The Once and Future Freedom of the Church: Three Stories

This Essay, prepared to be delivered as a lecture at Brigham Young University, discusses three historical stories as a vehicle for suggesting that the concept of “freedom of the church” (or libertas ecclesiae) has not only a colorful and momentous past but an important future as well. Part I discusses how the Supreme Court’s decision in Hosanna Tabor v. Evangelical Lutheran Church helped to revive the venerable theme of freedom of the church. Part II considers the relation between freedom of the church and political authority during the centuries between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and modernity. Part III suggests that a principal obstacle to the full recovery of freedom of the church is the weak and fragmented condition of the church in modern times, and it reflects on the possibility of a restoration of the church.