Posted on by Mark Movsesian

End of the Catholic Left?

Relax, everyone, we’re talking about France.  In a post on Religio Blog, the insightful religion correspondent for Le Figaro, Jean-Marie Guénois, reports on a survey of French participants at the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day, currently underway in Madrid.  The poll reveals the extent to which young French Catholics see themselves as conservative.  Almost half describe themselves as on the “right” or the “far right”; only about eight percent say they are on the “left” or “far left.”  Guénois cautions that there are nuances in the responses and one should avoid simplistic labels.  Still, he believes that these figures show a major shift in French Catholicism.  Since the 1970s, he writes, the Catholic intelligentsia in France has been decidedly progressive; conservativism has been highly frowned upon.  But les cathos de gauche are now the party of grey hair (des cheveux blancs) and they have not had a lasting impact.  Indeed, Guénois argues that the poll results indicate the end of the Left’s decisive influence in the French Church.

I’m no expert on the sociology of French Catholicism, but I wonder how much one can read into this survey.  Kids who attend the World Youth Day are seriously committed to Catholicism; it’s not surprising, for example, that they would report widespread agreement with the moral teachings of the Church.  One wonders what those young Catholics who aren’t attending the conference would say.  And of course many young French have left the Catholic Church altogether.  Still, people tend to be more liberal when they are young and to become more conservative as they get older, so the fact that so many young French Catholics already identify as conservative suggests that the future of the French Church, as Guénois writes, will be more conservative than its recent past. – MLM

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Kahan on Neutrality

Via Larry Solum, I see that Dan Kahan has posted a draft of the Harvard Law Review Foreword for the fall, Neutral Principles, Motivated Cognition, and Some Problems for Constitutional Law.  Readers here will know that neutrality is a currently favored family of approaches to religious liberty, and Professor Kahan even quotes a tract from the McCreary County case as one of the piece’s epigraphs.  Read more

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Chaves’s American Religion: Contemporary Trends

Sociologist Mark Chaves (Duke) has published  American Religion: Contemporary Trends (Princeton UP).  The book is a study of religious trends in the United States, seemingly akin to Robert Putnam and David Cambell’s American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.  Chaves “challenges the popular notion that religion is witnessing a resurgence in the United States–in fact, traditional belief and practice is either stable or declining. Chaves examines why the decline in liberal Protestant denominations has been accompanied by the spread of liberal Protestant attitudes about religious and social tolerance, how confidence in religious institutions has declined more than confidence in secular institutions, and a host of other crucial trends.”  — MOD

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“Islamophobia, the Media and Echoes of 9/11” (Sept. 7, 2011)

Lawrence Joseph will participate in an upcoming discussion at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism entitled Islamophobia, the Media and Echoes of 9/11. The event is being hosted by Granta magazine in association with South Asian Journalists Association and Voice of Witness, and will explore Islamophobia, media rhetoric and how society remembers the events of September 11, 2001. The discussion will take place on September 7, 2011, at 5 p.m.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Pew Forum Reports Rise in Restrictions on Religion

The well-regarded Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has updated its report on restrictions on religion around the world.  Pew counts not only laws and official policies that limit the exercise of religion, but also “social hostilities,” defined as private acts like mob violence and other sorts of intimidation.  Pew reports that restrictions on religion increased substantially for one-third of the world’s population in the three years between 2006 and 2009.  The Middle East/North Africa had the largest proportion of countries with a rise in government restrictions; Europe had the largest proportion of countries with a rise in social hostilities.  The full report is here.  — MLM

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Bilchitz on “Religious Associations” and Discrimination

David Bilchitz (University of Johannesburg) has posted Should Religious Associations Be Entitled to Discriminate?  The piece is an interesting intervention dealing with South African constitutional law and provides a counterpoint to some of the current debates involving the ministerial exemption in this country.  I have put the term “religious associations” in quotation marks because it is not the way I am accustomed to refer to religious institutions, though I recognize that the South African and U.S. contexts are probably very different (and I believe that there are some scholars in this country who might favor this terminology).  The author takes equality to be the overriding value in these kinds of cases — see, e.g., footnote 23 on page 8, where he cites to a law review piece for the proposition that “even in the United States” some have argued that “equality [should] be regarded as the value to which primacy should be attached.”  The abstract follows.  — MOD

