John D. Inazu is the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference (2016) and Liberty’s Refuge: The Forgotten Freedom of Assembly (2012).
In praise of nuance and self-reflection.
We are also in the throes of an information virus.
Protest and spectacle are not merely symbols.
Confident pluralism at its best requires people and institutions that know themselves well enough to articulate the reasons for their differences.
With our colleagues, and with our students, we have the space not only to express disagreement in more than tweets and sound bites, but also to probe the reasons underlying our disagreement.
Meaningful social change requires the kind of social reconciliation that can only emerge through aggregated instances of both forgiveness and repentance.
Steven Smith’s newest book expresses greater pessimism about the current trajectory of religious freedom in America. But he may not be pessimistic enough.
The virtual dimensions of assembly may yield insights for how we understand more traditional assemblies and the legal protections that we assign to them.