Religion-State Relations and Freedom of Religion

“Religion-State Relations and Freedom of Religion: Exploring Durham’s Religious Identification Loop” was held at Christ Church, University of Oxford, on 16-17 July 2025. Sixteen leading law-and-religion scholars explored the relation between Professor W. Cole Durham, Jr.’s “religion-state loop” model and levels of religious freedom protections in various states/contexts. The outcome of the conference will be a Festschrift-like publication, honoring and exploring the contributions of Professor Durham’s model to the field of law and religion. Scholars shared their draft chapter manuscripts and received feedback from other participants in preparation for publishing.

Scholars explored the following issues and questions:
• Constitutional and legal dynamics within the loop.
o How do religion-state identifications evolve in different countries, and how do these dynamics affect religious freedom?
o Do religion-state regimes usually morph across or along the loop?
• Recent political and social changes and the loop.
o How do political polarization on national and international levels, and politicization of human rights and the judiciary, affect religious identifications in different countries?
o How do supranational organizations and courts influence domestic religion-state regimes?
o What is the impact of decolonization discourse on religion-state and religious-freedom dynamics across the globe?
• Empirical research on the loop.
o Does empirical research confirm Durham’s conclusion that maximal religious liberty tends to be achieved in the accommodation or non-hostile separation mode?
o What are the dynamics of special cases—regimes that stably combine elements of radically different religious identifications and could hardly be placed on the loop (e.g., Israel)?

ICLRS Associate Director Elizabeth A. Clark co-organized the Workshop with Dmytro Vovk (visiting professor of law, Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University) and ICLRS Director Brett Scharffs. Cole Durham will also participate. Invitees include long-time ICLRS associates. See the program for a list of participants.

Program