Religion Law Commons^™

Norming "Moderation" In An "Iconic Target": Public Policy And The Regulation Of Religious Anxieties In Singapore, Eugene K. B. Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The maintenance of a “moderate mainstream” Muslim community as a bulwark against the fraying of harmonious ethnic relations has become a key governance concern post-September 11. In light of the global concern—and often paranoia—with diasporic Islam, Islamic religious institutions and civil society have been portrayed in the popular media as hotbeds of radicalism, promoters of hatred, and recruiters for a “conflict of civilization” between the Muslim world and the modern world. Having declared itself a terrorist's “iconic target,” Singapore has taken a broad-based community approach in advancing inter-religious tolerance, including a subtle initiative to include the “Muslim civil society” in …

Terrorism As An Intellectual Problem, Charles W. Collier

UF Law Faculty Publications

The past few years have been instructive for observers of religious terrorism. Events have conspired to reveal ever more of its grim visage, inner logic, and awful potential. Religious terrorism has been exhaustively analyzed as a security problem, a military problem, an economic problem, a political problem, and more. But it is also an intellectual problem, one with particular implications for the study of law, culture, and history. This Essay examines the intellectual assumptions of religious terrorism, and it does so from three distinct perspectives: the theory of religion and American constitutional law (Part I); the common law (Part II); …

Witchcraft And Statecraft: Liberal Democracy In Africa, Nelson Tebbe

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article addresses the prospects of liberal democracy in non-Western societies. It focuses on South Africa, one of the newest and most admired liberal democracies, and in particular on its efforts to recognize indigenous African traditions surrounding witchcraft and related occult practices. In 2004, Parliament passed a law that purports to regulate certain occult practitioners called traditional healers. Today, lawmakers are under pressure to go further and criminalize the practice of witchcraft itself. This Article presses two arguments. First, it contends that the 2004 statute is compatible with liberal principles of equal citizenship and the rule of law. Second, it …

Locating Authority In Law, And Avoiding The Authoritarianism Of 'Textualism', Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Working Paper Series

Much modern jurisprudence attempts to move the locus of authority away from people with authority in order to locate it instead, for example, in rules or texts. This article argues that authority, wherever it exists, is a quality of the actions of persons. The article mounts this argument by showing how Justice Scalia's textualism is the legal analogue of a largely discredited form of "Christian positivism," one that leads to a form of authoritarianism. The article goes on to argue that authorianism can be avoided only by individuals' and their communities' becoming authoritative, including in the making and enforcement of …

Giving Voice To The Religious, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The relevance of moral values endorsed by religious persons in public decision-making has often been debated. The issue comes to the fore again in relation to the debate on Section 377A of the Penal Code dealing with acts of gross indecency between males. With the flourishing of diverse viewpoints that is a natural consequence of a liberal democratic society, and with greater participation by an increasingly sophisticated citizenry online and in the media, particularly in a nation in which those without religious affiliations make up only 15 per cent of the population, the ground rules of public discourse must be …

The Application Of The Religious Freedom Restoration Act To Appearance Regulations That Presumptively Prohibit Observant Sikh Lawyers From Joining The U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps, Rajdeep Singh Jolly

W&M Law Student Publications

Observant Sikh lawyers are presumptively prohibited from joining the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps because they cannot satisfy the Army's appearance regulations. This essay argues that this presumptive prohibition violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Under RFRA, the federal government may substantially burden an individual's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that its application of the burden furthers a compelling governmental interest by the least restrictive means.' The Army's appearance regulations are designed to promote two interests-uniformity and safety. In the course of furthering these interests, the Army's appearance regulations effectively preclude observant Sikhs from joining …

Religious V. Secular Ideologies And Sex Education: A Response To Professors Cahn And Carbone, Vivian E. Hamilton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Giving Voice To The Religious, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The relevance of moral values endorsed by religious persons in public decision-making has often been debated. The issue comes to the fore again in relation to the debate on Section 377A of the Penal Code dealing with acts of gross indecency between males. With the flourishing of diverse viewpoints that is a natural consequence of a liberal democratic society, and with greater participation by an increasingly sophisticated citizenry online and in the media, particularly in a nation in which those without religious affiliations make up only 15 per cent of the population, the ground rules of public discourse must be …

