This chapter provides an exposition of Mohammad Mojtahed-Shabestari’s 'critique of the official reading of religion' and explication of a more 'democratic' and 'humane' political order in its stead, as well as his articulation of an existential hermeneutics concermed with the individual believer’s quest for meaning. It also looks critically at Sorush and Shabestari’s defence of human rights and its concomitant shortcomings. It concludes by examining Sorush’s defence of a procedural form of governance over a substantive one anchored in constituent power and popular sovereignty. Rather than ask the question of who was entitled and obliged to rule, as did Khomeini, Sorouh preoccupied himself with the how of rule, the nature of governance, and the ease with which a ruler might be deposed peacefully by the governed.