Religious freedom is a rich and challenging topic of study. There are difficult doctrinal questions about its meaning and the scope of its protection domestically and internationally. These challenges flow, at least in part, from the fact that religious freedom is shaped by a bevy of facts and forces in society. These include, to name a few, social, legal, political, historical, religious, and cultural realities. In A Sociology of Religious Freedom, Olga Breskaya, Giuseppe Giordan, and James Richardson address this broad and unruly field of study, showing the pervasive influence of complex social processes on the conception and implementation of religious freedom.

A Sociology of Religious Freedom is an ambitious book. Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson explain what sociology offers to help us better understand the development and implementation of religious freedom. They canvass a vast range of socio-legal scholarship on religious freedom, including various theoretical and methodological approaches, and offer a general framework to organize and make sense of it all as a coherent whole. They draw heavily on the social construction theory of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann when discussing the many social factors related to religious freedom. These factors fall into two main groupings. First are the “structural conditions that reveal the kind of legal and political institutions and sociocultural characteristics that make free exercise of religion and belief possible” (58). Second are the meanings that individuals and groups give to religious freedom, which affects how religious freedom works in a particular society. In examining a range of social factors within each of these groupings and the processes by which they “generate specific patterns of legal and social implementation of religious freedom” (58), Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson have three goals in mind: to show that religious freedom is multidimensional, bringing together different social elements; to disclose the structural conditions and social perceptions that inform our understanding of religious freedom; and to reveal the mechanisms of social implementation of religious freedom (2–3).

One of the layers of social interaction that Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson discuss is at the level of state institutions. Legislatures and courts both have an important role as they intersect and play off each other to create the legal environments where religious freedom can be claimed and contested (88–95, 110–116). Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson discuss this in terms of two key social processes: the juridification of religion in modern law (chapter 4), and the judicialization of religious freedom in the state management of religious diversity (chapter 5). The juridification of religion has to do with the proliferation of positive law regarding religion and talk of religious rights (88). The judicialization of religious freedom has to do with the tendency of the legislative and executive institutions to defer controversial issues regarding religious diversity to the courts (117).

Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson identify social and institutional factors that are necessary for the juridification and judicialization of religious freedom. Generally, they argue, it requires a liberal democratic order, which provides a pervasive and centralized legal system with an autonomous judiciary attune to the values of religious belief, political secularism, the protection of minorities, and legal pluralism (118–21). In this environment, the judiciary is equipped to advance religious freedom as a universal legal norm that binds and constrains the actions of the legislature and executive. This can be positive for the development of religious freedom, but not always so. It is possible for the legislature to push back against the judiciary and assert another conception of religious freedom informed by different values and concerns. This can occur through legislative or executive action to counteract judicial decisions, or through other actions that threaten the legitimacy of the judiciary (such as ignoring judicial pronouncements on religious freedom altogether). Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson call this the “dejudicialization” of religious freedom, and they view it as a threat to the development and implementation of religious freedom (122–24, 132–34, 160–65). They examine the US and European experiences of religious freedom to demonstrate the juridification, judicialization, and dejudicialization processes at work and the challenges encountered in developing and implementing religious freedom (chapter 6).

The other layer of social interaction is that below the level of state institutions. A sociology of religious freedom, it is argued, must consider the social conditions necessary for the realization of religious freedom at the non-state and “micro-social” levels (6, 44–48, 74–78, and chapter 8). To implement religious freedom in a society requires that the values of religious freedom as a universal legal norm connect with established social meanings in that society (35–38). Religious freedom must permeate the sub-state level (72–74, 105–108), and be implemented in organizations like schools, cities, and religious communities (76–78, 214–220). It is also necessary for religious freedom to be grasped and valued by individuals (198). Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson argue that understanding the linkage between these layers of society—the state, individual, and mediating institutions—is a crucial part of the sociology of religious freedom because it shows how the universal legal conception of religious freedom manifests in different sociocultural environments (31). This leads them to spend quite a bit of time explaining how religious freedom can be measured at the institutional level—including in state and sub-state organizations (chapter 7)—and how to measure the social perception of religious freedom at the individual, micro-social level (chapter 8).

A Sociology of Religious Freedom offers a comprehensive framework for understanding religious freedom sociologically. The result is a complex view of social dialectical processes of meaning formation occurring between multiple levels of social activity (state, individual, and intermediating institutions). Each level also involves a complex web of social interactions that affect the meaning and possibility of religious freedom. Given this complexity, it is unsurprising that Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson identify various “implementation gaps” that can occur between the formally institutionalized idea of religious freedom as a legal norm and what religious freedom means to individuals and how it operates in society (76–77). These gaps are an important part of the book because they show where the implementation of religious freedom is fracturing and could possibly fail.

In other words, there is an inherent tension in religious freedom between its universal normative meaning and its relative meaning in different concrete social environments. Religious freedom cannot be understood solely from the abstract, universal point of view, even though it is imbued with universal, normative, and legal meaning. Its meaning also must be considered in varying circumstances. Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson do not hide this tension but draw it into the foreground. There are sociological conditions that affect the meaning of religious freedom, grassroots political concerns that motivate claims of religious freedom, and various ways that religious freedom appears in relation to different social concerns (37). Sociology, they argue, helps make sense of the meaning of religious freedom in different contexts and the way that the meaning evolves and changes in relation to different sociological factors such as the secular/religious debate, the pluralization of society, and the role of religion in the public sphere (38). But religious freedom remains a universal, normative, concept that asserts and protects the capacity and autonomy of the individual to develop their spiritual lives.