Norming "Moderation'' In An "Iconic Target'': Public Policy And The Regulation Of Religious Anxieties In Singapore, Eugene K. B. Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The proposed research will examine Singapore’s response to terrorism post September 11, in particular the maintenance of a “moderate mainstream” Muslim community as a bulwark against the fraying of harmonious ethnic relations. In light of the global concern—and often paranoia—with diasporic Islam, Islamic religious institutions and civil society have been portrayed in the popular media as hotbeds of radicalism, promoters of hatred, and recruiters for a ‘conflict of civilization’ between the Muslim world and the modern world. Islamist attacks in Madrid and London have since brought increased urgency to the question of how to contain or moderate Islamic radicalism among …

When Accommodations For Religion Violate The Establishment Clause: Regularizing The Supreme Court's Analysis, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

This article sets forth five rules with respect to what government may do to accommodate religious practice and five rules with respect to what government may not do. As it turns out the Supreme Court has said that most religious accommodations are left to the broad discretion of legislators and public officials. So long as the object of the accommodation is to protect or expand religious freedom, as distinct from expanding religion, the accommodation will be permitted.

Jesus’ Legal Theory—A Rabbinic Interpretation, Chaim Saiman

Working Paper Series

This article locates the ancient debates between Jesus and the Talmudic rabbis within the discourse of contemporary legal theory. By engaging in a comparative reading of both Gospel and rabbinic texts, I show how Jesus and his rabbinic interlocutors sparred over questions we now conceptualize as the central concerns of jurisprudence. Whereas the rabbis approach theological, ethical and moral issues through an analytical, lawyerly interpretation of a dense network of legal rules, Jesus openly questions whether law is the appropriate medium to structure social relationships and resolve interpersonal conflicts. Through an examination of Talmudic sources, this paper argues the controversies …

Free To Believe, Richard Garnett

Journal Articles

Richard Garnett reviews Religious Freedom and the Constitution by Christopher L. Eisgruber & Lawrence G. Sager, Harvard University Press, 352 pages, $28.95

Drop Coffers, Richard W. Garnett, Benjamin P. Carr

Journal Articles

”Coffers.” When we hear or read the word, what do we picture? Buried treasure on the Isle of Monte Cristo? The dragon Smaug’s stolen riches, piled deep under the Lonely Mountain? Maybe we dimly remember a line of Shakespeare or Chaucer. If one is male and of a certain age, the word might bring to the surface suppressed memories of the all-nighters and arcana associated with Dungeons & Dragons. And, if one is a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, one’s thoughts might turn to the checking account of St. Jerome Catholic School in Cleveland.

Legal Theology: The Turn To Conceptualism In Nineteenth-Century Jewish Law, Chaim Saiman

Working Paper Series

This Article is a first-ever attempt to introduce the Briskers—an influential school of late nineteenth century Talmudic interpreters—to the legal academy. The paper describes how at the very moment that secularization and assimilation undermined the traditional legitimizing narratives of Jewish law, the Briskers fused law, theology and science to offer an alternate “scientific” vision of halakha (Jewish law). By recasting the multitude of detailed rules comprising halakha into a system of autonomous legal constructs, the Briskers revolutionized Jewish self-understanding of the halakhic system, and developed a jurisprudence that was able to counteract the social, institutional and intellectual upheavals represented by …

Evolution And The Holy Ghost Of Scopes: Can Science Lose The Next Round?, Stephen A. Newman

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Christianity And The Large Scale Corporation, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

Ask most people what they associate with “Christianity and the corporation” and, at least in the US, they may mention activist nuns calling for shareholder votes on sweatshop labor, nuclear weapons or divestment from South Africa, or perhaps a newspaper story about mutual funds that invest only in “faith friendly” corporations. Each is a contemporary manifestation of relations that run far deeper, and date back well over a thousand years. The early church spawned many of the largest corporate enterprises of the middle ages, and tenaciously promoted the concept of a collective entity distinct from the state. When the modern …

Review, World Religions And Democracy, Mark Weston Janis

Faculty Articles and Papers

Reviewing World Religions and Democracy. Edited by Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner and Philip J. Costopoulos. Johns Hopkins Press 2005.

