary for a range of human rights work in states and communities where strong religion and weak states are the rule; in short, in much of the developing world. Offices of Religious Freedom, whether in Canada or America, can mark their success not just by promoting principled pluralism abroad, but by promoting religious literacy and engagement with the entire foreign policy apparatus. Religious freedom should move beyond rights, beyond even an ambassador at

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large, and into the mainstream of foreign affairs. Considerations on how this may be done conclude the chapter.

A clash of rival apostasies The work of political theology, expressed by people like Toft, Philpott, Shah, is work that is important not only for understanding religious actors, but political actors of all kinds. Political legitimacy rests on demarcations of the secular and the religious, and the perceived relationship between these. It is as important for the liberal democrat in Canada to come to terms with these meanings and relationships, as it is for the theocratic Wahhabi. Without an account of the religious and the secular and its commensurate political legitimacy, neither approach can be rendered entirely intelligible to the other. But this also raises a disturbing secondary concern, which while beyond the scope of this argument, is still closely related to the ‘the religious problem’: Is it the case that the Westphalian construction of the nation-state itself sustains what Schmitt calls formerly theological concepts, and is therefore not only a rival political order, but also a rival religious one? At least two authors have begun to explore this question in detail, and have found their way into conversation with international theorists: William T. Cavanaugh, a political theologian, and Paul Kahn, a legal-philosopher. Cavanaugh’s recent books, The Myth of Religious Violence and Migrations of the Holy, and one earlier book, Theopolitical Imagination, all touch on this question.3 In the former work he has engaged with international theorists, including Scott Thomas. Paul Kahn was featured on the Canadian CBC Ideas series, “The Myth of the Secular” in which he discussed his controversial book, Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty.4 His engagements with Schmitt, and his work on American and international law, yield parallel insights to Cavanaugh’s own. William Cavanaugh’s arguments expand on the idea that the boundary between the secular and the religious has shifted in modernity, to argue that this shift was not just a renegotiation, but a fundamentally new sacred, political order. He likens the establishment of the nation-state and its Wars of Religion to a hostile takeover, saying that the evolution of the state has been a slow, often violent, migration of the holy. In Theopolitical Imagination, he writes, We are often fooled by the seeming solidity of the materials of politics, its armies and offices, into forgetting that these materials are marshaled by acts of the imagination. How does a provincial farm boy become persuaded that he must travel as a soldier to another part of the world and kill people he knows nothing about? He must be convinced of the reality of borders, and imagine himself deeply, mystically, united to a wider national community that stops abruptly at those borders.5 Cavanaugh’s point is one with which scholars of nationalism, following Benedict Anderson, are familiar. But he is arguing something more fundamental than

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simply that the nation-state has a hold on human imagination and what it values. He is saying that nation-states have a hold on fundamental, sacred values, ones so powerful that persons and communities will willingly sacrifice, kill, and die for them. This is political theorist David T. Koyzis’s argument in Political Visions & Illusions where he identifies nationalism as one of the ideologies of modernity, and what he describes as “incurably religious.”6 Koyzis makes a long argument that the nation-state, and especially its totalitarian manifestations, is profoundly inscribed with a religious narrative about genesis, deification, evil, and salvation. So, when Cavanaugh writes that the “transfer of power from the church to the state appears not so much as a solution to the wars in question, but as a cause of those wars,” he is not only talking about a powerful polity, he is talking about a sacred politics, one whose powers of sacralization have been borrowed, and enlisted from an earlier Christian era. “The so-called wars of religion appear as wars fought by state-building elites for the purpose of consolidating their power over the church and other rivals.”7 It was this transfer of power from the church to the state that was actually at the root cause of the wars. The problem, argues Cavanaugh, is not that these definitions “condemn certain kinds of violence, but that it diverts moral scrutiny from other kinds of violence. Violence labelled religious is always reprehensible; violence labelled secular is often necessary and sometimes praiseworthy.”8 He concludes, Among those who identify themselves as Christians in the United States, there are very few who would be willing to kill in the name of the Christian God, whereas the willingness under certain circumstances, to kill and die for the nation in war is generally taken for granted. The religious-secular distinction thus helps to maintain the public and lethal loyalty of Christians to the nation-state, while avoiding direct confrontation with Christian beliefs about the supremacy of the Christian God over all other gods.9 Eric Hobsbawm argues that ours is an unliturgical age in most respects, with the striking exception of the public life of the citizen in the nation-state.10 Citizenship is tied to the kinds of rituals and symbols that are comprehensible in every way to the history of human society, with the one difference that ours claims to be neutral, secular, and rational. Cavanaugh argues that it should be no surprise that the transition into a secular state by nonmodern societies around the globe is anything but painless. The growth of secular Westphalian statehood across the planet is, in his argument, a political-theological conversion project on a scale as never before witnessed. Yet Cavanaugh is also singularly pessimistic about this new arrangement, essentially arguing that the sacred forms embedded in the nation-state have now become bankrupt. His theological criticisms come into focus in his later works, especially Migrations of the Holy, where he argues not only that the nation-state has installed these sacred, liturgical elements in its background, but that these elements are essentially destructive idolatries to which Christian people owe no allegiance. The nation-state, he says, has so stripped the earlier moral and theological content of

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the secularized Christian social forms it now inhabits, that being asked to kill and die for it is a bit like being asked to kill for the telephone company.11 This coincides with the arguments of those like Oliver O’Donovan, that cut loose from its deep moral reasoning the state is nothing but abstract formalism, “a house swept and garnished waiting for seven worse devils.”12 Cavanaugh’s arguments may sound radical, but they have already received a serious reception by several noted scholars in international relations. Scott Thomas served as a reader and conversation partner for Cavanaugh’s Myth of Religious Violence,13 Mariano Barbato, Chiara de Franco, and Brigitte le Normand cite Cavanaugh’s argument at length as a foil in critiquing R. Scott Appleby’s argument in The Ambivalence of the Sacred, and Cavanaugh himself served as appreciative critic of God’s Century, in a series of published responses in Politics, Religion & Ideology.14 His strong political-theological criticisms provide an intelligible context within which charges of an “apostasy” of western order can be understood, and if only for that reason his work continues to receive modest attention in international relations. Paul Kahn is also not an international theorist, but in his reading of Schmitt’s original Political Theology he attempts, as a legal and political scholar, to make sense of how contemporary secular theory suffers what he calls a “sacred gap.” Paul Kahn’s work is to yield an account of the sacred in secular moral order. He is particularly keen to understand acts of political violence as an expression of liberal political theory, not as the exception, but as an integral part of a sacred, sacrificial order of the state. He writes, “This is not hidden but celebrated in our ordinary political rhetoric: to serve and die for the nation is commonly referred to as the ultimate sacrifice.”15 The sovereign, he writes, “is no more imaginable from without than is a god to those outside of the faith.”16 Kahn’s project, like Cavanaugh’s, takes for granted some of the basic arguments in this book, namely “that the break between the secular and the theological is not what we might have thought,”17 but he goes further to say that “there is continuity, not discontinuity, between the theological and the political.”18 He clarifies, The claim here is not that such a break [between the theological and the secular] should not have occurred and that politics must be put back on a religious foundation. . . . Political theology does not just challenge a particular configuration of legal institutions, as if the question were one of scaling down the wall of separation between church and state. It challenges the basic assumptions of our understandings of the meaning of modernity, the nature of individual identity, and the character of the relationship of the individual to the state. . . . Political theology must be . . . not the subordination of the political to religious doctrine and church authority, but recognition that the state creates and maintains its own sacred space and history.19 In this, Kahn is consistent with Cavanaugh: freeing the state from the church did not banish the sacred from the political, it merely reconfigured it. Seen against this backdrop it might indeed be said that Europe’s religious wars were religious, and

