How does individual religious liberty apply to religiously affiliated groups? Edward A. David investigates the polarized ways legal theorists seek to understand group ontology in A Christian Approach to Corporate Religious Liberty (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020). 

David surveys the merits and pitfalls of prevailing approaches from within and without the Christian tradition. Many legal theorists are deeply skeptical of corporate group ontology, especially as religious groups have sometimes tended to conflate churches proper with religiously affiliated organizations in ways that can set uncomfortable precedents. 

This book offers a novel way forward that suggests a retrieval of Saint Thomas Aquinas's theory of coordinated group activity to provide a more salient moral framework to evaluate the liberties and limits of religious groups. You can follow Edward David's work on his website or on Twitter (@edwardinoxford)

Ryan David Shelton (@ryoldfashioned) is a social historian of British and American Protestantism and a PhD researcher at Queen’s University Belfast.

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