Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2007
Publication Information
1 Liberty L. Rev. 17 (2007).
Abstract
1984 was the high water mark of the U.S. Supreme Court's campaign to privatize religion - to strip public life bare of the sacred. It may also prove to be the mid-point: the "naked public square" was mandated by the Supreme Court in 1962, and there is good reason to think that now, in 2007, the Court might finally put an end to their misbegotten experiment.
"Privatization" of religion is tantamount to "secularism." Neither term denotes atheism, the claim that there is no God and that religion is, basically, an illusion. Privatization and secularism refer not to the denial of God, but to the claim that the relevant activity - e.g., governing - should proceed as if there is no God. Historian Jon Butler suggests that secularization typically means "the essential disappearance of religion from public life despite its presence, even a vital presence, in private life."
Recommended Citation
Gerard V. Bradley,
The Judicial Experiment with Privatizing Religion,
1 Liberty L. Rev. 17 (2007)..
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/1742