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that the sacred order of the secular state won; not the secular versus the religious, but two (or many) religious orders pitted in violent confrontation. Writes Kahn, “It is an accident of history that the struggle of the state to free itself of the church was framed not as a conflict of faiths but as a conflict over the place of faith in the organization of political power.”20 This counter-narrative of political theology is as unsettling as it is uncommon, but it has the major advantage of providing a theoretical account of sacred experiences in the nation-state. He writes, Political theology argues that secularization, as the displacement of the sacred from the world of experience, never won, even though the church may have lost. The politics of the modern nation-state indeed rejected the church but simultaneously offered a new site of sacred experience.21 There are domestic as well as international aspects to this. Khan writes that political theology must “not only help us to understand ourselves but also to understand how and why our political imagination makes our [America’s] relationship to the rest of the world so exceptional.”22 It is a poor theory, he argues, “that fails to express a community’s experience of the sacred, even if it is good at explaining why theological speculation takes the form that it does.”23 This is his indictment of dominantly liberal theory when it comes to explaining the state. Khan’s work too, then, touches on experiences of the sacred and the religious in what he, after Schmitt, call their “secularized forms.” Where Khan is concerned to show the inability of liberal theory to actually explain the sacred depth and power of the nation-state, Cavanaugh is more concerned with showing that that power and depth are rival corruptions of the Christian gospel. But both are on the edge of doing political-theological work that takes seriously not only the shift in the religious and the secular in the modern period, but also what was lost, and what was gained, along the way. It is true that such a shift is political as well as theological. It deserves more attention, as Cavanaugh and Khan are beginning to give it, to compare that shift, and its derivative social forms, to other nonmodern social imaginaries. I have argued that this shift has significance for rival versions of religious freedom, but the argument of Cavanaugh and Khan is that this shift has also deliberately obscured the sacred power of the nation-state, a profound claim for those abroad who claim to resist western order, and western systems, on a theological basis. A political theological approach defined as the understandings and practices that political actors have about the meanings of and relationship between the religious and the secular, and how these constitute political legitimacy, does indeed underline the urgency of this kind of study, and legitimizes, at minimum, its field of inquiry.

“Why is there no international theory?” This also yields a very awkward relationship to predominantly statist or groupist international theory. New Critics like Elizabeth Shakman Hurd argue that international theory often gets the religious and the secular wrong because it is itself predicated on a specific formation of the secular and the religious. In arguing for

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a political theological approach, I did not suggest a school of international theory which could incorporate the approach, and so speak to a more comprehensive international theory that takes the religious and the secular seriously on its own terms, its meanings, relationship, and commensurate political legitimacy. Articulating such an approach, even in a series of correctives to mainstream approaches, is essential for international theory in an increasingly desecularizing globe. Martin Wight’s classic question could justifiably be asked after this argument too: “Why is there no international theory?” A consistent theoretical approach to international relations that takes the work and study of political theology seriously is central to international relations. Theory is not so easily segregated from policy. Questions of political theology, which mainstream theory tends to overlook, unsettle, or at least contextualize, some of their most basic assumptions. Yet scholars like Jodok Troy, Scott Thomas, Charles Jones, and others find a sympathetic approach in the early, classical English School. Troy argues that the early English School, with its effort to understand the religious, rather than simply explain it as a variable that produces political outcomes, offers a promising place to begin.24 This, at least, is consistent with a political-theological analysis, with its argument that how religion matters will very much change from place to place, and time to time, depending on how the religious (and the secular) are defined, interrelate, and how this shapes political legitimacy. Troy argues that the advantage of the classical English School is both its emphasis on (international and world) society, which makes it prone to understand religion, and the attendant stress it puts on the most basic images of global order. Recalling Kenneth Waltz’s “three images of international relations” – man, the state, and war – Troy says that Waltz and many of his successors have focused on the last of the three. Those so-called neo-classical Realists (like Fareed Zakaria) still tend to reduce international relations to the second image (the state).25 His argument is that to properly approach the subject of religion in international relations, first things must again be put into focus, namely humans, their world and life views, and the fundamental understandings and practices that make things like the state, and therefore the international system, possible.26 It is not possible, he says, to study either politics or religion by relying only on the second and third images.27 What Martin Wight calls the “intellectual and moral poverty” of international theory is, in his opinion, the result of two things: “first, the intellectual prejudice imposed by the sovereign state, and secondly, the belief in progress.”28 Wight writes, “The tension between international theory and diplomatic practice can be traced to the heart of international theory itself. It may be seen in the identification of international politics with the precontractual state of nature by the classic international lawyers.”29 An international theory that never goes beyond the second and third image cannot do, or admit to, the work of political theology, nor render a complete picture of the West’s own accounts of the religious and the secular. It will not be able to come to terms with rival versions of the religious and the secular. We do not understand the religious, as Robert Wuthnow puts it, “because our theories provide no basis from which to understand. They expect rationality and produce cynical interpretations based on assumptions about self-interest. They stress cause and effect, but leave no room for meaning and significance.”30

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According to Scott Thomas these are the questions that the early English School was engaged with. This school, a group of scholars including historians, philosophers, theologians, and former diplomatic practitioners, gathered together in the late 1950s to form the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics.31 Their goal was to investigate fundamental questions of international theory. Wight’s own contribution, says Thomas, was the historical sociology of different states-systems showing the importance of world history for the study of international relations. It was his historical sociology that led to the seriousness with which he took religion. Like Christopher Dawson and Herbert Butterfield, contemporary historians and philosophers of history, he agreed that religion was a “fundamental – not derivative – category to the understanding of culture, society, and civilization.”32 Writes Thomas, It was at the level of “soil and society” that religion “works,” and religion was most powerful where it was least recorded and most difficult to observe, among the masses and in the practices and traditions of ordinary people. Because Wight took religious ideas seriously, and not as a derivative factor of other social factors, he was concerned about, and explicitly studied more directly, the role of religious doctrines on ideas about war and peace, the impact of religious doctrine on national churches and national consciousness, the evolution of diplomatic practices in the states-systems of different civilizations, and the role of a common culture in different state-systems in history.33 Thus, concludes Thomas, if the religious is a fundamental category, as Wight thought it was, then one cannot simply get behind it for social and economic factors. To do so is to render again the religious as private and derivative, and therefore secondary. But this is unique to the modern social imaginary, and scholars who reproduce such meanings may unintentionally produce a materialist, anthropocentric, and reductionist international theory. Such theories will struggle to comprehend the power of rival meanings of the religious in a desecularized globe. Could not some of these elements be paralleled also in constructivism? They certainly can, as Jodok Troy argues, suggesting that the constructivist methodology is often one method used by today’s soft realists, like Thomas, Philpott, and others. But for various reasons he is pessimistic about constructivism as a theoretical approach, the assumptions as a full theory that it makes about all social reality being ultimately human derivative, which misses out on the normative aspects that the English School stresses.34 The religious, for one, may become yet another manufactured social opiate of self-authorizing and sovereign persons, a picture of reality that may fit with late modern sensibilities, but is certainly out of step with pre-or nonmodern understandings and practices. There is a great deal more to be done here in articulating a classical English School approach that takes seriously a political theological approach, and it may well be that other nonmainstream traditions of international theory can do the same. But a theoretical approach that takes the religious and the secular as significant not only on their own terms, but also in the way that their understanding and

