Roger Trigg's latest book examines the conflict between the demands of equality and those of religious freedom. He believes the ideals of equality and freedom to conflict more generally, because seeking to eradicate equality must increase state power, which must, in turn, diminish individual freedom; but he thinks that religious freedom is especially threatened by pursuit of equality in Western societies. In fact, many of the measures that Trigg favours – such as preventing direct and indirect religious discrimination in employment and using exemptions to spare people the burdens that they might incur when the demands of law conflict with their religious convictions – can be, and often are, defended on grounds of equality. Similarly, some of the public policies that can vie with religious liberty, such as those promoting the claims of homosexuality, can themselves be championed in the name of freedom. Trigg occasionally recognises that but, for the most part, he conceives his task as upholding the claims of religious freedom against a rising tide of egalitarianism. He sees religious freedom losing out to equality in a number of ways. One is the notion that treating people equally must mean not extending any special recognition to religious belief and the consequent secularisation of public life and the exclusion of religious voices from public policy. Another is the notion that the same laws must apply comprehensively to all, which vetoes any accommodation, no matter how reasonable, of those whose religious beliefs are at odds with a law. A third is the way in which claims of religious belief seem always to be subordinated to competing claims, such as those of gender and sexual orientation, in the pursuit of equality. For Trigg it is not just the idea of equality that has driven these developments but also the associated ideas of human rights and democracy; and it is not just politicians who are the culprits but also the judiciary and human rights instruments, especially the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Trigg builds his defence of religious freedom on a naturalistic foundation: the claim that a religious impulse is embedded in human nature. To deny people religious freedom is to thwart that impulse, which must harm their wellbeing and prevent their living a truly human life. While the impulse is natural, the particular religion to which a person commits is, Trigg holds, a matter of choice. Accordingly, he abjures defences of religious belief that appeal to the claims of ‘identity’ or that place it in the same stable as race, gender and disability. He also insists that the claims of religion should not be subsumed within more general claims of conscience. Given the special significance of religion for human life, the religious conscience has a claim to special recognition and special respect.

Trigg presents his natural impulse argument as independent of any claim of religion to truth, though some of what he goes on to argue does actually presuppose religious truths, particularly those of Christianity. That is particularly important for what he has to say about equality, human rights and democracy properly understood; these ideas, he claims, have both their historical origins and their moral basis in Christianity. So his opposition is not to equality, human rights and democracy as such, but to the misconceptions and misuses that result when these ideas are detached from their divine foundations. Trigg himself is therefore happy to assert human rights, particularly the human right to religious freedom.

He is no less keen to defend the freedom of religious institutions. He dislikes individualist understandings of religion, particularly those currently used by courts, which fail to recognise the communal and institutional reality of religion. He deprecates the increased readiness of legislators and judges to interfere in the internal affairs of organised religions. He also resists the notion that a democratic society must be even-handed in its treatment of organised religions, defending a special place for Christianity and for church establishment in Western societies. While much of his book is couched in the language of religion, his concerns are mainly focused on Christianity. With the exception of Judaism, he shows no great sympathy for the claims of minority religions. Indeed, he sees the over-fastidious concern for religious minorities associated with multiculturalism as yet another manifestation of the pervasive egalitarianism that has been turned against Christians and Christianity.

The most frustrating feature of Trigg's examination of these issues is his failure to make greater use of his skills as a philosopher. Rather than providing his readers with rigorous analysis and sustained exercises in reasoning, he presents them with a set of related reflections. His style is discursive and desultory. He takes up an issue, offers a number of thoughts on it and then moves onto the next issue, which he treats in a similar fashion. His thinking goes round and round, frequently revisiting the same issues to make the same points and to register the same complaints. He recognises that the issues that he takes up often require difficult balances of competing considerations, but he never really sinks his teeth into one, wrestles with its ethical and technical complexities and comes up with a firm proposal. So, for example, he dislikes the way in which the second clause of Article 9 of the ECHR qualifies the first, but he says nothing precisely about what is wrong with it or how it might be revised. He complains about courts' treatment of cases relating to indirect religious discrimination but he does not seriously address the way in which discrimination law is currently formulated. He complains about courts' subjectivist focus on the ‘sincere beliefs of individuals’ in a way that suggests that the soundness of an individual's beliefs should be ruled on by the religious institution or community to which the individual is affiliated, but he never expressly makes that case. (And, confronted with a case like Eweida, he is quick to retreat to the rights of the individual religious conscience.) He dislikes the judicial separation of belief from (belief-based) practice, yet he does not seriously challenge the relevance of that distinction to the law's concerns, nor could he.

In spite of these limitations, the book is an engaging read. Trigg adds colour and detail to his arguments through frequent reference to legal cases, drawn from North America and continental Europe as well as the UK, and to historical battles for religious freedom. The book articulates the perspective of a significant constituency in Britain, which is useful both for those who belong to it and those who do not. However, readers of this Journal are unlikely to find very much in the book that adds to their understanding of the issues it examines.