This panel examines judicial systems in the UK, US, Hungary, and Brazil, with a comparative focus on lived religion in relation to—and under the thumb of—the law. Challenges and tactics for negotiating the promise of religious freedom, attempts at pursuing intergenerational justice, and the function of courts as a zone for both criminalization of religious practice and its defense by practitioners. By collecting together these differing concerns—as well as approaching questions of religious freedom through varied theoretical lenses, engaging in specific case studies and also evaluating the ideal structures of legal processes—this panel promises to open to broader conversations about the possibilities—including serious risks—of the idea of “religious freedom” across the globe.
The dominant legal and political frameworks for intergenerational justice, including Edith Brown Weiss’s influential principles, often focus on procedural safeguards that risk reinforcing present-day biases. This paper critiques such proceduralism through the lens of theological traditions that understand freedom not merely as autonomy but as a relational, covenantal responsibility to those who come after us. Drawing on Latour, Whiteside, Morton, and Rose, as well as biblical insights into covenant and eschatology, this paper argues for an expansion of intergenerational equity beyond anthropocentric and procedural constraints. Proposed Future Generations Commissioners are not merely a legal innovation but a recognition of freedom’s long arc – one that extends beyond the living to those yet to be born and the creation they will inherit. Case studies in governance models will illustrate how this broadened theological vision can reshape legal and political structures to embody a more radical, future-oriented freedom.
Over the past forty years, litigants in U.S. and Brazilian courts have repeatedly questioned whether devotees of Santeria, Vodou, Voodoo, and Palo Mayombe are harming children when they include them in rituals and ceremonies. This presentation will explore two of those cases, one from the United States and one from Brazil, where claims of abuse were based solely on the child undergoing normal initiation processes in an African diaspora religion. It will compare the cases to one another, exploring the similarities and differences in the practices that were identified as the supposed harm. It will also examine the analogous defenses that the devotees raised to challenge the charges of abuse and the disparate outcomes of the cases.
This study examines the lived experiences of religious and non-religious belief organizations in the United Kingdom, focusing on the challenges they face concerning freedom of religion or belief and the steps they take to address them. Despite extensive scholarship on religious freedom, no study has yet theorized how organizations navigate the difficulties associated with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This paper addresses that gap by introducing a substantive theory, generated through classic grounded theory methodology and based on interviews and textual data. It presents the theory’s key components, including the concepts of status quo, area of concern, and realizing the ideal. While the study focuses on the United Kingdom, its insights hold broader relevance for religious and non-religious belief organizations, advocacy groups, and policymakers worldwide.