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practice shapes political legitimacy, is important not only to religious freedom in foreign policy, but to an understanding of global politics generally, if Toft, Philpott, and Shah are to be believed that this may well be God’s Century.

Religious freedom beyond rights: taking religion mainstream We have a new repertoire of practices, what I called Track 1.5 Diplomacy, which integrates religious freedom with a broader rights agenda, while deliberately enlisting communities of all kinds, including the religious, in the advocating and building that agenda. Dispensing with the exclusionary secularity of laïcité and Judeo-Christian secularism is clearly important for religious freedom, but on the other hand it is also likely critical for politics more generally. My argument has been that no indigenous rights regime can be sustained apart from the active support of a renewed political-theological hermeneutic, which connects political legitimacy to the meanings and relationship between the religious and the secular. This is not merely work for human rights activists, but this is itself the work of politics. In many ways, the most exciting and promising work that the Offices of Religious Freedom can do is to not only politically and legally advocate religious freedom, but to promote religious literacy and engagement in foreign affairs generally (what Geoffrey Cameron described as the potential for a norm cascade within the Department). How can religious freedom move beyond rights and into a sustained and serious expertise on religion in global affairs at the disposal of diplomacy, defense, and development (the “3 D’s”)? This is neither easy nor straightforward.35 The American and Canadians examples here are instructive. The United States has made modest gains worth imitating in incorporating religion into its foreign policy process. Since June 2011, the Foreign Service Institute has held three sessions of a four-day Religion and Foreign Policy course, an expansion from a prior three-day course. The course has now graduated almost 100 Foreign Service, civil service, and locally employed staff. Religious freedom and religious engagement have been integrated into the Promoting Human Rights, Democracy, and Labor course. The Department of State hosted a senior interagency policy seminar on religious engagement in March 2011, launched a seminar series on religion and foreign policy in October 2012, and regularly incorporates religious freedom and human rights promotion into training in area studies for new Foreign Service Officers and Ambassadors.36 The incorporation of such a list of training opportunities for the Canadian Foreign Service, or its diplomatic and defense staff, would be an extraordinary gain. However, Canada lacks America’s more comfortable civil-religious culture, making religious freedom and religious literacy in diplomacy a harder sell. In this, America has had a distinct advantage over the more secular political cultures of the north Atlantic, like Canada, England, and France. America’s frank politicaltheological language, while deeply unnerving outside America and bordering on civil religion within, nonetheless gives it the tools to get “deep into religion’s guts,” as Thomas Farr has said.37

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The comparative advantage in Canada is therefore the reverse. Absent a strong Judeo-Christian civil religious establishment, Canadian models and advocacy of religious freedom can be promoted, not coloured by the so-far American-led movement on religious freedom. Indeed, such critics as exist of religious freedom coming to Canada, including the Globe and Mail’s Doug Saunders and noted international theorist Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, are critical on fears of religious freedom becoming an “American style” repressive or “hegemonic” discourse. And while the conflation of American and Canadian political-religious discourse is a mistake, the structure of this resistance is instructive. Laïcité is alive and well in Canada, and so then is its often-reactionary response to anything appearing as American civil religion. So, if the American religious freedom agenda was assailed as missiological, evangelical, or an unnatural comingling of church and state, the new Canadian Office was only more so. The Canadian Office emerged in a context that ironically had no constitutional separation of church and state, but nonetheless had a very powerful cultural secularism, not least in its political and media elites. Moreover, if religion in general is a phobia for many Canadians, American religion is especially terrifying. The construction of the Canadian Office around an ambassador, like the American Office, and the wide-scale consultation of “religious people” were significant public relations stumbling blocks that tripped up the Office. While learning from the American experience countries like Canada also need to be very serious about distinguishing themselves from American-style diplomacy and religion. The same will be true in many other states around the world. Yet in that distinguishing, religious freedom advocates must also find ways to make the issue of political theology, and religious literacy generally, one which merits serious attention in foreign affairs. Lessons from the American context suggest that any new efforts will need to be slow and strategic. Much will depend on relationship building between advocates and mainstream departments. Existing sources of expertise must not be lost or marginalized, but they can and should be supplemented. Advocates for religious freedom can also take a page from the Canadian playbook by not replicating the efforts or experiences of larger Offices, like the Americans. International data on religious freedom is now available in a way in which it wasn’t when the American office came online in 1998, so Canada and like-minded states can focus their attention more distinctively, as to illustrate their independent agenda. That flexibility should inspire advocates to spend more time listening and learning to the particularities of their system, promoting religious freedom where possible, and serving at the disposal of already ongoing projects. The surest way for religious freedom to be lost in political obscurity in many departments around the world is to quickly align with the American Office. Foreign impositions and legal-political negotiation can, to paraphrase Chris Seiple, get people out of jail, but it is rarely the long-term catalyst that transforms a society so that people never go to jail in the first place. The most important retrospective lesson the American Office can pass on is how important – and difficult – sustained, long-term relationship building with Foreign

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Service, development, and defense staff is for the integration of religion into the foreign policy framework. If countries like Canada are to avoid a lost decade, like the Americans, of troubleshooting religious freedom policy, its advocates need to build the confidence of the bureaucracy and foreign service, find strategic partnerships on ongoing projects with which to supplement religious literacy and training, and principally allay concerns of laicist and Judeo-Christian advocates alike that such training and integration with foreign affairs is essential to practical policy making in twenty-first-century foreign policy. This is work not only for an Office, but also for academics and policy makers who take religious freedom and political theology seriously. A great deal remains to be done on the issue of integrating political theology and principled pluralism with foreign policy more generally, not just religious freedom advocacy.

