Abstract
Militaries present a difficult challenge for scholars interested in navigating the complex demands of religious liberty and religion-state relations. The reason is that the most familiar features of religion-state relations in liberal countries—governmental non-interference and the structure of religious associations as voluntary associations—are incompatible with the structure of militaries as involuntary organizations that are nonetheless highly important institutions in even liberal-democratic countries. How should scholars accustomed to the liberal framework going back to Locke, hence, theorize the desirable religious-institutional state of affairs within involuntary institutions such as militaries? As the governmental non-interference model is inadequate, the argument to be presented here is that the involuntary nature of militaries presents the liberal-minded theorist, with unusual dilemmas, and hence would make two models most adequate for a religious-institutional state of affairs within militaries: evenhandedness (or multiple establishments) and ecumenism, a somewhat unusual category.
Highlights
Militaries present a difficult challenge for scholars interested in navigating the complex demands of religious liberty and religion-state relations
How should scholars accustomed to the liberal framework, going back to Locke (2010), theorize about the desirable religious-institutional state of affairs within involuntary institutions such as militaries? Notably, in recent years, liberal theorists who have analyzed general religion-state relations did not include a dedicated discussion of religions in militaries and this topic remains a blind spot in the liberal theory literature
While the Shklarian perspective is focused on maintaining individual liberty and does not extend to liberal-egalitarian distributive formulations, in the military context, it would have egalitarian consequences, in the sense that if a given military will not protect the rights of soldiers to free religious practice, the result will be close to denying religious freedom—a result banned by even minimalist liberalism
Summary
A typical liberal-democratic theorist, court of law, or a policy maker, attempting to illustrate a satisfactory model of religion-state relations, such that would protect religious freedom and freedom of association in regular circumstances of a liberal society, would expectedly illustrate roughly the following model: individuals are free to join or form religious associations. While the Shklarian perspective is focused on maintaining individual liberty and does not extend to liberal-egalitarian distributive formulations, in the military context, it would have egalitarian consequences, in the sense that if a given military will not protect the rights of soldiers to free religious practice, the result will be close to denying religious freedom—a result banned by even minimalist liberalism This point is clearly explained by one important interpretive work of Shklar’s minimalist liberal perspective: “If we put cruelty first, we would give up on using public power to perfect human character or to enforce creedal uniformity”
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