Religion Law Commons^™

First-Century Roman Approaches To Religious Minorities And The Security Of The Empire, Ilias Bantekas

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

Much of what we know about the relations of first-century AD “Christians” and the authorities of the Roman Empire, as well as the relationship between Jews of this time, is derived from the writings of Paul the Apostle through his various Letters. Moreover, historical research has uncovered a significant amount of information on this subject; yet, so-called Pauline scholarship is central to our understanding of these intricate relationships. Paul occupies a special place in the history and shaping of the Church for numerous reasons. He is loved and hated with equal vigor and he is certainly responsible more than …

A Christian Vision Of Freedom And Discovery: Neutrality As An Obstacle To Freedom, Karen Jordan

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

This article presents the underlying vision for the argument that principles of liberal neutrality pose a genuine obstacle to freedom in democratic society. There is a growing concern that liberty and justice are unattainable in modern democratic societies that are grounded in neutrality, including the United States. Experience has demonstrated significant shortcomings of the modern freedom movements grounded in political theories, which—along with the theory of neutrality—reject the need for core substantive values to guide law and policy. The underlying basis of such theories is a particular modern conception of freedom. But a well-grounded and reasoned alternative vision of human …

The Catholic Modernity Of Pope Benedict Xvi: Healthy Secularity And Christian Jurisprudence, Zachary R. Calo

Scholarly Works

This article examines the concept of healthy secularity in the thought of Pope Benedict XVI. In developing the idea of healthy secularity, Benedict builds upon longstanding themes in Catholic social thought while also provoking a deeper engagement with western modernity. Rather than placing Christianity and the secular in an oppositional framework, Benedict positions Christianity as the foundation of an authentic secular order. In so doing, he opens up new modes of critical engagement with western legal and political thought. Yet, while the concept offers a creative theological method for addressing contemporary issues, it depends for its realisation on vanishing cultural …

Contingency And Contestation In Christianity And Liberalism, Michael P. Moreland

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

“The Glorious Liberty Of The Children Of God”: Toward A Christian Defense Of Human Rights, John Witte Jr.

Faculty Articles

It will come as a surprise to some human rights lawyers to learn that Christianity was a deep and enduring source of human rights and liberties in the Western legal tradition. Our elementary textbooks have long taught us that the history of human rights began in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Human rights, many of us were taught, were products of the Western Enlightenment—creations of Grotius and Pufendorf, Locke and Rousseau, Montesquieu and Voltaire, Hume and Smith, Jefferson and Madison. Rights were the mighty new weapons forged by American and French revolutionaries who fought in the name of political …

Murder And Massacre In Seventeenth Century England, Andrew Quesenberry

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Religion was almost always involved in murder and massacre during seventeenth century England, if not in its content, then at least in its interpretation. This work will support this assertion by examining multiple case studies of murder in seventeenth century England, which will simultaneously give the reader a more complete picture of the nature of homicide during the period. Specifically, the case studies consist of both homicides and infanticides, and explore the relation of the Devil to violent crime in seventeenth century England.

Is This A Christian Nation? An Introduction, Carl T. Bogus

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Virginia Company To Chick-Fil-A: Christian Business In America, 1600–2000, Joseph P. Slaughter

Seattle University Law Review

This Article argues that the proprietors of what the author terms “Christian Business Enterprises” (CBEs) would strenuously disagree with Justice Ginsburg and assert that their express mission is to earn a profit while propagating their religious values. As such, they operate businesses “infused with religion,” where Christian values are interwoven into the very fabric of the company and how the firm relates to its stakeholders, employees, customers, suppliers, and communities.

This Article further demonstrates the rich heritage of religious for-profit businesses throughout American history by focusing on a series of Protestant CBEs that led to today’s CBE giants: Chick-fil-A and …

Christianity And Antitrust, Kenneth G. Elzinga, Daniel Crane

Book Chapters

The purpose of this chapter is to consider whether the Christian faith has a nexus with the institution of antitrust. It turns out it doesn’t – and it does. For example, Christianity cannot explain why the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index is superior to the four-firm concentration ratio as a measure of industry concentration. Economics can. On the other hand, economics cannot explain why the per se rule against price-fixing is morally appropriate. The Bible can.