Conclusion The debate over the Canadian and American Offices of Religious Freedom is just one instance of ‘the religious problem,’ namely the rival versions of the religious and the secular which often persist, undisclosed, in political debate. It is, therefore, only one example that should point us beyond religious freedom policy toward a much broader and more general agenda on religion and international relations. In this respect, I have proposed a specific approach to religious freedom, principled pluralism, as constructively clarifying the problem, but I have also suggested that several avenues of further research remain to be developed. The political theological claims of those like William Cavanaugh, Paul Kahn, and the international theorists who interact with them, are extremely controversial for those who believe the systems and structures of liberal democracy can and will be exported to a world lying in wait of self-realization and governance. The idea that, for example, the social forms of the modern moral order are not only derivative of certain shifts in the meaning and relationship between the religious and the secular, but also that the modern social imaginary is itself a profound, and rival, political-theological order is a major intervention that deserves closer attention. This was not the place for that attention, but those like Scott Thomas, Jodok Troy, and Mariano Barbato are already creating and defining that space. The further work of building on a theoretical tradition, like the classical English School, which takes the claims of political theology seriously is also an enormous area of research which may bring “the religious problem” into sharper focus for the discipline of international relations itself. Those like Jodok Troy and Charles Jones, who believe that a reengagement with this early tradition may revitalize international theory on its basic questions, on the first-image as Waltz puts it, may be on the cusp of recovering, from within the discipline, understandings of the global resurgence of religion that are urgently needed. The classical English School, those like Wight, Carr, Butterfield and others, with their frank engagements with international history, theology, philosophy, and more may also serve as lost models for the new push toward interdisciplinary studies. In this way, the religious problem brings into focus why political theology matters today.

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Finally, the policy problem of religious freedom is indicative of more than simply rival versions of the religious and the secular in religious freedom but also in politics generally. Religious freedom is a natural and strategic point to engage this conversation on the meaning and relationship between the religious and the secular and how it relates to political legitimacy, but my argument suggests that those meanings – the work of political theology – is probably not restricted to only religious freedom. There is a public policy project that also emerges here, asking how, and in what ways, political theology and principled pluralism can practically clarify and improve not only religious freedom in American and Canadian foreign policy, but the range of political work. How and why the religious and the secular relate to political legitimacy matters not only for rights enforcement, but also for diplomacy, economic and trade agreements, and development work. The religious problem, in short, is not contained to religious freedom, even if that has been the focus of this little book. New approaches, like political theology and principled pluralism, can and should become a part of the diplomatic toolbox of developed states like Canada and America. Then, as Alasdair Macintyre says, we may not finally agree, but we may at least render our disagreements more constructive.

Notes 1 Martin Wight, “Christian Commentary,” talk on the BBC Home Service, October 29, 1948. 2 Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 8. 3 William T. Cavanaugh, Theopolitical Imagination (London: T&T Clark, 2002); The Myth of Religious Violence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); and Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011). 4 Paul W. Kahn, Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). 5 William Cavanaugh, Theopolitical Imagination (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2002), 1. 6 David T. Koyzis, Political Visions & Illusions (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 27. 7 Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence, 162. 8 Ibid., 121. 9 Ibid., 122. 10 Eric Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 12. 11 William T. Cavanaugh, “Killing for the Telephone Company: Why the Nation-State Is Not the Keeper of the Common Good,” in Migrations of the Holy, 7–45. 12 O’Donovan, “Response to Jonathan Chaplin,” in Craig Bartholomew, Jonathan Chaplin, Robert, Song, Al Wolters (Eds), A Royal Priesthood: The Use of the Bible Ethically and Politically (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), 313. 13 See Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence. 14 William T. Cavanaugh, “God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics,” Politics, Religion & Ideology 13, no. 3 (2012), 398–399. 15 Kahn, Political Theology, 7. 16 Ibid., 12.

Conclusion 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

33 34 35 36

37

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Ibid., 17. Ibid., 18. Ibid. Ibid., 23. Ibid., 26. Ibid., 10. Ibid., 119. Jodok Troy, Religion and the Realist Tradition (London: Routledge, 2013), 7. Ibid., 8. Ibid., 9. Ibid., 10. Martin Wight, “Why Is There No International Theory?,” in Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics, ed. Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight (London: Allen & Unwin, 1966), 20. Ibid., 31. Robert Wuthnow, “Understanding Religion and Politics,” Daedalus 120, no. 3 (Summer 1991), 11. Scott M. Thomas, “Faith, History and Martin Wight: The Role of Religion in the Historical Sociology of the English School of International Relations,” International Affairs 77, no. 4 (2001), 905. Wight argues, “The historian’s fundament beliefs about politics and man are necessarily implicit in his discussion of what he calls the historical facts, and these beliefs give colour and texture to his picture of history,” and “The best historical writing is that which is impregnated with the deepest reflections of the culture within which it is written.” Martin Wight, “What Makes a Good Historian?,” Listener, February 17, 1955, 283–284. Thomas, “Faith, History and Martin Wight,” 925. Troy, Religion and the Realist Tradition, 96. Sections of this argument were published in Robert Joustra, “Religious Freedom Beyond Rights: Retrospective Lessons for Canada from America’s Office of Religious Freedom,” Review of Faith & International Affairs 11, no. 1 (Spring 2013), 87–89. For more detail on the American retrospective, see Thomas F. Farr and Dennis R. Hoover, The Future of U.S. International Religious Freedom Policy: Recommendations for the Obama Administration (Washington: The Center of Faith & International Affairs and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs, 2009) and the special issue of Review of Faith & International Affairs in Spring 2013, “Religious Freedom in the Study and Practice of US Foreign Policy.” Thomas Farr, World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty Is Vital to American National Security (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 44.

References

Appendix A: Select American Sources on Freedom from Persecution Act, International Religious Freedom Act, and Office of Religious Freedom (August 1997–2013) Aamer, Madhani. “Obama Blasted on Religious Freedom.” USA Today, April 29, 2010. Berger, Samuel. “Wrong Approach to Religious Freedom.” Washington Post, May 14, 1998. Carter, Tom. “White House Urges Defeat of Bill for Religious Freedom.” Washington Times, September 10, 1997. Cohen, Eliot. “What’s Different about the Obama Foreign Policy?” Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2009. Connoly, Ceci. “Religious Persecution Issue Tops Christian Coalition List.” Washington Post, August 26, 1997. Dionne, E. J., Jr. “A Shift Looms: The President Sees Consensus, While Religious Leaders Disagree about the Church-State Divide.” Washington Post, October 3, 1999. Farr, Thomas F. “How Obama Is Sidelining Religious Freedom.” Washington Post, June 25, 2010. Feldman, Noah. “The God Factor.” Washington Post, May 14, 2006. George, Robert P. and Katrina Lantos Swett. “Religion’s Rogue States.” Washington Post, August 22, 2013. ———. “Religious Freedom Is about More Than Religion: U.S. Foreign Policy Should Promote Liberty of Belief and Unbelief.” Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2013. Goldberg, Jeffrey. “Washington Discovers Christian Persecution.” New York Times, December 21, 1997. Green, Joshua. “God’s Foreign Policy: Why the Biggest Threat to Bush’s War Strategy Isn’t Coming from Muslims, But from Christians.” Washington Monthly, November 2001. Gunn, Jeremy. “Religion after 9–11: When Our Allies Persecute.” Religion in the News (Fall 2001), www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/RINVol4No3/religious%20persecution.htm. Henninger, Daniel. “The Great Human-Rights Reversal.” Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2012. Hoagland, Jim. “Faith-Based Politics.” Washington Post, November 24, 2005. ———. “Melding Faith & Tolerance.” Washington Post, July 2, 2006. Holt, Pat M. “Good Cause, Bad Legislation.” Christian Science Monitor, December 2, 1998. ———. “Religious Persecution in the Global Balance.” Christian Science Monitor, October 2, 1997.

