{"id":37881,"date":"2026-11-03T12:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T11:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/freedom-of-conscience-protestant-muslim-perspectives-dominique-avon-strasbourg-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T12:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T11:42:13","slug":"freedom-of-conscience-protestant-muslim-perspectives-dominique-avon-strasbourg-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/freedom-of-conscience-protestant-muslim-perspectives-dominique-avon-strasbourg-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom of Conscience: Protestant and Muslim Perspectives, by Dominique Avon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Tuesday 10 November 2026, Dominique Avon<\/strong><\/a>, director of studies at the \u00c9cole Pratique des Hautes \u00c9tudes<\/strong><\/a> (EPHE-PSL), will give a lecture in Strasbourg as part of the ReligiS programme of the University of Strasbourg, in partnership with the Muslim-Christian Friendship Group of the Bas-Rhin, the association Spiritualit\u00e9 et Culture and the Protestant Media Library of the Stift. It can be attended in person or followed live on YouTube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exercise, whether limited or broad, of a diversity of opinions and behaviour exists in every society: it amounts to a practical or legal tolerance of variable scope, in the sense of an implicit or explicit acceptance of certain differences. This is not the right to “freedom of conscience”. Current in European languages from the sixteenth century, the expression was at first no more than an extension of the recognition of the rights of worship granted to officially recognised communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was in the early eighteenth century that it took on an unprecedented weight. It then presupposed the philosophical and legal recognition of the centrality of the human subject, and was intrinsically bound up with the right to freedom of expression: it guarantees the freedom to change one’s religion or belief. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it remains contested, or is sometimes stripped of its substance. The lecture will show the varied commitments of Protestant and Muslim actors in this history, which is closely tied to the notion of modernity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It builds on Dominique Avon’s book La libert\u00e9 de conscience : histoire d\u2019une notion et d\u2019un droit<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n