This goes beyond the subject matter we're currently covering in class, but we'll hit it hard this summer.
Toleration is considered to be an essential component of democratization, but it has an Achille's Heel. Can tolerant societies survive if that toleration is applied to the intolerant? An example is religions such as radical Islam.
Religious authorities during the colonial period were not especially tolerant either--ask Roger Williams--but the generation that wrote the Constitution was and assumed that freedom of conscience (religion) was an essential component of a free society. Just what this implies for the level of their religiosity, and what role religion is meant to play in the governing process continues to be debated.
Here are some provocative posts. The authors not only suggest that the American founders combined religion with the enlightement, but argue that Islam need to do the same.
Are they being too easy on religious tolerance? Is there an American religious orthodoxy?
