Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Liveblogging the Religious Legal Theory Conference – Panel: “Who Should Influence Whom?”

While my colleague Marc spoke on another panel this afternoon, I attended  a competing session, “Who Should Influence Whom?” This panel addressed a growing field in law and religious scholarship: legal discourse within religious traditions.

Perry Dane (Rutgers-Camden) began the panel by discussing the interplay between faith and law in the history of Christianity. He described different turning points in that history, including the apostolic era, the Papal Revolution of the Middle Ages, and the Protestant Reformation. Even though Christianity has expressed ambivalence towards law, he argued, legal discourse has played an important role in Christian thought.

David Flatto (Penn State) then spoke about the concept of law in the three Abrahamic faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The Abrahamic faiths, he suggested, all share a sense that legal authority comes principally from religious sages, not political actors, that justice should be separated from power. He gave several examples from Judaism, both Biblical and post-Biblical, as well as a couple of examples from Islam and Christianity – though he also noted differences among these three religions’ approach to the question as well, particularly Christianity’s.

David Opderbeck (Seton Hall) spoke third. His paper was a theological and philosophical reflection on intellectual property. He noted that our notions of intellectual property and culture have become divorced from metaphysics, including Christian metaphysics: Both popular and academic theories of culture ignore theology in favor of pragmatic market explanations. He asked whether theology can “rescue” contemporary metaphysics and contribute to theories of culture and culture-production, and suggested that the Christian concept of grace — “the gift” can do so.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Liveblogging the Religious Legal Theory Conference — International and Comparative Perspectives, Panel 1

I am here at this year’s Religious Legal Theory conference, The Competing Claims of Law and Religion: Who Should Influence Whom?, at Pepperdine in sunny Malibu.  The first panel on international and comparative perspectives is now going on.

The first speaker is Stijn Smet (a Ph.D. student at Ghent), who is speaking about Freedom of Religion Versus Freedom From Religion in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.  The first case Mr. Smet is discussing is the Dahlab v. Switzerland, involving a teacher who wanted to wear a headscarf in public school.  He criticizes this decision.

He is now talking about Lautsi v. Italy, the Italian crucifix case, where the Grand Chamber of the European Court ultimately upheld Italy’s right to display the crucifix in public schools.  He criticizes the idea that the crucifix is a “passive” symbol at least by comparison with the Dahlab decision’s description of the headscarf as an active symbol.

He explains the difference in outcome as involving the concept of margin of appreciation.  Neither case dealt with indoctrination, though he recognizes that the definition of indoctrination needs to be filled out.  Smet also notes that there is no Establishment Clause analogue in the Convention, and he notes the difference in power and jurisdiction of the European Court.  He suggests an “equal respect” argument which might have been available through Article 14.

The second speaker is Mark D. Rosen (Chicago-Kent).

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Hunter-Henin (ed.), “Law, Religious Freedoms and Education in Europe”

Ashgate Publishing has published Law, Religious Freedoms and Education in Europe (February 2012) edited by Myriam Hunter-Henin (University College London – Faculty of Laws).  The publisher’s description follows.

This collection considers how contemporary cultural and religious diversity challenges and redefines national constitutional and legal frameworks and concepts, within the context of education. It offers a critical reflection on the extent and meanings given to religious freedom in education across Europe. The contributions deal primarily with Western Europe although the book also includes a study of the US vibrant debates on Creationism.

This volume considers issues such as religious expression, faith schooling and worship in schools, in a multidisciplinary and comparative approach. The book first examines key concepts, before presenting national models of religion and education in Europe and analyzing case studies relating to religious symbols worn at school and to the teaching of religious education. Read more

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Ahmed, “Narratives of Islamic Legal Theory”

Next month, Oxford University Press will publish Narratives of Islamic Legal Theory (OUP March 2012) by Rumee Ahmed (University of British Columbia).  The publisher’s description follows.

In the critical period when Islamic law first developed, a new breed of jurists developed a genre of legal theory treatises to explore how the fundamental moral teachings of Islam might operate as a legal system. Seemingly rhetorical and formulaic, these manuals have long been overlooked for the insight they offer into the early formation of Islamic conceptions of law and its role in social life.

In this book, Rumee Ahmed shatters the prevailing misconceptions of the purpose and form of the Islamic legal treatise. Ahmed describes how Muslim jurists used the genre of legal theory to argue for individualized, highly creative narratives about the application of Islamic law while demonstrating loyalty to inherited principles and general prohibitions. These narratives are revealed through careful attention to the nuanced way in which legal theorists defined terms and concepts particular to the legal theory genre, and developed pictures of multiple worlds in which Islamic law should ideally function. Ahmed takes the reader into the logic of Islamic legal theory to uncover diverse conceptions of law and legal application in the Islamic tradition, clarifying and making accessible the sometimes obscure legal theories of central figures in the history of Islamic law. The book offers important insights about the ways in which legal philosophy and theology mutually influenced premodern jurists as they formulated their respective visions of law, ethics, and theology. Read more

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Kuru and Stepan (ed.), “Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey”

Ahmet T. Kuru (San Diego State University) and Alfred Stepan (Columbia University) have edited Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey (Columbia University Press, February 2012).   The publisher’s description follows.