References 137 Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. “The Bogus Gospel of Free Trade and Free Religion.” Al Jazeera America, May 20, 2014. ———. “International Religious Freedom Agenda Will Only Embolden ISIS.” Religion Dispatches, November 10, 2014. The Immanent Frame, “Engaging Religion at the Department of State.” July 30, 2013. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2013/07/30/engaging-religion-at-the-department-of-state/. Accessed December 7, 2016. LaFranchi, Howard. “Evangelized Foreign Policy?” Christian Science Monitor, March 2, 2006. Lampman, Jane. “In the Diplomatic Hot Seat: Religion.” Christian Science Monitor, April 8, 1999. ———. “New Scrutiny of Role of Religion in Bush’s Policies.” Christian Science Monitor, March 17, 2003. ———. “U.S. Religious Freedom Is Being Eroded, Advocates Say.” Christian Science Monitor, January 16, 2006. Lancaster, John. “State’s Witness for the Persecution.” Washington Post, November 30, 1999. Lee, Jessica. “Religious-Right Leader Sets Foreign Policy Goals.” USA Today, April 14, 1998. Leonard, Mary. “Faith, Hope, But First, Policy.” Boston Globe, October 26, 1997. Lewis, Anthony. “Abroad at Home: The Wrong Signal.” New York Times, September 12, 1997. Love, Maryann Cusimano. “The God Squad.” Arc of the Universe, March 5, 2015. http:// arcoftheuniverse.info/the-god-squad. Accessed August 3, 2015. Mufson, Steven. “Foreign Policy’s ‘Pivotal Moment’: From Chechnya to China, U.S. Sees Relations in a New Light.” Washington Post, September 27, 2001. Newsom, David D. “Religion & Foreign Affairs.” Christian Science Monitor, May 26, 1999. Nickles, Don. “Religious Freedom: The Often Forgotten Right.” Christian Science Monitor, May 12, 1998. Preston, Andrew. “The Un-Tradition.” Boston Globe, July 1, 2012. Rodriguez, Gregory. “Keeping the Faith, Globally.” Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2006. Rosenthal, Abraham M. “Freedom from Religious Persecution: The Struggle Continues.” New York Times, August 7, 1998. ———. “On My Mind: The Right Message.” New York Times, September 16, 1997. ———. “On My Mind: They Will Find Out.” New York Times, October 2, 1998. Schmitt, Eric. “Bill to Punish Nations Limiting Religious Beliefs Passes Senate.” New York Times, October 10, 1998. Seiple, Robert A. “The Privilege of Power.” Christian Science Monitor, March 11, 2003. ———. “The World’s Predominant Faiths Should Protect Religious Freedom for All.” Christian Science Monitor, June 21, 2007. Stammer, Larry B. “Religion: An Envoy for All Faiths.” Los Angeles Times, June 12, 1999. Steinfels, Peter. “Evangelicals Ask Government to Fight Persecution of Christians.” New York Times, January 23, 1996. ———. “Madeleine Albright, Would-Be Priest Turned Secretary of State, Takes Up Religion’s Role in Policy.” New York Times, May 6, 2005. Swett, Katrina Lantos. “Honor U.S. Values and Interests: Back Religious Freedom Abroad.” Washington Post, May 14, 2013.

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References

Waldman, Peter. “Power and Peril: America’s Supremacy and Its Limits.” Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2004. Wan, William. “Clinton Speaks against Anti-Defamation Laws.” Washington Post, October 27, 2009. Washington Post, Editorial. “Freedom of Religions.” September 11, 1997. Washington Times, Editorial. “Not by Trade Alone.” September 29, 1997. Waters, David. “ ‘God Gap’ Impedes U.S. Foreign Policy, Study Says.” Washington Post, February 24, 2010. White, Gayle. “Albright: God Has a Role in Foreign Affairs.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 6, 2005. Witham, Larry. “Churches Spar over Sanction Bills.” Washington Times, May 16, 1998.

Appendix B:Select Canadian Sources on the Office of Religious Freedom (March 2, 2011 to August 2016) Globe and Mail Blanchfield, Mike. “Baird Defends Office of Religious Freedom from Skeptics.” Globe and Mail, January 2, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/baird-defends-officeof-religious-freedom-from-skeptics/article1357485/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Caplan, Gerald. “It’s Already a Happy New Year for Religious Extremists.” Globe and Mail, January 6, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/its-already-ahappy-new-year-for-religious-extremists/article554281/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Chase, Steven. “Conservatives Laying Groundwork for Office of Religious Freedom.” Globe and Mail, January 1, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/conservatives-layinggroundwork-for-office-of-religious-freedom/article1357558/. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “Harper Pledges to Create Watchdog Office for Global Religious Freedom.” Globe and Mail, April 23, 2011. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/ harper-pledges-to-create-watchdog-office-for-global-religious-freedom/article617925/. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “Ottawa Struggles to Fill Religious-Persecution Post.” Globe and Mail, November 24, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-struggles-to-fill-religiouspersecution-post/article5632173/. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “Ottawa Weighs Creating Ambassador for Religious Freedom.” Globe and Mail, October 4, 2011. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-weighs-creatingambassador-for-religious-freedom/article555724/. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “Religious-Freedom Envoy to Ensure That ‘Canada Will Not Be Silent,’ PM Says.” Globe and Mail, February 19, 2013. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/religiousfreedom-envoy-to-ensure-that-canada-will-not-be-silent-pm-says/article8806344/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Clark, Campbell. “Canada Had Lost Sight of Religious Freedom as Human Right, Baird Says.” Globe and Mail, May 24, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ canada-had-lost-sight-of-religious-freedom-as-human-right-baird-says/article4210588/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Desai, Neil and Charles Burton. “Promoting Pluralism Abroad Must Be a Foreign Policy Pillar.” Globe and Mail, April 13, 2011. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/ promoting-pluralism-abroad-must-be-a-foreign-policy-pillar/article576133/. Accessed March 1, 2013.