Should religious associations be allowed to engage in acts of discrimination on grounds prohibited in the Constitution where they claim their religious doctrines require it? This paper argues for this question, in general, to be answered in the negative and seeks in the process to explore the tension between advancing equality in South African society whilst recognizing the autonomy of private associations. Read more

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Stanley Fish on the Distinction Between Religion and Philosophy

Stanley Fish, professor of law and humanities at Florida International University in Miami, and contributor to NYT.com, has posted a follow-up piece to his article, Does Philosophy Matter?.  In it, Fish argues that philosophical and religious belief are fundamentally distinguishable.  Both, he reflects, may be momentous—say, killing is always wrong.  But one may arrive at philosophical belief from many sources—one’s mother, a good book.  And though one may state philosophical belief in absolute terms, it is subject to the challenges and standards of philosophical reasoning.

On the other hand, he says, religious belief arises from commands—moral imperatives not subject to an umbrella system of reasoning or logic.  And, unlike a philosophical belief, which can be a passing intellectual exercise, one observes religious belief always: at temple, home, and work.  (Fish contextualizes this dichotomy in part by reference to Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997)—the Due Process challenge to Washington State’s prohibition of assisted suicide—and the so-called Philosopher’s Brief, the amicus curiae by Ronald Dworkin and five other moral and political philosophers opposed to the law.)

Is religious belief so absolute or unquestioning as Fish claims?   Read more

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

On Charles Taylor

This is a very interesting and thoughtful piece by Mark Oppenheimer on the great Charles Taylor (h/t Paul H.).  Of particular interest to me was the way in which the historians discussed at the end of the piece describe Taylor’s uses of history for prescriptively optimistic theoretical motives of his own — “it is history for argument about modernity, the cause of the modern condition, and its possible cure.  It is a history of lament and failure intended to propel readers toward a history of meaning and fulfillment.”  This particular criticism of the strategic uses of history resonated with me not so much because I agree with the historian cited (I don’t know enough to agree or disagree), but because it’s something I’ve been thinking about recently in legal scholarship.  — MOD (x-posted MOJ)

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Anti-Shari`a Laws Face Constitutional Challenge

In the past year a number of state legislatures have considered bills and ballot questions impacting Shari`a, the holy law of Islam. While each law calls for different treatment of Shari`a, all Anti-Shari`a laws present real concerns about the legal future of Muslim citizens. Some laws, for example the amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution, would prohibit courts from interpreting or applying Shari`a, or any other foreign laws. Other laws, such as the Tennessee law outlawing the practice of Shari`a entirely, associate the holy law with terrorist organizations or activity. Such laws claim that one of the stated aims of Shari`a is to replace both the federal and state constitutions with Muslim law.

Anti-Shari`a laws will have a profound impact on many Muslims as the Shari`a contains sacred laws by which many believers order their lives. These include laws governing marriage and the drafting of wills and other inheritance instruments. Anti-Shari`a laws like the Oklahoma Amendment are troubling because, if enacted, the laws would limit the ability of Muslims to practice their religion. Furthermore, the laws do not exclude any other religious law. This singles out Islam in a problematic fashion. Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Garnett on Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral

Rick Garnett has posted a thoughtful  essay on the relatively little-known case of Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral, which the Supreme Court decided in 1952.  At the height of the Cold War, a dispute arose between the Moscow Patriarchate, the supreme head of the Russian Orthodox Church around the world, and the Church’s American diocese.  The American diocese had elected its own bishop and refused to acknowledge the bishop appointed by Moscow, whom the Americans viewed, undoubtedly correctly, as compromised by the Soviets.  The New York State Legislature sided with the Americans and passed a law that, in effect, reorganized the Russian Orthodox Church in America and gave control over church property to the local bishop.

The Supreme Court held the law unconstitutional.   New York had no authority to reorganize a church and interfere in what was, in the end, an internal church matter.  Under the First Amendment, a religious body could organize itself, and settle internal controversies, according to its own ecclesiastical rules.  The existing rules of the Russian Orthodox Church in America gave the Moscow Patriarchate the right to appoint the bishop for the American diocese, and New York would have to defer.

As Rick points out, this case is noteworthy for two things.  First, it testifies to the Read more