Secular Fundamentalism, Religious Fundamentalism, and the Search for Truth in Contemporary America

In this article, I suggest that America\u27s ongoing culture war is a product, in part, of an epistemic crisis that confounds our collective search for truth. In a previous article addressing aspects of this topic, I expressed concerns about religious fundamentalism. Here, I explore the ways in which secular thinking might likewise be described as fundamentalist. In particular, I discuss secular fundamentalism in textual interpretation, secular fundamentalism in the form of political liberalism, and comprehensive secular fundamentalism, which extends to private questions of truth. I then discuss the various problems - not only political, but also theological - that are raised by fundamentalist thinking, whether religious or secular in nature. In place of these various sorts of fundamentalism, I advocate a dialogic, multi-lingual search for truth, a search that would give meaningful consideration to moral arguments of all types - not only in private life, but in the public domain as well

Book Review: Legitimacy and History: Self-Government in American Constitutional Theory. by Paul W. Kahn.

Book review: Legitimacy and History: Self-Government in American Constitutional Theory. By Paul W. Kahn. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. 1992. Pp. xi, 260. Reviewed by: Daniel O. Conkle

Religious Expression and Symbolism in the American Constitutional Tradition: Government Neutrality, But Not Indifference

In this article, I describe and analyze three principles of First Amendment doctrine. First, the Establishment Clause generally forbids governmental expression that has the purpose or effect of promoting or endorsing religion. Second, and conversely, private religious expression is broadly defined and is strongly protected by the Free Speech Clause. Third, as an implicit exception to the first principle, the government itself is sometimes permitted to engage in expression that seemingly does promote and endorse religion, but only when the expression is noncoercive, nonsectarian, and embedded within (or at least in harmony with) longstanding historical tradition. Comparing these three principles to the demands of French la\u27fcit6, I conclude that the United States and France share fundamental common ground on the first principle, but that the second and third principles demonstrate that the American approach is in some respects more protective and tolerant of religious expression in the public domain. I suggest that these variations are not accidental, but rather are the product of historical, philosophical, and cultural differences. La Conception Américaine de la Laïcité, Symposium. University of Paris II (Panthéon-Assas) – Paris, France, January 28, 200

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act: The Constitutional Significance of an Unconstitutional Statute

This article addresses the constitutionality and the constitutional significance of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), through which Congress, relying on Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, attempted to repudiate the Supreme Court\u27s restrictive interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause, as announced in Employment Division v. Smith, and to adopt in its place a more generous regime of religious freedom. The article advances two major propositions. First, it contends that despite the Act\u27s noble purpose, RFRA circumvents the process of constitutional amendment, frustrates the Supreme Court\u27s role as the primary interpreter of the Constitution, and improperly intrudes on federalistic values. As a result, the Act exceeds the power of Congress under Section 5, at least insofar as the Act applies to state and local governmental action. Second, the article suggests that even though the Act is unconstitutional, it nonetheless is constitutionally significant in the sense that it should be relevant to the Supreme Court\u27s own interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause. Elaborating a theory of constitutional evolution, the article claims that RFRA reflects contemporary societal values that should properly inform the meaning of the Free Exercise Clause. On this view, the Act - along with more traditional sources of constitutional meaning - could properly be used by the Supreme Court as support for the judicial adoption of a more generous interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause