How can people who disagree about what it means to be a human being agree about what it means to be a citizen? The question Franklin I. Gamwell's The Meaning of Religious Freedom seeks to answer concerns the proper relationship between religious pluralism and modern politics. The question may be put either from a religious perspective (How can people who have incompatible religious convictions possibly coexist as members of the same political society?) or from a political perspective (In a pluralistic society, what constitutional principle can allow people of different religious convictions to live together in harmony?).

Insofar as the beliefs of different religions involve discrepant “comprehensive convictions” regarding the meaning of authentic human life, including, therefore, authentic forms of political association, state approval of religious pluralism would seem to be, as Gamwell rightly observes, “a prescription for political instability or civil war.” (8) The principle of religious freedom—meaning thereby the political principle “in accord with which a plurality of legitimate religions internal to a political community is consistent with its unity” (10)—is, therefore, “all implications taken into account, the only constitutional principle.” (162) What, then, is the proper understanding of religious freedom?