Tolerance and intolerance in the history of religious liberty jurisprudence in the United States and the implementation of RFRA and RLUIPA

Abstract

Although a grand secularization theory with its assumed secularization-toleration nexus gained prominence in the mid-twentieth century, the history of the relationship of secularization and toleration in the United States is more complex. Religious actors and others have wielded and shaped the law, swinging the secularization-desecularization pendulum over time in response to major demographic and ideational shifts. Such actors have participated in structural changes that eventually supported a pluralizing project since the late twentieth century, which has advanced religious liberty, particularly with the enactment of two statutes: RFRA and RLUIPA. This chapter explores how tensions involving the meaning and scope of toleration, religious liberty, and secularization-desecularization in the U.S. converge in this jurisprudential history.