Witchcraft And Statecraft: Liberal Democracy In Africa, Nelson Tebbe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Symposium Introduction: The Religion Clauses In The 21st Century, William P. Marshall, Vivian E. Hamilton, John E. Taylor

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

"Free" Religion And "Captive" Schools: Protestants, Catholics, And Education, 1945-1965, Sarah Barringer Gordon

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Evolving Approaches To Jihad: From Self-Defense To Revolutionary And Regime-Change Politicial Violence, M. Bassiouni

College of Law Faculty

No abstract provided.

An Expressive Jurisprudence Of The Establishment Clause, Ivan E. Bodensteiner, Alex Geisinger

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Constitution, The Courts And The Common Law, Robert A. Sedler

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Eckart Otto, Das Deuteronomium: Politische Theologie Und Rechtsreform In Juda Und Assyrien, Steven W. Holloway

Libraries

No abstract provided.

Legal Commitments And Religious Commitments, Jospeh Vining

Articles

In his elegant and accessible new book, Law's Quandary, Steven Smith groups our various senses of what is real for us into ontological families: the mundane; the scientific, including mathematics; and the religious. These supply "lumberyards," as it were, for thought and discussion about the world and action in it. Law itself is not one of them. Those involved in law, as citizens or professionals practicing law or speaking for or about law, are presented in the book as looking out from law to the ontological resources available in the lumberyards he describes.

Discerning The Environmental Perspective Of Pope Benedict Xvi, Lucia A. Silecchia

Scholarly Articles

As commentators assess the legacy left behind by Pope John Paul II, they will surely note with interest the contributions he made to the advancement of Catholic social thought with respect to the necessity for careful stewardship of creation and the link that exists between ecological concerns and genuine human development. How, his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, faces a world in which ecological concerns persist and pressures for solutions continue. This paper explores the writings of Pope Benedict XVI to ascertain the ways in which he may approach the environmental questions of the modern world. In his theological writings prior …

Erastian And High Church Approaches To The Law: The Jurisprudential Categories Of Robert E. Rodes, Jr., M. Cathleen Kaveny

Journal Articles

It is a great honor for me to have been asked to contribute to this issue of the Journal of Law and Religion focusing on the work of my colleague and friend, Robert E. Rodes, Jr. In June 2006, Professor Rodes celebrated his fiftieth anniversary as a member of the faculty of Notre Dame Law School. His long career has marked him as a founding father of interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of faith, law, and morality—the very sort of scholarship which this journal is dedicated to fostering and preserving.

The topics that Professor Rodes has considered over the years …

Pilgrim Law: Overcoming False Consciousness Through The Witness Of London's Economic Migrants, Vincent D. Rougeau

Journal Articles

The article discusses the author's view on the works and beliefs of Robert E. Rodes Jr. He considered faith and professional life as the powerful link on Rodes works and cited three points of reflection on the matter which includes on Rodes' concept of "Pilgrim Law" that has been influential on the author's works, thinking about the relationship between the professional roles of a lawyer and a call to a lived Christian faith. He believed that the Rodes' book "Pilgrim Law" took a formidable task on extending the principles of the theology of liberation to American jurisprudence and became an …

Secularization, Legal Indeterminacy, And Habermas's Discourse Theory Of Law, Mark C. Modak-Truran

Journal Articles

This Article focuses on Habermas’s sophisticated awareness of the tension between secularization of law and legal indeterminacy and treats his discourse theory of law as a significant test of the feasibility of reconciling these claims. In an earlier article, I criticized Habermas’s discourse of justification and his claim that it legitimated the law independently of a religious or metaphysical worldview. Even assuming I was misguided in that critique, this Article argues that Habermas’s discourse of application is incoherent and fails to maintain the secularization of the law in the face of legal indeterminacy. Given Habermas’s failure, contemporary legal theory needs …

Beyond Theocracy And Secularism (Part I): Toward A New Paradigm For Law And Religion, Mark C. Modak-Truran

Journal Articles

As part of a larger project challenging and moving beyond the premodern and modern paradigms, this article focuses on the modern paradigm and its notion of secularization. Section II will discuss the origin of the modern paradigm as a reaction to the religious pluralism and the religious wars in the sixteenth and seventeenth century such as the Thirty Years War in Europe (1618-48) and the English Civil War (1642-51) resulting from the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation divided the Western part of the Christian tradition into separate confessional institutions based on different theological interpretations of Christianity such as Lutheran, Calvinist, and …