Jean L. Cohen identifies the idea in recent American Supreme Court jurisprudence that freedom of religion should not simply be understood as an ordinary legal right within the framework of liberal constitutionalism but as an expression of deference by the state and its legal system to religion as a separate and independent jurisdiction with its own system of law over which religious groups are sovereign within their own spheres of competence.1 Cohen argues that this is a revisionary and controversial idea which threatens the liberal constitutional order. While Cohen focuses on a specifically American legal-constitutional issue, her discussion nevertheless raises more general issues concerning the understanding of freedom of religion which are also relevant outside of the US.