Law Commons^™

Reinterpretations Of St. Paul's Concept Of Law, Tawia B. Ansah

Tawia B Ansah

The article is at the intersection of law, philosophy, and theology. I examine the work of Giorgio Agamben and Alain Badiou on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Both approach Pauline law formalistically, but with very different ideas about what law is. Whereas Agamben sees continuities, Badiou sees breaks and ruptures, between law and ideas traditionally extrinsic to the realm of the juridical (grace, faith, love, etc.). But both apprehend a political significance of Paul to juridical thought within late modernity (postmodern and post-secular). I analyze their work, therefore, for its relevance to legal theory.

March 4, 2008: Anne Lamott, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Anne Lamott

The Theocratic Challenge To Constitution Drafting In Post-Conflict States, Ran Hirschl

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

February 29, 2008: The Establishment Clause "Under God": Toward An American Law Of A Meaning-Filled Public Space, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

The Establishment Clause "under God": Toward an American Law of a Meaning-Filled Public Space

February 28, 2008: Abortion And Gay Marriage, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Abortion and Gay Marriage

February 26, 2008: The Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

The PEW Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

State Funding Of Devotional Studies: A Failed Jurisprudence That Has Lost Its Moorings, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

The Court’s attitude toward the public funding of devotional studies can best be described as ambivalent. Not long ago, devotional studies were viewed as one of the few kinds of study that the state clearly could not fund. Then, the Court did an about-face, implying that public funding of devotional studies does not violate constitutional guarantees, because that kind of study cannot be distinguished for constitutional purposes from other kinds of permissibly funded areas of study. Still more recently, the Court has changed course yet again, suggesting that states may but need not refuse to fund such studies, reverting to …

Death By A Thousand Cuts: The Illusory Safeguards Against Funding Pervasively Sectarian Institutions Of Higher Learning, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Illusory Safeguards against Funding Pervasively Sectarian Institutions of Higher Learning

Tilton v. Richardson, Hunt v. McNair, and Roemer v. Board of Public Works are often thought to offer a coherent view of the Establishment Clause limitations on funding religiously affiliated institutions of higher learning. But the decisions themselves offer inconsistent analyses of Establishment Clause limitations and, further, were the analyses in these cases applied more generally, Establishment Clause guarantees would be even less robust than they are currently thought to be.

The difficulties for the Court in offering a coherent approach to public funding …

Repudiating Everson: On Buses, Books, And Teaching Articles Of Faith, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

Ever since deciding Everson v. Board of Education, the Court has wrestled with the proper way to characterize the limitations imposed on the states by the Establishment Clause. Many of the cases have involved the extent to which the state can give aid to the parents of children attending primary and secondary sectarian schools. The Court’s understanding of the limits on this kind of aid has changed markedly over the past sixty years, having first involved an analysis of the degree to which the state would be aiding religious teaching and then having changed to an analysis of whether the …

February 20, 2008: Theology Of Public Life Versus Public Theology, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Theology of Public Life versus Public Theology

February 18, 2008: Anthony Kronman—Education’S End: Why Our Colleges And Universities Have Given Up On The Meaning Of Life, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Anthony Kronman—Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life

Fbruary 16, 2008: How Secularists Knocked Down The Wall Of Separation Between Church And State, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

How Secularists Knocked Down the Wall of Separation Between Church and State

The Idea Of Pollution, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

Pollution is the primary target of environmental law. During the past forty years, hundreds of federal and state statutes, administrative regulations, and international treaties have established multiple approaches to addressing pollution of the air, water, and land. Yet the law still struggles to identify precisely what constitutes pollution, how much of it is tolerable, and what we should do about it.

But environmental pollution is hardly the only type of pollution. Historically, the idea of pollution referred to a host of effects upon human environments. This remains evident in contemporary anthropological literature, which studies the pollution beliefs of cultures throughout …

February 14, 2008: New Thinking About Religion, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

New Thinking about Religion

February 12, 2008 More On E.J. Dionne Jr., Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

More on E.J. Dionne Jr.

February 11, 2008: Religious Talk Is Not Enough To Close The God Gap, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Religious Talk is not Enough to Close the God Gap

February 7, 2008: The Secular American Young, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

The Secular American Young

Northcott Collection (Mss 40), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 40. Fifty-three diaries (1859-1918) and other writings of Henry Clay Northcott, 1822-1918, Methodist circuit preacher and farmer of northern Kentucky; correspondence (1870-1883) of his daughter, music teacher Kate N. Thomas, 1850-1889; and her husband, Bruce F. Thomas, 1853?-1882, lawyer of Vanceburg, Kentucky.

February 1, 2008: Membership In A Synagogue, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Membership in a Synagogue

The Chicago School Virus, Spencer Weber Waller

Spencer Weber Waller

The Chicago School of Law and Economics is a leading example of a highly successful legal ideology. As one recent commentator has noted: "[T]he basic characteristic of the Chicago School is the belief that free markets and the price mechanism are the most effective and desirable ways for a society to organize production and economic life in general." The Chicago School of Law and Economics applies these insights to legal questions and views the creation and enforcement of legal rules primarily in terms of how legal rules and institutions promote allocative efficiency and wealth maximization.

While much ink has been …

January 29, 2008: Randall Balmer On Fresh Air, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Randall Balmer on Fresh Air

January 26, 2008: Darwin Day 2008, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Darwin Day 2008

January 23, 2008: Martin Luther King, Jr., Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 20, 2008: God, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

God

January 13, 2008: Upon Finally Finishing Charles Taylor, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Upon Finally Finishing Charles Taylor

January 6, 2008: The Need For Religion, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

The Need for Religion

January 3, 2008: Charles Taylor: A Secular Age, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Charles Taylor: A Secular Age

Undressing Difference: The Hijab In The West, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

On March 15, 2006, French President Jacques Chirac signed into law an amendment to his country’s education statute, banning the wearing of "conspicuous" signs of religious affiliation in public schools. Prohibited items included "a large cross, a veil, or skullcap." The ban was expressly introduced by lawmakers as an application of the principle of government neutrality, "du principe de laïcité." Opponents of the law viewed it primarily as an intolerant assault against the hijab, a head and neck wrap worn by many Muslim women around the world. In Politics of the Veil, Professor Joan Wallach Scott …

The Political Origins Of Secular Public Education: The New York School Controversy 1840-1842, Ian C. Bartrum

Scholarly Works

As the title suggests, this article explores the historical origins of secular public education, with a particular focus on the controversy surrounding the Catholic petitions for school funding in nineteenth-century New York City. The article first examines the development of Protestant nonsectarian common schools in the northeast, then turns to the New York controversy in detail, and finally explores that controversy's legacy in state constitutions and the Supreme Court. It is particularly concerned with two ideas generated in New York: (1) Bishop John Hughes' objection to nonsectarianism as the 'sectarianism of infidelity'; and (2) New York Secretary of State John …

Sacred Violence: Religion And Terrorism, Jessie Hill, Adam F. Kimney

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.