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Against Circumspection: Judges, Religious Symbols, And Signs Of Moral Independence, Benjamin Berger
Against Circumspection: Judges, Religious Symbols, And Signs Of Moral Independence, Benjamin Berger
Benjamin L. Berger
This chapter questions the interpretation of religious signs and symbols— and the interpretive possibilities that emerge when we demand more from one another in thinking about such symbols— by examining the question of judges and religious dress in the particular context of the judge’s role as wielding the coercive force of the state through the exercise of criminal punishment. I advance the argument that recent debates have proceeded on a misleadingly simplistic approach to understanding the meaning of signs of religious belonging and identity in this setting and that, with this, we miss an opportunity for a deeper …
"Simply A Constitutional Legal Question?": Law, Religion And The Modern State, Benjamin L. Berger
"Simply A Constitutional Legal Question?": Law, Religion And The Modern State, Benjamin L. Berger
Benjamin L. Berger
Benjamin L. Berger, Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, on key questions about law, religion, and social change.
Law's Religion: Rendering Culture, Benjamin L. Berger
Law's Religion: Rendering Culture, Benjamin L. Berger
Benjamin L. Berger
This article argues that constitutional law's inability to deal with religion in a satisfying way flows, in part, from its failure to understand religion as, in a robust sense, culture. Once one begins to understand the Canadian constitutional rule of law itself as a cultural form, it becomes apparent that law renders religion in a very particular fashion, and that this rendering is a product of law's symbolic categories and interpretive horizons. This article draws out the elements of Canadian constitutionalism's unique rendering of religion and argues that, although Canadian constitutionalism claims to understand religion as a culture, this is …