Liberalism allows a multiplicity of faiths to live together under one flag. Our American founders, mostly theists themselves, understood the need for religious tolerance in order to establish a peaceful and productive, unified country. And while individual sects were less appreciative of tolerance, they were too small to establish theocracies by force. Maryland's Catholics, for example, weren't so interested in respecting the beliefs of those Northeastern Protestants; but they recognized that a constitutionally Catholic USA wasn't in the cards.

For the most part, religious tolerance seems to have trickled down from law into custom, and eased into habit for citizens and religious groups. And the result is the greatness of our nation.

Yet all is not well in Happy Valley: tolerance has failed to create a utopia. Once again we are worried -- very worried -- about religious minorities within our society. Don't Muslims -- the ones who really believe in Islam -- want to kill us? Isn't their allegiance elsewhere, and won't they use citizenship as a ploy to destroy our liberal state from within?

How do we build mutual trust between this liberal state of ours and American Muslims? Modern terrorism only fans tensions and concerns -- and heightens the importance of creating ties between our Muslim communities, our police officers, and us. Yet creating such ties has been slow going.

These pressing questions are concerns not only for citizens and statesmen, but for political philosophers, as well. John Locke's theories concerning religious tolerance, for example, were fundamental to modern liberalism. Now, Lucas Swaine, in his new book, The Liberal Conscience: Politics and Principle in a World of Religious Pluralism, undertakes to discover common ground between fundamentalists and liberal states.

Swaine first critiques liberalism for failing to make arguments in terms which fundamentalists can accept. While liberal theorists one and two centuries back created theological arguments for embracing liberalism, Swaine faults current theorists for ignoring and sidelining theology altogether. He warns that if liberalism's supporters don't step up their efforts, liberalism will fail to gain ground with religionists. This might spell not only the end of liberal theory's development -- but the end of liberal states, as well.

But Swaine proposes a new idea by which liberal theorists can engage fundamentalists. This is his "liberty of conscience," which rests on three philosophical principles, rationally acceptable to both liberals and theocrats.

• Conscience must be free to reject lesser religious doctrines and conceptions of the good (the principle of rejection)
• Conscience must be free to accept the good (the principle of affirmation)
• Conscience must be free to distinguish between good and bad doctrines and conceptions of the good (the principle of distinction)

Swaine admirably defends his contention that these three philosophical principles are actually at the heart of theological -- as well as liberal -- worldviews. These shared reasons for embracing liberal institutions could be, he maintains, the foundation of a new "liberalism of conscience."

The author goes on to suggest building new liberal political institutions around liberty of conscience. These include increasing self-sovereignty for religious minorities, so that they may feel better accommodated by, and therefore more amicable toward, liberalism. Swaine also recommends forming a new international comity around liberty of conscience.

This is an important and engaging line of reasoning. It posits that freedom of conscience is inherent in the core of each fundamentalist's own doctrine. For, in order to embrace faith, a person must be at liberty to reject other faiths, distinguishing one as true and the other as false.

From this it follows, Swaine explains, that because liberal institutions are, of all governmental forms, the most explicitly committed to protecting liberty of conscience, even a fundamentalist should desire to live within a liberal society. Furthermore, a theocracy does not assure liberty of conscience as securely as would a liberal state. In a theocracy, a ruler can (and frequently does) become corrupted or, for other reasons, may twist the official doctrine, thus curtailing liberty of conscience and perverting the true faith.

Swaine lays out a number of ways for liberals (in the sense of supporters of liberalism) to demonstrate this common ground to religious fundamentalists, whom he terms "theocrats." These methods include community outreach, and learning more about individual religious communities in order to persuade them that liberty of conscience is a shared value. Swaine further recommends using "techniques of mass persuasion": parades, tent meetings, and rallies. These methods, he proposes, could be effective in promoting liberalism, just as the nineteenth century Great Awakenings used them to instill evangelical revivalist enthusiasm.

Clearly, ameliorating the tension between liberalism and religious fundamentalism is a pressing concern right now. I was interested to see that another prominent political theorist has just published a book touching on similar concepts, though with a different slant. French theorist Pierre Manent, in his A World Beyond Politics, touched on Immanuel Kant's notion of "respect for human dignity," which I believe is similar to Swaine's "liberty of conscience."

Kant distinguished "human dignity," an individual's ability to hold convictions, from human liberty, which was more akin to individual autonomy. His "human dignity" was a particularized spiritual sense, inherent in every person, and beyond the scope of reason. This Kant argued, must be respected -- and he went so far as to hint that such a respect could be the most important means toward a universal peace.

Swaine discusses liberalism of conscience as a bridge between liberals and fundamentalists and a foundation for firmer communities and institutions. Menant points to the need to couch liberal arguments in a more political frame. In essence, Menant fears that there are many who are all too willing to trample liberty of conscience -- and who will certainly do so, unless liberals defend this freedom. And if this respect for human dignity is destroyed, he warns, liberal institutions will not survive.

It seems clear that many religious fundamentalists will not and cannot be persuaded to accept a liberalism of conscience. Fanatics are marked by uncritical enthusiasm; for them, the very notion of distilling reasoned principles from religious doctrine may be anathema. And I also believe that there are many in the world whose motives, whether consciously or not, are political. They may crusade against Liberalism in the name of religion, but what they actually desire is power; reasoned arguments toward a respect for individual conscience will have no effect on them.

In this time of danger, I am heartened to read Lucas Swaine's philosophical defense for the "liberty of conscience." To keep our state successful, we need to ensure that religious tolerance remains not only in our laws, but also in the loyalties of all citizens. Liberal society is desperately worth protecting.