Da capo: law and religion from the top down

We introduce this collection by reflecting on relations between law and religion in constitutional and historical context. The Indigenous background to Australiaÿs colonisation and its contemporary religious landscape is sketched, indicating the increasing political salience of religion, while adherents to religious faiths decline as a proportion of the population. A number of approaches to secularism are distinguished. We propose a pluralist view sensitive to religious diversity rather than unconsciously blind to it. How law might accommodate religious diversity depends on the nature of law: whether a set of rules, an instrument for promoting social relations, or a medium of discourse