In this crash course, LRRP Director Liz Reiner Platt breaks down how these protections actually work: where they come from, how courts apply them today, and who they do and don’t reach. It’s designed for faith leaders, advocates, and anyone who wants to understand the debates shaping religious liberty right now.

This one-night course is hosted by The New Evangelicals, a faith community working to reclaim a loving, justice-oriented evangelical tradition rooted in empathy and care for all. Led by Executive Director Malynda Hale, The New Evangelicals offers an inclusive, welcoming space for people who have felt marginalized or harmed by the American evangelical church, connecting them with community and resources to learn, heal, and hope. We’re honored to partner with them to help their community and our own better understand religious freedom protections.

What the Class Covers

Over one session, Liz will walk through the building blocks of religious freedom law in the United States:

• The Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA): what each one does and how they fit together.

• The historical background behind these protections and how they’ve developed over time.

• The legal tests and standards courts use to decide religious liberty cases today.

• Recent Supreme Court decisions that have vastly expanded religious rights for some (though not all) people of faith.

Religious liberty law doesn’t stay in the courtroom: it shapes what happens in classrooms, workplaces, and congregations. Understanding how these rules actually operate is the first step to recognizing when religious freedom is being used to protect everyone, and when it’s being used to advance the interests of a powerful few. Whether you’re a faith leader fielding questions from your community, an advocate encountering these arguments in your work, or simply religious-freedom-curious, you’ll leave this class with a clearer understanding of your rights and the debates shaping them.

The Law, Rights and Religion Project at Union Theological Seminary works to advance a vision of religious liberty that protects everyone—not just those with the most political power.