Set against the United States Supreme Court's landmark 2014 ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, this edited work by Micah Schwartzman, Chad Flanders, and Zoe Robinson marshals an impressive array of contributors who offer historical, philosophical, and legal insights into that specific decision as well as into the larger issues associated with religious liberty. The publication of The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty is significant not only because of the breadth and depth of the expertise displayed therein (I know of no comparable work on the topic), but also because of its timing. With Judge Neil Gorsuch set to join the Supreme Court (nominated but not yet confirmed as of this writing) and the possibility of other vacancies on the Court occurring during President Donald Trump's administration, the further development of the Hobby Lobby doctrine and its considerable implications, as detailed in this volume, will likely occur sooner than perhaps previously thought.

The book was the result of an academic conference on the subject with many of the chapters originating as presentations. As such, and with 22 contributors, there is an expectedly uneven feel to the book, but most of the chapters are well-written and several are outstanding. Any church and state scholar who seeks to better understand Hobby Lobby, religious liberty generally, and corporate religious liberty specifically would do well to possess this volume.

The authors have divided their book into four parts, first tracing religious liberty from that of individuals to that of churches, and then from churches to corporations. They then consider the implications of Hobby Lobby and the challenges to corporate religious liberty. Given the constraints of this review, a detailed chapter-by-chapter analysis is not possible. However, particular chapters in each of these sections deserve further mention. For example, in their essays, Steven D. Smith, Richard W. Garnett, Richard Schragger, Micah Swartzman, and Gregory P. Magarian engage in a rich debate regarding the religious liberty claims made by individuals and institutions. Against persuasive arguments for church autonomy and jurisdiction separate from the secular state, this question is posed: “What, exactly, is a church?” Further, if a church, however defined, possesses religious rights as an institution, what really separates it from other organizations such as non-profit groups and for profit corporations like Hobby Lobby that seek the same privilege? In short, are the First Amendment's religion clauses to be interpreted more broadly such that they apply not only to individuals but also to the institutions to which those individuals belong, are employed by, or own?

In his chapter, Frederick Schauer contends that much of the new jurisprudential ground opened up by the Hobby Lobby decision has actually already been traversed by the Court in its free speech rulings. This is an important contribution because asserted rights can too often be viewed in isolation. Free speech precedents have significantly influenced free exercise claims in the recent past. As free speech claims for individuals and corporations have been recognized and advanced by the Court, parties on both sides of the Hobby Lobby decision could learn much from those precedent cases and some of the unintended consequences that resulted from them.

The third section of the book is perhaps the strongest overall. There, six contributors consider the remarkably emotional outcry over the Hobby Lobby decision and what that ruling and the reaction to it by supporters and critics alike portend for future church and state disputes. In his or her own way, each author powerfully acknowledges that one of the chief implications of the Hobby Lobby decision may have less to do with corporate religious liberty than with the rise, and apparently strengthening, of doubts about exemptions from generally applicable laws for religious organizations. The strong feelings on both sides of the issue that emerged immediately after the Court announced its decision in Hobby Lobby were striking in both their volume and their tone, which reflected an apparent unwillingness to reach some middle ground of consensus from which to move forward. More recently, Trump's startling electoral victory and the protests that have since followed have done nothing to suggest that a spirit of compromise on matters of public policy might be forthcoming. The Court's ruling did not create these divisions, but, as these authors note, the Court will have to deal with them again as it confronts even more difficult questions than those raised by the Hobby Lobby case regarding exemptions for religious organizations.

Mark Tushnet appropriately has the last word in the book. He suggests that Christianity is the “unmarked” or default assumption of the Court in the religion cases the justices hear, unless a descriptor for another religion is used. That default, observed most clearly in Justice Brewer's well-known declaration that “this is a Christian nation,” is much more problematic in 2017 than in 1892 when Brewer announced his opinion for the Court. Tushnet acknowledges that a strict separation of church and state is not only politically unacceptable — even in an era of great religious pluralism — but also, practically speaking, impossible to achieve. His answer to such a difficulty, however, is surprisingly simple: rather than praise the Court for rulings like Hobby Lobby that uphold the Christian beliefs embraced by the owners of that corporation, perhaps Christians could ponder what it is like to belong to a group that is excluded by such a ruling. Of course, judicial decisions, by definition, have winners and losers, but Tushnet's call for adherents of the “unmarked religion” to recognize that — where church and state issues are concerned — their place at the Supreme Court's table generally leaves little room for anyone but them is a fitting benediction, as it were, to this volume.