The tension inherent in religious freedom reflects two overarching purposes of A Sociology of Religious Freedom. First, there is a non-normative, descriptive purpose. Exploring the multidimensional nature of religious freedom enriches our understanding of how religious freedom appears in society, how it grows and develops in the various layers and processes of social reality. A sociological approach to exploring religious freedom enables a thorough examination of religious freedom at global and local levels. Second, there is a normative purpose. Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson believe in the goodness of religious freedom and want to see it strengthened. “This essential freedom,” they say, “serves as a unique universal principle liberating individuals, groups, and societies as they profess their beliefs and enjoy lifestyles in accordance with those beliefs and practices, and do so with respect and human dignity” (15). One of their goals in developing a sociology of religious freedom is thus to keep “constant vigilance” to ensure that “this essential freedom” makes societies “more just” (14–15).

For Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson, the way to address the implementation gaps that exist in the realization of religious freedom is to continue to build a sociology of religious freedom. Religious freedom can appear fragile, situational, relative, and baked in historical, political, and legal contexts that make its implementation fraught with challenges (228–29). This, they argue, should not lead to a pessimistic view of religious freedom. Rather, the sociology of religious freedom reveals that the meaning of religious freedom develops when it appears within specific contexts, and that it is continually redefined within these contexts over time. This dialectical process is ongoing, which means that the challenges of implementing religious freedom can be embraced as the necessary work of establishing and advancing religious freedom. The process of socially implementing religious freedom goes hand in hand with promoting a more sophisticated understanding of religious freedom and its value for individuals (214). In other words, responding to the implementation gaps requires more sociological research on religious freedom and better dissemination and education about religious freedom at a grass-roots level. Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson envision a better future for religious freedom through the progressive overcoming of the social determinates that limit the realization of religious freedom (230).

There is some ambivalence in the approach that Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson take in A Sociology of Religious Freedom. Consider what legal scholars are to do with the sociological approach to religious freedom. Should they accept the sociological terms of the analysis and discussion of religious freedom, that it is a universal legal concept that emerges dialectically in its implementation in concrete social circumstances? This implies that doctrinal incoherence is simply part of the social reality of religious freedom. Or should they insist on doctrinal clarity and coherence despite the many non-legal social facts and forces at play? It is not clear how the descriptive and normative goals of the sociology of religious freedom cross over into the language and mechanisms of the law. What does the sociology of religious freedom mean for the way that legal doctrine of religious freedom is articulated and applied in specific cases?

I believe that clues to an answer can be seen in the discussion of the juridification of religion and the judicialization of religious freedom. In this context, Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson spend a large chunk of time talking about how religion is defined in the law (95–108), which is a very important topic of discussion in legal scholarship. They do a very good job showing that the sociology of religious freedom is helpful in the legal domain because it provides a robust definition of what religion is. The key to the definition of religion and the concept of religious freedom is the autonomy and dignity of the human person. This “sociological vision,” they offer, is connected to Émile Durkheim’s theory of religion, which includes the idea of the “sacredness of the person” as “capable of individual religious obedience and moral action” (105). I do not dispute the reference to Durkheim, but I note the lack of reference to Immanuel Kant and other philosophical and theological sources for the same concept, which Durkheim clearly borrowed from. These ideas also influenced the development of law, particularly in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Footnote ¹

My point is this: there is a deep and important connection between the sociological and legal approaches to religious freedom that must be acknowledged. The connection is reflected in the tension that exists between the universal and relative aspects of religious freedom as well as the descriptive and normative purposes of A Sociology of Religious Freedom. The descriptive and concrete/relative understanding of religious freedom is only possible with a view to the normative universal understanding of religious freedom; but the normative universal understanding can only be conceptualized and described in relation to concrete social facts and processes. The two are dialectically related, and at the center is a conception of the human person as a sacred entity endowed with meaning-creating, truth-seeking, rational powers, bound up in social processes and communal attachments. This combination of universal and relative is central to the idea of human dignity, which is posited at the foundation of human rights and is given expression in the freedom of religion.

A Sociology of Religious Freedom is written primarily for sociological scholars, but it certainly has a place on the bookshelf of a legal scholar. Although there is very little discussion in the book about the idea of religious freedom as a legal doctrine, it still provides a powerful lesson on how to view the legal doctrine. Breskaya, Giordan, and Richardson remind us that religious freedom is a multidimensional concept that emerges from a complex set of social facts and processes. More importantly, they direct our attention to the equally complex and multidimensional concept of human dignity, which is a social and normative phenomenon that lies at the heart of religious freedom as a human right. Legal scholars, human rights advocates, and—dare I say—the judiciary must be wary of the hubris that would sacrifice doctrinal depth and complexity on the altar of doctrinal clarity and coherence.