Inside Out/Outside In: Co-Existence and Cross-Pollination of Religion and State

Abstract

This chapter explores religious claims in a cosmopolitan liberal and secular context, through selected stories of state law’s recognition of religious identities. This chapter draws on two examples: first, the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court was asked to determine whether the Jewish Free School’s internal definition for its admission policy constituted impermissible discrimination; second, the Québec government introduced the religion in daycare directive insisting on the nonreligious nature of publicly funded early childhood daycares across the province by banning the “teaching” of religion to preschoolers. Whereas the former example underscores that religion may be necessarily turned “inside out” within a liberal, cosmopolitan, secular state, the latter illustrates that religious individuals may be expected to turn their religious identities “outside in” by the state to which they belong. This chapter concludes that the contrast of these examples highlights the complex cross-pollination between the liberal secular state and orthodox or traditional religion.