References 139 Globe and Mail, Editorial. “This Niche Election Promise Is a Very Good Idea.” April 10, 2011. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/editorials/this-niche-election-promiseis-a-very-good-idea/article575880/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. “The Hegemony of Religious Freedom.” Globe and Mail, October 17, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/the-hegemony-of-religiousfreedom/article4617004/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Ibbitson, John. “Religious-Freedom Office Shows Lack of Conservative Hidden Agenda.” Globe and Mail, February 19, 2013. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawanotebook/religious-freedom-office-shows-lack-of-conservative-hidden-agenda/ article8822804/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Joustra, Robert. “Beware the Secular Atheocracy.” Globe and Mail, February 22, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/beware-the-secular-atheocracy/article547863/. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “Quebec’s Charter Plan Is Not about Symbols: It Threatens Religion Itself.” Globe and Mail, August 22, 2013. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/quebecs-charterplan-is-not-about-symbols-it-threatens-religion-itself/article13913908/#dashboard/ follows/. Accessed August 23, 2013. ———. “Where’s Our Ambassador for Religious Freedom?” Globe and Mail, September 4, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/wheres-our-ambassador-for-religiousfreedom/article4543882/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Khan, Sheema. “Who Monitors Our New Religious Freedom Monitor?” Globe and Mail, June 8, 2011. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/who-monitors-our-newreligious-freedom-monitor/article582520/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Malloy, Jonathan. “Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tory Evangelical Factor.” Globe and Mail, April 13, 2011. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/hidden-in-plain-sight-the-toryevangelical-factor/article576262/. Accessed March 1, 2013. McKenna, Barrie. “Key Immigration Role Urged for New Religious-Freedom Ambassador.” Globe and Mail, February 18, 2013. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/keyimmigration-role-urged-for-new-religious-freedom-ambassador/article8793685/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Pennings, Ray. “Religious Faith Is the Civic Oxygen of Our Social Ecology.” Globe and Mail, June 2, 2010. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/religious-faith-is-the-civicoxygen-of-our-social-ecology/article1371878/. Accessed February 26, 2013. Saunders, Doug. “The Problem in Public Life Isn’t Islam, But Religion Itself.” Globe and Mail, February 18, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/doug-saunders/theproblem-in-public-life-isnt-islam-but-religion-itself/article2342413/. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “‘Religious Freedom’ Sends the Wrong Message to the Wrong People.” Globe and Mail, October 6, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/doug-saundersreligious-freedom-sends-the-wrong-message-to-the-wrong-people/article4591927/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Saunders, Doug and Margaret Wente. “We Need More, Not Less, about Religious Freedom.” Globe and Mail, January 7, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/weneed-more-not-less-about-religious-freedom/article1357647/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Studin, Irvin. “Canada Needs a Foreign Affairs Culture.” Globe and Mail, January 4, 2012. www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/canada-needs-a-foreign-affairs-culture/ article1357484/. Accessed March 1, 2013.

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References

Zilio, Michelle. “Liberals to Close Office of Religious Freedom, Dion Says.” Globe and Mail, March 29 2016. www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/liberals-to-let-religiousfreedom-office-expire-on-march-31/article29416476/. Accessed August 17, 2016.

National Post Baird, John. “Religious Freedom Is Fundamental to Battle for Human Rights.” , May 25, 2012. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/05/25/john-baird-religious-freedom-isfundamental-to-battle-for-human-rights/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Bennett, Andrew. “Canada Raises Its Voice in Defence of Middle East Christians.” National Post, August 22, 2014. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/08/22/andrew-bennettcanada-raises-its-voice-in-defence-of-middle-east-christians/. Accessed August 22, 2014. Cameron, Geoffrey. “The Urgency and Value of Religious Freedom.” National Post, January 2, 2012. http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/01/02/the-urgency-and-value-of-religiousfreedom/. Accessed March 1, 2013. De Souza, Father Raymond J. “Canada Must Not Be Silent on China’s Attack on Catholic Clergy.” National Post, July 14, 2011. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/07/14/ father-raymond-j-de-souza-canada-must-not-be-silent-on-chinas-attack-on-catholicclergy/. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “Egypt’s War on Christians.” National Post, October 13, 2011. http://fullcomment. nationalpost.com/2011/10/13/father-raymond-j-de-souza-egypt%E2%80%99s-war-onchristians/. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “Foreign Affairs Needs to Get Religion.” National Post, April 28, 2011. http:// fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/04/28/father-raymond-j-de-souza-foreign-affairsneeds-to-get-religion/. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “A Religious Canada, Strong and Free.” National Post, February 21, 2013. http:// fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/02/21/father-raymond-j-de-souza-a-religiouscanada-strong-and-free/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Hutchinson, Don. “I Admit It: I Was a Panelist at the Consultations for New Office of Religious Freedom.” National Post , December 12, 2011. http://life.nationalpost. com/2011/12/12/i-admit-it-i-was-a-panelist-at-the-consultations-for-new-office-ofreligious-freedom/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Levitz, Stephanie. “Federal Religious Freedoms Office Was Tainted by Perception of Political Interference: Review.” National Post, August 10, 2016. http://news.nationalpost. com/news/religion/federal-religious-freedoms-office-was-tainted-by-perceivedpolitical-interference-review. Accessed August 17, 2016. Lewis, Charles. “Experts Weigh in Role of Canada’s Proposed Religious Freedom Office.” National Post, October 21, 2011. http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/10/21/expertsquestion-the-role-of-canadas-proposed-religious-office/. Accessed March 1, 2013. McParland, Kelly. “Canadian Voters Are the Real Target of Stephen Harper’s New Religion Office.” National Post , February 20, 2013. http://fullcomment.nationalpost. com/2013/02/20/kelly-mcparland-canadian-voters-are-the-real-target-of-stephen-harpersnew-religion-office/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Selley, Chris. “Promoting Religious Freedom Is Tricky Politics.” National Post, February 20, 2013. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/02/20/full-pundit-promotingreligious-freedom-is-tricky-politics/. Accessed March 1, 2013. Silva, Mario. “Office of Religious Freedom a Matter of Life and Death.” National Post, July 6, 2011. http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/07/06/office-of-religious-freedom-amatter-of-life-and-deat/. Accessed March 1, 2013.

References 141 Toronto Star Brender, Natalie. “A Headhunter’s Nightmare at Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom.” Toronto Star, February 18, 2013. www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2013/02/18/a_ headhunters_nightmare_at_canadas_office_of_religious_freedom.html. Accessed March 1, 2013. Burman, Tony. “Why Faith and Politics Are a Toxic Brew.” Toronto Star, February 25, 2012. www.thestar.com/news/world/2012/02/25/burman_why_faith_and_politics_ are_a_toxic_brew.html. Accessed March 1, 2013. Siddiqui, Haroon. “Harper’s Very Political Religion.” Toronto Star, January 28, 2012. www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2012/01/28/harpers_very_political_religion. html. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “Prime Minister Harper’s Foreign Policy Hobbled by Ideology.” Toronto Star, October 13, 2012. www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2012/10/13/prime_ minister_harpers_foreign_policy_hobbled_by_ideology.html. Accessed March 1, 2013. Tapper, Josh. “Does the Office of Religious Freedom Have Any Teeth?” Toronto Star, January 20, 2012. www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/01/20/does_the_office_of_religious_ freedom_have_any_teeth.html. Accessed March 1, 2013. Toronto Star, Editorial. “Ottawa Doesn’t Need an Office of Religious Freedom.” March 28, 2016. www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2016/03/28/ottawa-doesnt-need-an-office-ofreligious-freedom-editorial.html. Accessed August 17, 2016.

