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Social and Behavioral Sciences

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Religion

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Press Definition And The Religion Analogy, Ronnell Andersen Jones Jun 2014

Press Definition And The Religion Analogy, Ronnell Andersen Jones

Faculty Scholarship

n a Harvard Law Review Forum response to Professor Sonja West's symposium article, "Press Exceptionalism," Professor RonNell Andersen Jones critiques Professor West's effort to define "the press" for purposes of Press Clause exceptions and addresses the weaknesses of Professor West's analogy to Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC in drawing these definitional lines. The response highlights distinctions between Press Clause and Religion Clause jurisprudence and urges a more functional approach to press definition.


Club Goods And Group Identity: Evidence From Islamic Resurgence During The Indonesian Financial Crisis, Daniel L. Chen Jan 2010

Club Goods And Group Identity: Evidence From Islamic Resurgence During The Indonesian Financial Crisis, Daniel L. Chen

Faculty Scholarship

This paper tests a model in which group identity in the form of religious intensity functions as ex post insurance. I exploit relative price shocks induced by the Indonesian financial crisis to demonstrate a causal relationship between economic distress and religious intensity (Koran study and Islamic school attendance) that is weaker for other forms of group identity. Consistent with ex post insurance, credit availability reduces the effect of economic distress on religious intensity, religious intensity alleviates credit constraints, and religious institutions smooth consumption shocks across households and within households, particularly for those who were less religious before the crisis.


American Civil Religion: An Idea Whose Time Is Past, Frederick Mark Gedicks Mar 2009

American Civil Religion: An Idea Whose Time Is Past, Frederick Mark Gedicks

Faculty Scholarship

From the founding of the United States, Americans have understood loyalty to their country as a religious and not just a civic commitment. The idea of a 'civil religion' that defines the collective identity of a nation originates with Rousseau, and was adapted to the United States Robert Bellah, who suggested that a peculiarly American civil religion has underwritten government and civil society in the United States.

Leaving aside the question whether civil religion has ever truly unified all or virtually all Americans, I argue that it excludes too many Americans to function as such a unifying force in the …