Religion in Liberal Democracy as a Form of Life: Free and Equal

Christoph Baumgartner’s new book, Religion in Liberal Democracy as a Form of Life: Free and Equal, explores how liberal democracies can address the challenges of ensuring equal participation and freedom of religion in societies historically shaped by Christianity.

Shortcomings of freedom of religion

Religious diversity and social and political participation are in fact fiercely contested issues. Critical scholars from philosophy and cultural theory contest that liberal political theories of freedom of religion can adequately deal with issues connected to an increasingly diversified and secularised religious field in historically Christian societies. Consequently, they claim that politics based on such theories cannot deliver on the promise to ensure conditions that allow all members of society equal religious freedom and political participation.

By outlining historical developments, and by closely examining case studies of recent controversies about religious diversity in Germany and the Netherlands, Baumgartner identifies shortcomings of the currently predominant liberal account of freedom of religion or belief. Based on this analysis, he proposes a more complex theory of liberal democracy as a form of life, with religion and religious freedom as components of it.

Building tolerant democracies

This takes into account that informal norms, social structures, and predominant notions of belonging can function as powerful obstacles to freedom and equality, even if formal legal and political institutions prohibit discrimination based on religion. Construing liberal democracy as a ‘form of life’ – that is, as a set of social practices, attitudes, and their institutional manifestations and material expressions – shifts the focus of critical analysis from the law to informal structures and components.

This provides an understanding of the dynamics of (culturalised) religion in society, which has often been missing in political philosophical theories. The theory proposed in this book provides normative criteria for building liberal democracies that are tolerant with respect to religious differences and solidaric in terms of ensuring conditions that allow all members of society to codetermine, as equals, the future of society, irrespective of their religion or beliefs.