12 - International Protestantism and Its Changing Religious Freedoms

Summary

The enshrining of religious freedom in international law has long been a Protestant project. Whether as theoreticians, advocates, or policymakers, Protestants played a significant role in securing the right for religious worship’s inclusion in major international treaties and conventions, and in explaining why it could trump national sovereignty. This was true in the era of “high imperialism” and brutal European expansion, most notably in the 1885 Berlin Final Act, which divided Africa between the leading colonial powers. Representatives of Protestant missions from Britain and Germany and Protestant scholars of international law were important in drafting a clause that guaranteed “freedom of consciousness and religious toleration” to both Africans and Europeans, and which allowed missionaries of all denominations to freely preach without state restriction. Protestant visions were also central to the establishment of the League of Nations’