Abstract

Persisting discussion, in both the academy and the wider public, about how democracy properly relates to religion is confused. All agree that religious freedom is required, but each of its two principal interpretations, separationist and religionist, commends itself by disclosing the other’s problems. Debate between the two is a standoff because both commonly assume that religions, in the sense protected by religious freedom, are or must be treated politically as immune to argumentative assessment. A third alternative is here proposed: religious freedom presupposes that religions or comprehensive assessments answer a rationalquestion, and democracy is constituted as a full and free political discourse among them in order that governing decisions might be consistent with a validunderstanding of the common good.