The Justice Department is currently pushing an approach to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that, according to Howard Slugh and Mitchell Rocklin, would turn judges into interpreters of religious doctrine and thereby undermine accepted understandings of religious freedom:
The RFRA requires the government to demonstrate the compelling nature of any law that would place a substantial burden on a person’s religious exercise. This leads to the inevitable question of what constitutes a “substantial burden.” . . . Religious plaintiffs have argued that the test requires courts to weigh the burden of the punishment a religious person may face for refusing to violate his faith, rather than the importance of the religious practice at issue. . . The administration rejects this view, arguing that a judge must “look at the [religious] action that the plaintiffs want to take.” . . . According to this view, if a court decides that a particular religious principle is unimportant, the state can force a believer to choose between violating it and facing a draconian punishment. . . .
[S]uch a test would inevitably ensnare courts in thorny doctrinal questions. . . . A government that adjudicates the relative merits of religious commandments has invaded the most central and sacred sphere of life, usurping the role of ministers, priests, rabbis, and imams.
Read more on National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417391/judges-are-not-rabbis-howard-slugh-mitchell-rocklin