The Deep Christian Roots of Religious Liberty

Where did the notion of religioius liberty come from? In his recent book, Liberty in the Things of God, Robert Wilken challenges the prevailing narrative that religious liberty originated in the modern era as a result of fatigue induced by the wars of religion and secular philosophy. Instead, he argues that the modern concept of religious liberty has deep roots in early Christian thought. His historical account is structured around three themes: “first, that religious belief is an inner conviction accountable to God alone and resistant to compulsion; second, that conscience is a form of spiritual knowledge that carries an obligation to act; third, that human society is governed by two powers.” (4) Wilken traces these themes through the fusion of early modern intellectual development and the Christian inheritance to demonstrate how religious freedom, used synonymously by Wilken with “liberty of conscience,” came to be understood as a universal, natural right. The book is a valuable—and, like all of Wilken’s writings, exceptionally written—historical examination of an often neglected element of the Christian tradition.