While Turkey has grown as a world power, promoting the image of a progressive and stable nation, several choices in policy have strained its relationship with the East and the West. Providing historical, social, and religious context for this behavior, the essays in Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey examine issues relevant to Turkish debates and global concerns, from the state’s position on religion to its involvement with the European Union.   Read more

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“The Competing Claims of Law and Religion” at Pepperdine School of Law

The Herbert and Elinor Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion and Ethics  is hosting a conference entitled, “The Competing Claims of Law and Religion: Who Should Influence Whom?” this weekend at Pepperdine School of Law.  The Conference begins today and continue through Saturday. On Friday, Marc DeGirolami will be presenting a talk entitled, “The Method of Tragedy and History Applied.” On Saturday, Mark Movsesian will be presenting his talk, “Crosses and Culture: Public Religious Symbols in the U.S. and Europe.”  Both Marc and Mark will be liveblogging from the conference throughout the weekend.

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Zucca, “A Secular Europe”

This year, the Oxford University Press will publish A Secular Europe (forthcoming May 2012) by Lorenzo Zucca (King’s College London).  The publisher’s description of the book follows.

How to accommodate diverse religious practices and laws within a secular framework is one of the most pressing and controversial problems facing contemporary European public order. In this provocative contribution to the subject, Lorenzo Zucca argues that traditional models of secularism, focusing on the relationship of state and church, are out-dated and that only by embracing a new picture of what secularism means can Europe move forward in the public reconciliation of its religious diversity.
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Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

On the Uses of the Epigraph

“Should Federal Judges Cite the Bible as Authority for Constitutional Decisions?”  That is the question Professor Richard Pildes asks over at Balkinization.  The occasion for asking it is a concurrence by Judge Calabresi in Ognibene v. Parkes, decided by the Second Circuit earlier this year — a case about campaign finance and the First Amendment, in which Judge Calabresi criticizes the Citizens United decision.  In that concurrence, Judge Calabresi uses Luke 21:1-4 as an epigraph for his opinion.

I am not certain that I agree with Professor Pildes that this qualifies as reliance on the Bible as “authority” for a constitutional decision, at least unless the modifier “persuasive” is added.  But even “persuasive authority” is not quite right.  The body of Judge Calabresi’s concurrence discusses American constitutional caselaw alone, and it seems to me that this provides the “authority” for his opinion.  In his post, Prof. Pildes describes the use of the epigraph as providing “normative support” for Judge Calabresi’s views, and this seems closer, though also not exactly right.

I have always thought that epigraphs are not argument.  They are not even suggestions of argument.  Their function is to orient the reader obliquely toward a certain mood or manner of thinking.  In fact, the elegance of the epigraph consists exactly in refraining from doggedly hitting the reader over the head with argumentative authority.  “Authority” is hardly the point.

All the same, I found some of the thoughtful questions that Professor Pildes asks about the uses to which epigraphs with religious origins may be put, and by whom, and in what circumstances, and with what political valences, extremely interesting.

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Blitt on the Secular Influence of the Russian Orthodox Church

Robert C. Blitt (University of Tennessee College of Law) has posted Whither Secular Bear: The Russian Orthodox Church’s Strengthening Influence on Russia’s Domestic and Foreign Policy. The abstract follows.

As 2012 presidential elections in Russia draw near, evidence points to a collapse in that country’s constitutional obligation of secularism and state-church separation. Although early signs of this phenomenon can be traced back to the Yeltsin era, the Putin and Medvedev presidencies have dealt a fatal blow to secular state policy manifested both at home and abroad, as well as to Russia’s constitutional human rights principles including nondiscrimination and equality of religious beliefs.
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Upcoming Lecture: Volf on Exclusivist Faith in a Pluralist World

The Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College lists an upcoming lecture: Religious Exclusivism and Pluralism as a Political Project (Boston College, March 14, 2012, at 5:30 PM).  This lecture, by Miroslav Volf, professor at Yale Divinity School and founding director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, will explore the challenges of a world in which interfaith encounters are increasingly unavoidable.

It goes without saying that in the modern world—both within nations and in the global arena—persons of different religions encounter one another and interact, conduct politics, and do business more and more often, even as their beliefs express exclusive and universal validity.  How, asks Professor Volf, do we then co-exist constructively in a pluralistic society of exclusivist faiths?

Please read the Boisi Center’s abstract of Professor Volf’s lecture, as well as its biography of the professor, after the jump.  (Likewise, see this post on Volf’s recent book, A Public Faith, by CLR’s Professor Movsesian.) Read more