| Sumario: | Standard accounts of religious toleration are deeply rooted in the notion of the liberal rights-bearing subject. These accounts center on the need for religious toleration as a necessity to protect the individual from usurpation of rights and external coercion. John Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration is a landmark theoretical work that defends such religious toleration. In this essay, I argue that Locke's rationale for religious toleration is focused less on the protection of individual autonomy and more on the fundamental sacredness of religious belief. In doing so, I demonstrate that sacred beliefs are subject to a categorically different mode of reasoning, defined by radical separateness and transcendent priority. From this analysis, I present a potential ethic of public discourse founded upon an attunement to sacred values.
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