CBC News CBC News. “4 Questions about Canada’s New Office of Religious Freedom.” February 20, 2013. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/02/19/f-religious-freedom-office.html. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “Christian College Dean to Head Religious Freedom Office.” February 19, 2013. www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/02/19/pol-ambassdor-office-religious-freedomannounced.html. Accessed March 1, 2013. Elliott, Louise. “Memos Anticipate Religious Freedom Office Sensitivities.” CBC News, December 3, 2011. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/12/03/pol-office-religiousfreedom.html. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “Religious Freedoms Panel Drawn Largely from Western Religions.” December 7, 2011. www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/12/07/pol-religious-freedoms-panel.html. Accessed March 1, 2013. Embassy Bedrossian, Taline. “Religious Freedom Has ‘Trickle Down Effect’ on Rights: Tory MP.” Embassy, April 11, 2012. www.embassynews.ca/news/2012/04/11/religious-freedomhas-trickle-down-effect-on-rights-tory-mp/41460. Accessed March 1, 2013. Cameron, Geoffrey. “Religious Freedom Is a Human Right, Not a Hegemonic Project.” Embassy, October 17, 2012. www.embassynews.ca/opinion/2012/10/16/religiousfreedom-is-a-human-right-not-a-hegemonic-project/42641. Accessed March 1, 2013. Duggal, Sneh. “Ministers Meeting Local, Global Religious Leaders on New Office.” Embassy, September 21, 2011. www.embassynews.ca/news/2011/09/21/ministersmeeting-local-global-religious-leaders-on-new-office/40772. Accessed March 1, 2013. ———. “Religious Freedom Chief Handed Tough Gig.” Embassy, February 20, 2013. www.embassynews.ca/news/2013/02/19/religious-freedom-chief-handed-toughgig/43325. Accessed March 1, 2013.

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Index

Abdul Rahman, trial of 34, 100n21; Constitution of 92 Agamben, Giorgio 70 Albright, Madeleine 13–14, 18, 25n6, 40 America see United States of America American experiment 12, 40 American Office of Religious Freedom 1–2, 11–12, 20–1, 24, 79, 110, 119, 124, 131–3 Aquinas, Thomas 50–1, 65n19, 65n22, 65n25, 101; Summa Theologiae 50, 65n19, 65n22, 65n25, 101 Arendt, Hannah 70 Aristotle 51, 65n20, 101; Aristotelian logic 81; Ethics 51, 101; virtues 101 Arminian controversy 53 Asad, Talal 22, 56, 62, 65n23, 66n48, 67n55 Augustine 49–50, 53, 65n12, 101; City of God 49–50, 65n12, 101 Baha’i Community of Canada 40, 111 Baha’is 14–15, 36, 45n41, 108 Bhatti, Shahbaz 3–4, 7, 28, 30–1, 33, 42n2 blasphemy and apostasy 31, 111; culture of 31; laws 30–1, 111; punishments for 111 Bouchard, Gérard 30, 43n10 British Committee on the Theory of International Politics 130 Bush, George 18–19, 58; Freedom Agenda of 20; presidency of 19 Bush administration 19 Butterfield, Herbert 82, 124, 130, 133 Calvin, John 52–3, 65n30, 66n31, 107; Institutes of the Christian Religion 52, 66n31 Calvinism 51–2; election 52; neo- 91; predestination 52; saving knowledge 52

Cameron, David 93 Canada 1, 3–5, 8, 28–31, 33, 35–8, 40–2, 48–9, 56–8, 60, 88–9, 92–5, 97–8, 102, 104, 108–9, 112, 114, 116–17, 119, 124–5, 131–4; Canadian Foreign Service 131; Charter of 29–30, 35, 41, 43nn8–9, 103; Confederation 29; Constitution of 35, 37, 43n8; Department of Foreign Affairs 40; English/Protestant tradition 29, 37–8, 55; Family Day 104; foreign affairs 32, 35, 116–17; foreign policy 32, 116, 134; French and English compact 88; French/Catholic tradition 29, 37–8, 55; government of 35, 37, 112; International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development 30, 39; legal holidays in 97, 108; Lord’s Day Act 97; Loyola High School case 30; Ontario Human Rights Commission v. Christian Horizons 30; Ottawa 30, 40, 42, 119; Parliament 3, 38–9 Canadian Conservative party 37; Conservatives 3, 39 CBC 34–5, 40, 42n2, 44n36, 125; News 35 Charter of Quebec Values 1, 5, 79, 103 China 14–15, 19, 55; human rights record 15; President Jiang Zemin 15 Christ see Jesus Christ Christendom 50–1, 56, 73, 96; Latin 56; medieval 50, 54 Christian Realists (soft realists) 82, 124, 130 Clinton administration 13–14 constructive disagreement 5, 83, 123 constructivism 130; social 74 Coptic Christians 33, 39 cosmopolitanism 94, 98, 110, 120 Crusades 51 Culture Wars 1, 17, 22

Index

161

democratic inclusion 87, 104 democracy 12, 14–16, 19–20, 30, 33, 38–9, 49, 57, 63, 82, 88; argumentative 99n5, 121n32; Christian social 95; export of 92; Islamic 105; see also liberal democracy dialogical political theology 103–6, 109, 113–14, 117, 120 diversity 7, 49, 62, 86–7, 91, 96; deep 1, 83, 86, 91, 95–6, 102, 106, 108; directional 99n5; see also pluralism diversity state 91–2, 94–7, 101–7, 109–11, 113–14, 116, 119–20

Institute for Global Engagement 9n5, 98, 110 International Coalition for Religious Freedom 15 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 16; Article 18 of 16 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998 1–2, 11–12, 14, 16–19, 24, 41–2 international theory 8, 69–70, 72, 74–5, 77, 80, 124, 128–30, 133 IRF lobby 22

empathy 105–9, 113 English School 124, 129–30, 133 essentially contested concepts 6, 49, 63–4, 86; religion as 63–4, 81, 83; the religious as 78, 80; the secular as 78, 80 evangelicals 15, 18, 39 exclusivism 86, 95, 104

Judeo-Christian secularism 6, 15–17, 19, 28, 33–4, 37–8, 42, 58–60, 71, 75, 78, 81–3, 87–90, 93, 95, 104, 109, 113, 120, 131; in Canada 38, 58, 60, 88; exclusive 59, 89, 95, 113, 123, 131; inclusive 37, 41, 59, 89; secularists 28–9, 45n41, 58–9, 83, 95 Judeo-Christian tradition 8, 16–17, 19, 38, 40, 42, 59–60, 83, 88–9

