Berg Online on Sacramental Tea and Religious Freedom

As I've blogged about before, I have an article in the new issue of The Christian Century, on the Uniao Do Vegetal case in the Supreme Court concerning the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the scope of religious freedom in America, and the consumption of a sacramental tea containing a small amount of a hallucinogenic substance.  Front page for the issue is here and the direct article link is here.  Brief thesis:

Applying [RFRA's] principles vigorously is important for the religious freedom of all faiths. In the Christian tradition, the argument for accommodating religion in the face of a general law stems from the priority of conscience over government. As James Madison, trained by Calvinists at Princeton, wrote in his famous Memorial and Remonstrance, duties to God are "precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation to the claims of civil society." Government, of course, has authority to make general laws to preserve peace, welfare and others' rights, and one can even argue that there is no general constitutional right to exemptions from such laws. But a government that makes such accommodations, through means such as RFRA, should be commended for respecting its limits and treading on conscience only where necessary.

Tom