Problematizing Religious Freedom

Abstract

Aims and ScopeIn today's world, national borders seem irrelevant when it comes to international crime and terrorism. Likewise, human rights, poverty, inequality, democracy, development, trade, bioethics, hunger, war and peace are all issues of global rather than national justice. The fact that mass demonstrations are organized whenever the world's governments and politicians gather to discuss such major international issues is testimony to a widespread appeal for justice around the world.Discussions of global justice are not limited to the fields of political philosophy and political theory. In fact, research concerning global justice quite often requires an interdisciplinary approach. It involves aspects of ethics, law, human rights, international relations, sociology, economics, public health, and ecology. Springer's new series Studies in Global Justice up that interdisciplinary perspective. The series brings together outstanding monographs and anthologies that deal with both basic normative theorizing and its institutional applications. The volumes in the series discuss such aspects of global justice as the scope of social justice, the moral significance of borders, global inequality and poverty, the justification and content of human rights, the aims and methods of development, global environmental justice, global bioethics, the global institutional order and the justice of intervention and war.Volumes in this series will prove of great relevance to researchers, educators and students, as well as politicians, policy-makers and government officials.

Bias and Religious Truth-Seeking in Proselytization Restrictions: An Atypical Case Study of Singapore

“…The freedom to change religion/belief is absolute. 353 This is unsurprising given the far-reaching effects on individual autonomy arising from restrictions on conversion and the limited and tenacious implications of the rights and interests of others. 354 Moreover, the inherent double standards in theological arguments for apostasy, where conversion away from other religions is acceptable but not vice-versa, 355 place such restrictions on distribution of materials promoting the merits of one's religion -is allowed as well.…”

“…353 This is unsurprising given the far-reaching effects on individual autonomy arising from restrictions on conversion and the limited and tenacious implications of the rights and interests of others. 354 Moreover, the inherent double standards in theological arguments for apostasy, where conversion away from other religions is acceptable but not vice-versa, 355 place such restrictions on distribution of materials promoting the merits of one's religion -is allowed as well. 361 The third category -unsolicited proselytisation that denigrated other religions -is the redline taboo as reflected in the criminal sanctions in the Ong Kian Cheong case and the Andrew Kiong case and the frequent exhortations by the government.…”

Religious Freedom in the Philippines: From Legalities to Lived Experience

“…This section is two-pronged. On one hand, it is as an attempt to spell out religious freedom in the form of constitutional provisions (Sharma 2012). But on the other, the literature also shows that religious freedom entered and took shape in various incarnations of the Philippine Constitution, given the country's history under the Spanish Crown, the American regime, and Martial Law.…”

“…This legal emphasis is to be expected. Much of the writings on religious freedom elsewhere primarily deal with the concept as a legal matter involving not just the secular nature of the State but also the religious rights of the individual (Sharma 2012). McDougal, Chen, and Lasswell (1976), for example, have traced how particular Court decisions concerning religious freedom have influenced different countries to pursue an international norm of nondiscrimination.…”

Religious Citizens: On the Relation between Freedom of Religion and the Separation of Church and State

“…Other states, like France, view the absence of any official relation as the consequence of a strictly secular model. Across all these differences most of the systems have one thing in common: religious freedom was viewed in the first place as the liberty to choose the religious community of their own preference (Sharma, 2011). The phenomenon of official churches and its opposite, the separation of church and state, reflected a situation where being religious was synonymous to belonging to a group, i.e.…”