September 9, 2015 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

We’re delighted to report that the Center for Law and Religion has appointed two student fellows for 2015-2016, Stephanie Cipolla (3L) and Christina Vlahos (2L). Cipolla, who served as a fellow last year as well, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in political science. Before coming to St. John’s, she spent a year working for the CEO of Catholic Charities – Archdiocese of New Orleans. She is a staff member on the St. John’s Law Review.

Vlahos, who joins us as a new fellow this year, graduated from Columbia College (Columbia University) with a B.A. in English Literature and Modern Greek Studies. She is a staff member on the St. John’s Law Review.

Our student fellows help out with various Center activities, including, most importantly, keeping this blog updated with daily Scholarship Roundup posts and our weekly Around the Web feature. This is our fifth class of student fellows. We selected our first in 2011.

We welcome Stephanie and Christina and wish them success in the year ahead!

This month, Springer Press releases “Discerning the Powers in Post-Colonial Africa and Asia: A Treatise on Christian Statecraft,” by Pak Nung Wong (University of Bath). The publisher’s description follows:

Qualifying post-Westphalian sovereign statehood as a ‘power’ as argued for in Hendrik Berkhoff’s political theology, this book addresses the decades-long theological-spiritual debate between Christian realism and Christian pacifism in U.S. foreign policy and global Christian circles. It approaches the debate by delving into the pacifist Anabaptist political theology and delineates empirically how sovereign statehood in post-colonial Africa and Asia has fallen into the hands of the devil Satan, as a ‘fallen power’ in the Foucaultian terms of power structures, techniques and episteme. While the book offers intervention schemes and options, it holds that Christian statecraft remains the source of hope to effectively address a number of serious global issues. By extension, the book is thus an invitation to ignite debates on the suitability of Christian statecraft and the nexus between spirituality and world politics, making it especially interesting for scholars and students in the fields of International Politics, Politics of Asian and African States, Post-colonial Studies and Political Theology.