Introduction, Daniel A. Crane, Samuel Gregg

Other Publications

The regulation of economic life, whether through law or politics, has been a fixture of daily life from time immemorial. Formal regulation occurs through a variety of formal devices, the efficacy of which is argued about by legal scholars, economists, policymakers, legislators, and governments. Even expressions like “to regulate” or “to deregulate” carry a range of political and even moral connotations, depending on who is using the phrase and how they are deploying it.

Celebrating The Work Of Professor Bob Cochran: An Introduction, Derek T. Muller

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Practice Of Law As Christian Discipleship, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

“Can the ordinary practice of law be a religious calling?” In a number of scholarly books and articles, as a teacher, and as a mentor, Robert (Bob) Cochrane has answered this question with a resounding “yes.” This essay, part of a festschrift published in Bob’s honor by the Pepperdine Law Review, engages with his work to propose a framework of Christian ethics for reconceiving the practice of law as a form of Christian discipleship. It argues that Christians should understand the practice of law as participation in government-as judgment, participation that is always fraught with the risks of deceit, injustice, …

Devotion ̶T̶O̶ And The Rule Of Law: Acknowledging The Role Of Religious Values In Judicial Decision-Making, Priya Purohit

Indiana Law Journal

This Comment advocates for the acknowledgment of religious values in judicial decision-making in three parts. Part I explores the role of religion in American politics, and more specifically, the role of religion in federal judicial confirmation hearings and state-level judicial elections. Membership to an institutionalized religion often performs an essential gatekeeping function when it comes to assessing the background or personal values of a candidate for political or judicial office. The initially positive role of religion in judicial selection processes suggests that the practice of refusing to acknowledge the role that religion likely already plays in judicial decision-making is wholly …

If Separation Of Church And State Doesn’T Demand Separating Religion From Politics, Does Christian Doctrine Require It?, Samuel W. Calhoun

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

This Essay responds to comments by Wayne Barnes, Ian Huyett, and David Smolin on my prior Article, Separation of Church and State: Jefferson, Lincoln, and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Show It Was Never Intended to Separate Religion From Politics. Part II, although noting a few disagreements with Huyett and Smolin, principally argues that they strengthen the case for the appropriateness of religious arguments in the public square. Part III evaluates Wayne Barnes’s contention that Christian doctrine requires separating religion from politics.

Temple, Talmud, And Sacrament: Some Christian Thoughts On Halakhah, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sex And Religion: Unholy Bedfellows, Mary-Rose Papandrea

Michigan Law Review

A review of Geoffrey R. Stone, Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century.

The Forest And The Trees: What Educational Purposes Can A Course On Christian Legal Thought Serve?, Randy Beck

Scholarly Works

In this short essay, I want to consider the educational purposes a course in Christian legal thought might serve. How could having such a course in the curriculum help accomplish the goals of legal education? One can understand why a law school with a Christian identity would want to offer this sort of course. Such law schools embrace a theology that helps adherents make sense of the world, including the world of human law. The less obvious question I want to consider is why a law school that does not subscribe to a particular theological understanding of the world (or …

In God We Trust, Andrew C. Nosti

SURGE

Almost everywhere I turn I can hear someone saying, “America is a Christian nation!” likely yelled or grumbled with impressive, and sometimes concerning, aggression. I can’t go through a week without this phrase popping up, usually closely accompanied by the notion that America’s founding has roots in Christian principles. [excerpt]

Conceptions Of Religion In The Secular State: Evolving Turkish Secularism, Seval Yildirim

Pepperdine Law Review

The article focuses on the concepts of religion in secular states such as Republic of Turkey. Topics discussed include distinction between secularism and religion, views of philosopher of liberalism John Locke on delegation of matters of faith to the Church and matters of public good to the state along with the relationship of modernization and secularism.

