Constructing the secular : law and religion jurisprudence in Europe and the United States

Abstract

This paper compares the law and religious jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights across three legal areas: individual religious freedom, institutional religious freedom/freedom of the church, and religious symbols/church-state relations. Particular focus is given to the manner in which this jurisprudence reveals the underlying structure and meaning of the secular. While there remains significant jurisprudential diversity between these two courts and across these different legal areas, there is also emerging a shared accounting of religion, secularity, and moral order in the late modern the West. These legal systems will increasingly be defined by their similarities more than their differences.