University of Victoria Keynote Lecture in Religious Diversity: Religious Communities as Legal and Political Orders

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Thursday, November 22nd, 2012
7:00 PM

Religion in liberal societies is generally conceived to be an individual affair. But religions also unite believers in communities that have their own normative languages and means of settling disputes – in effect, their own law. In accommodating religion, governments are often being asked to make room for a rival source of authority. Some states – indeed some citizens – find this challenge to be deeply troubling, while for others such accommodations are easier to make. These reactions explain much of the variation in the governance of religious diversity worldwide.