Foreign Service Institute 131 freedom: of association 43n8, 93, 96–7, 124; of belief 2, 8, 32, 42, 43n8, 57, 92–3, 96, 98, 102, 104, 110–11, 114, 116–19, 124; of peaceful assembly 43n8; of the press 43n8, 124; from religion 33–4, 38, 57, 91–2; of religion 2, 8, 14, 18, 21, 32, 34, 38, 42, 43n8, 57, 91–3, 96–8, 102, 104, 110–11, 113–14, 116–19, 124 Gallie, Walter Bryce 63–4 Global Affairs Canada 28, 41, 43nn20–1, 44nn22–4, 112, 121n33, 121nn37–8, 121n41, 122nn44–5, 122n46, 122nn48–9 Global Peace Initiative 40 Grotius, Hugo 53–4; De Veritate Religionis Christianae 53 Harper, Stephen 3, 9n9, 31, 39, 41, 43n19, 116 Harper government 42 human rights 9n17, 11, 14–15, 17, 22, 39, 42, 62, 83, 94, 98, 110, 112–13, 118, 124, 131; activists 131; in China 15; see also Human Rights Watch; Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) imperial Rome 49; Julius Caesar 49; Pontifex Maximum 65n6 “implicit faith,” doctrine of 52

Kant, Immanuel 56; Kantian(s) 93, 106 Kuyper, Abraham 101, 120n1 laïcité 17, 19–20, 28–9, 33, 35–7, 41–2, 45n41, 55–8, 71, 75, 78–9, 81–2, 87–91, 93, 95, 104, 109, 120, 123, 131; in Canada 28–9, 132; exclusive 95, 113, 131; fermée 6, 20, 57–8, 91; from laïcisme 55; ouverte 6, 20, 57–8; soft 17, 20 liberal democracy 20, 62, 83, 91, 99n5, 124, 133; state 98; values of 62, 91 liberalism 23, 61, 73, 81; muscular 93; secular 55 Maritain, Jacques 89–90, 96, 99n9, 123 Morgenthau, Hans 70 multiculturalism 1, 29, 38, 93 National Association of Evangelicals 14, 18 National Council of Churches 15 Niebuhr, Reinhold 82, 124 Obama, Barack 3, 9n7, 20–1, 24; presidency of 20–1, 24; as senator 20; White House Summit to Counter Violent Extremism 3 Obama administration 20

162

Index

Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) 118 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) 118 pluralism 7, 32, 35, 55, 83, 91, 93–4, 96, 101–3, 107–8, 112, 116–17; anti- 96; Canadian values of 116; cultural 91–4, 96–8, 114, 116, 120; directional 91–4, 96–8; drive-by 107, 113; interactive 99n5; Islamic 105; limits of 97, 114; practiced 101; procedural 87, 94, 97, 103, 109, 114; public 88; religious 54; structural 91–4, 96–8, 99n16; and tradition and history 96–7; see also principled pluralism plurality see pluralism political culture 7, 29, 31, 97, 115; American 39; Canadian 37, 39; Christian 56; Judeo-Christian 37; secular 131 political humility 102–3, 105, 109–11 political legitimacy 6, 60, 75, 77–83, 86–7, 89, 95, 124–5, 128–9, 131, 134 political secularism 22–3, 60–1, 88 political theology 2, 5–6, 8, 12, 20, 42, 64, 69–83, 86–9, 98, 102–5, 109–13, 115, 123–5, 127–9, 132–4; definition 2, 6, 71, 77, 80–1, 83; and Varro 70; see also dialogical political theology; Schmitt, Carl principled pluralism 6–8, 33, 45n41, 86–7, 89–99, 101–20, 124, 133–4; definition 7, 87; limits of 87, 91, 93–7; practices of 101–9, 120n4; as process 87, 92–3, 95, 98, 101–2, 105, 114; and “reasonable accommodation” 97; roots of 95; virtues of 101, 116; see also constitutive virtues; dialogical political theology; empathy; political humility; proselytization of public principles; reasonable accommodation; receptivity and cooperation, practice of proselytization of public principles 103–4, 109, 111–14, 116, 119 public habits 101, 104 public principles 7–8, 32, 87, 92–4, 96–8, 100n23, 101, 103–9, 116 Quebec 1, 5, 29–30, 56, 79, 88, 97, 103; Bouchard-Taylor Commission 30; Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences 30; Montreal 97; “Quiet Revolution” (Révolution

tranquille) 29, 37, 56; secularism in 30; see also Charter of Quebec Values reasonable accommodation 97, 108–9, 114, 116, 120 religio 49–53, 65n19; Christian 50 religious freedom industry 21–3, 61 religious freedom wars 1–2, 80, 123 religious intolerance 32, 99n8, 116 religious literacy 124, 131–3 rule of law 30, 33, 112 secularism 18, 29, 38, 40, 55–7, 59–60, 74, 83, 86, 88, 90–1, 98; in Canada 29–30, 88; civil religious 109–10; concept of 30; cultural 132; democratic 89; forms of 66n48; Judeo-Christian trajectory 55, 59; laicist trajectory 55; as multiculturalism 38; procedural 99n5; trajectories of 55; Western 21, 60; see also Judeo-Christian secularism; laïcité; political secularism secularity 13, 20, 22, 38, 57, 61, 70–1, 87, 89; exclusionary 131 secularization 29, 43n9, 51, 63, 70, 72–3, 76, 79, 87, 128; debate 76; globalization of 63 secular humanism 15 secular modernity 69, 73 secular state 61–2, 73, 91, 126, 128 separation of church and state 14–15, 29, 91–2, 127, 132; as operative mode 91; principle of 36, 59 social imaginary(ies): modern 62, 70, 81–2, 130, 133; nonmodern 71, 128 soft realists see Christian Realists sovereignty 22, 52, 54, 61, 69, 85n47; of God 53; see also state sovereignty State Department see U.S. Department of State state sovereignty 55; principle of 23, 61 theocracy 65, 73, 81–2, 113 tolerance 3, 32, 56, 88, 116–17; religious 32, 119; see also religious intolerance Track 1 Diplomacy 114–15 Track 1.5 Diplomacy 7–8, 101–2, 110–16, 119–20, 131 Track 2 Diplomacy 114–15 United States of America 1–5, 8, 12–15, 17–18, 24, 29, 33, 35–6, 40, 48–9, 57–60, 79, 88–9, 92–5, 97–8, 108–10, 114, 126, 131–4; Bill of Rights 41;

Index First Amendment 15; government 2; legal holidays in 97, 108; Puritan mythology of 37; see also American Office of Religious Freedom; International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998; U.S. Congress; U.S. Department of State; U.S. foreign policy Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), The 9n17, 16, 98, 123; Article 18 of 9n17, 16 U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 12, 16, 21, 119; Katrina Lantos-Swett 119; Leonard Leo 21 U.S. Congress 24; hearings 14; House of Representatives 16; Senate 16

163

U.S. Department of State 3, 15–17, 39, 131; Office of Faith-based Community Initiatives 3; Office of International Religious Freedom 1–2, 4, 16–17, 39–40; Office of Religion and Global Affairs 2, 4, 23 veil, practice of the 35, 44n36, 51, 78 virtues 60, 65n19, 83, 94–5, 98, 101–10, 114–15, 120; Aristotelian 101; of Christian Gospel 17; definition 101; language of 99n18, 100n23; of liberal democracy 99n5; political 88, 103; of principled pluralism 116; of procedural pluralism 87, 94, 96–7; social 88; theological 123; vs. values 101; see also constitutive virtues