How religious liberty works

Complaints of persecution by the semi-fascist secular state must be rejected as historically ignorant (or dishonest) alarmism

- Theo Hobson
- theguardian.com, Tuesday 8 June 2010 04.01 EDT
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I have got round to reading the recent Theos report "Free to believe? Religious freedom in a liberal society". It is by an academic called Roger Trigg. He doesn't state his religious allegiance, but it's a fair bet he's an Anglican. Theos is a predominantly Anglican thinktank – this tank does not think in a way that would bother a bishop.

Trigg argues that the state's concern for equality, and human rights, has a subtle but strong bias against religion. In theory a concern for human rights ought to protect religion, for we have the right to express our religious faith, in accordance with article 9 of the European convention on human rights. But in practice, when a dispute occurs, it is assumed that other rights take precedence over religious ones. The application of the Equality Act of 2006 has consistently implied that the right to religious expression is secondary to other rights, most obviously the right of homosexuals not to be discriminated against. It seems that we have lost sight of the principle of religious liberty, he says. "Religious freedom matters as much as, arguably more than, many other nominated human rights. Any government that wishes simply to override it, without making any effort to accommodate it, is behaving as totalitarian governments do."

Trigg has a point: why should one human right trump another? If the right to religious freedom is real, then why should it have to bow to some other right as a matter of course? "No proper understanding of human rights can allow that in a clash between, say, the demands of equal treatment and the right to religious freedom, the latter must always give way." He is right that the current orthodoxy is to limit the right to religious expression: it must not interfere with other rights, so it is only fully operative in the private sphere. In a free society, he says, the views of minorities must be respected. "The manifestations of different religious beliefs must be accommodated in a fair way, and one that does not merely rule them out because they are from an alien tradition, or fail to conform to contemporary prejudices about what is right."

What Trigg's argument proves is that, when it comes to pondering the place of religion in society, the language of rights is a mistake. There is no such thing as "human rights" in relation to religion. Some may say that there is no such thing as human rights at all, but the concept is generally benign: for example talk of the human right not to be tortured motivates opposition to the practice. In relation to religion, by contrast, the concept of human rights is simply not helpful.

Trigg poses as a defender of the right to religious liberty, meaning the freedom of a religious group to be different from the surrounding culture. For example, a church has the right to decide to ordain only men, though the wider culture sees this as sexist. But this is actually a secondary meaning of religious liberty – and making it primary causes confusion. The primary meaning of religious liberty relates to the structure of the state. Religious liberty is a policy that a certain sort of state pursues: the liberal state.

When a state pursues this policy, it rejects the old habit of imposing an official religion, and persecuting heretics. It creates a space in which a high degree religious freedom is possible. But it is important to note that absolute religious freedom does not become possible. Why not? Because in order to protect this space, it must keep certain forms of religion in check.

So religious liberty is the creation of the liberal state, and it's a non-absolute condition: religious forms that are deemed reactionary, or illiberal, will necessarily be curbed. The classic example is the proscription of Roman Catholicism in early modern England. Was this illiberal, a denial of the Catholics' rights? Sort of, but to say so gets things the wrong way round. The old illiberal form of religion had to be banned, for relative liberty to be allowed to grow.

A human rights approach to the question of religion-in-society leads to a skewed account of "religious liberty". Religious liberty is not a universal human right but the historical achievement of a certain political tradition. This tradition must be celebrated and defended. Anglican and Catholic cries of "religious liberty", and complaints of persecution by the semi-fascist secular state, must be rejected as historically ignorant (or dishonest) alarmism.

Does this mean that the liberal state has the right to curb whatever forms of religious expression it wants? Quite simply, yes. It must protect the new space it has created, of relative religious freedom, from reactionary religion. It must decide what is tolerable and what is not – we must trust our elected representatives to draw these ever-shifting lines. This is how religious liberty works.