Twelfth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

The United States has long considered itself to be on the vanguard of promoting religious freedom and equality. Central to achieving that regime – and for maintaining it into the future – was disestablishing official religion in America. The idea that disestablishment of religion was essential for religious freedom and equality was a distinctly American project, and that ideal became a model for a handful of other nation-states. True disestablishment did not occur until the 1940s, however, when the U.S. Supreme Court finally discarded a Christian conception of the state – or at least of the state’s responsibility to maintain a Christian culture – replacing it with an idea of legal secularism. Though a secular model had long been controversial, it has come under increasing attack by religious conservatives, Christian nationalists, Tea Party followers, and Trump supporters who seek to reestablish Christian influences and preferences in American culture (e.g., Muslim travel ban). This trend has found support from the conservative Supreme Court which has been gradually rewriting legal jurisprudence to allow for government favoritism of religion – whether that is through government use of religious symbolism and government funding of religious activities, or through exemptions for religious actors from regulations and non-discrimination laws – effectively transforming the secular-reinforcing aspect of the constitutional text. This paper examines this reestablishing trend in the culture and law, and of how it is impacting the international image of the United States and its ability to serve as a model for religious freedom and equality.