Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire, the magnum opus of Oxford’s Peter H. Wilson, is almost a thousand pages explaining a thousand-year empire that few contemporary readers know or care about. Yet the long-ago, expired heart of Europe still has a vital message for the United States today. All any Brit or American can recall about this empire, which lasted longer than Rome’s, is perhaps Voltaire’s leitmotif that it was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. Probably true—but that would be to list its strengths rather than weaknesses, notwithstanding the French cynic’s intention. It was not holy since…
Who Threatens Whom? Which Religion Needs Protection?
In response to: Reimagining Religion’s Distinctiveness in American Law
Many of my undergraduate students have trouble understanding the threat that religion might pose to the state. Often when teaching the Investiture Controversy, the 11th century contest between Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, over the appointment of bishops, I put to them the anachronistic question of whether the Pope has more power than the President of the United States. Most think the answer obvious. Since the President is the leader of the free world, presides over one of the most powerful nations in human history, and is the commander-in-chief of arguably the most potent military in…
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Kathleen Brady’s book The Distinctiveness of American Religion in Law: Rethinking Religion Clause Jurisprudence is a fascinating exposition of the changing role that religion plays in a rapidly secularizing society. What’s so special about religion? Why should courts treat it differently from non-religious belief systems? Why do we still mostly speak of religious free exercise…
I would like to thank D.G. Hart and Ilya Shapiro for their thoughtful comments on my essay. Together their observations provide me with the opportunity to clarify some aspects of my account of religion’s distinctiveness and the implications of this distinctiveness for our understanding of the First Amendment’s religion clauses and other constitutional liberties. Professor Hart…