The Prodigal Illegal: Christian Love And Immigration Reform, Victor C. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the impasse around immigration reform, most everyone believes the United States’ immigration system is broken. And most agree that the key issue is what to do with the eleven million or so undocumented persons currently residing in the United States. As a Christian immigration law teacher, I have been interested in the debate among the churches as to what such reform should look like. In this Article, I use Professor Jeffrie Murphy’s conception of agapic love as a lens through which to examine reform proposals. I then evaluate the two positions Christian churches have seemed to embrace—permanent legal status …

How Critical Race Theory Marginalizes The African American Christian Tradition, Brandon Paradise

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article offers the first comprehensive account of the marginalization of the African American Christian tradition in the movement of race and law scholarship known as critical race theory. While committed to grounding itself in the perspectives of communities of color, critical race theory has virtually ignored the significance of the fact that the civil rights movement came out of the Black church and that today more than eighty percent of African Americans self-identify as Christian. In practical terms, critical race theory’s neglect of the Christian tradition has meant that arguments developed in race and law scholarship are sometimes incompatible …

Bruce Ledewitz, American Religious Democracy: Coming To Terms With The End Of Secular Politics, Thomas A. Schweitzer

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Mighty Work Of Making Nations Happy: A Response To James Davison Hunter, Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Pepperdine Law Review

This article is an invited response to James Davison Hunter’s much-discussed book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010). Hunter, a sociologist at UVA and a believing Protestant, claims that law’s capacity to contribute to social change is “mostly illusory” and that Christians, therefore, should practice “faithful presence” in the public square rather than seek to influence law directly. My response is that it is, in fact, law’s stunning ability to alter and limit available choices that makes it an object of deservedly fierce contest. The wild …

Faithful Presence And Theological Jurisprudence: A Response To James Davison Hunter , Zachary R. Calo

Pepperdine Law Review

This paper considers how James Hunter’s arguments, presented both in his address and his book To Change the World, might inform the development of a constructive religious legal theory based in the particular resources of Christian theology. In speaking of religious legal theory, I mean something quite different than a theory of law and religion. For some time, the academic conversation about law and religion has centered around issues concerning church-state relations and, more broadly, the place of religion within the liberal political order. Yet, the regnant methodological concerns that have shaped this discourse reflect the boundedness of law to …

Faithful Presence And Theological Jurisprudence: A Response To James Davison Hunter, Zachary R. Calo

Scholarly Works

This paper considers how James Hunter’s arguments, presented both in his address and his book To Change the World, might inform the development of a constructive religious legal theory based in the particular resources of Christian theology. In speaking of religious legal theory, I mean something quite different than a theory of law and religion. For some time, the academic conversation about law and religion has centered around issues concerning church-state relations and, more broadly, the place of religion within the liberal political order. Yet, the regnant methodological concerns that have shaped this discourse reflect the boundedness of law to …

The Christian Executioner: Reconciling “An Eye For An Eye” With “Turn The Other Cheek”, Jill Jones

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Higher Law Secularism: Religious Symbols, Contested Secularisms, And The Limits Of The Establishment Clause, Zachary R. Calo

Chicago-Kent Law Review

There are two dominant traditions of understanding the secular, both with long genealogical resonance in western thought: Christian secularity and secularism. The former links the secular to a theological narrative, while the latter defines the secular as standing over and against religion. Constitutional debate has commonly framed the issue of religious symbols as demanding resolution in favor of one of these traditions. Rather than offering a way to overcome the divide and the culture war it generates, the Court's jurisprudence has instead concretized the binary. Only by cultivating a new understanding of the secular in law might there emerge an …

The Wrong Question, John E. Acuff

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Truth Shall Set You Free: A Distinctively Christian Approach To Deception In The Negotiation Process, Al Sturgeon

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This paper examines whether the Christian religion offers a distinct position on the use of deception in the negotiation process. It is expected to be of primary interest to Christian negotiators, but combining the popularly understood theorem that "everyone negotiates on some level" with the fact that there are over 173 million Christian adherents in the United States alone, the topic may be of general interest to anyone who negotiates. There is apparently neither an official nor a widespread recognition of a distinct Christian position on the use of deception in negotiation at present. It is this article's proposal, however, …

Law, Higher Law, And Human Making, William S. Brewbaker Iii

Pepperdine Law Review

This paper is a preliminary investigation of what Christian theology might teach us about the nature of human creative activity and its relationship to judging and lawmaking. Rather than attempt to survey and synthesize multiple theological accounts of human making, it focuses on just one - Dorothy Sayers' The Mind of the Maker. The foundational analogy that drives Sayers' account of human creativity is the relation between God's creative activity and that of human beings made in his image. Sayers argues that human creative activity has a Trinitarian structure, which she identifies as Idea, Energy and Power. These three elements …