Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Kupchan, “No One’s World”

Perhaps somewhat peripherally related to religion proper, but No One’s World: The West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn (OUP 2012), by Charles A. Kupchan (Georgetown) looks to contain much of interest for folks who think about law and religion.  The publisher’s description follows.

The world is on the cusp of a global turn. Between 1500 and 1800, the West sprinted ahead of other centers of power in Asia and the Middle East. Europe and the United States have dominated the world since. But today the West’s preeminence is slipping away as China, India, Brazil and other emerging powers rise. Although most strategists recognize that the dominance of the West is on the wane, they are confident that its founding ideas–democracy, capitalism, and secular nationalism–will continue to spread, ensuring that the Western order will outlast its primacy.

In No One’s World, Charles A. Kupchan boldly challenges this view, arguing that the world is headed for political and ideological diversity; emerging powers will neither defer to the West’s lead nor converge toward the Western way. The ascent of the West was the product of social and economic conditions unique to Europe and the United States. As other regions now rise, they are following their own paths to modernity and embracing their own conceptions of domestic and international order.

Kupchan contends that the Western order will not be displaced by a new great power or dominant political model. The twenty-first century will not belong to America, China, Asia, or anyone else. It will be no one’s world. For the first time in history, the world will be interdependent–but without a center of gravity or global guardian.

More than simply diagnosing what lies ahead, Kupchan provides a detailed strategy for striking a bargain between the West and the rising rest by fashioning a new consensus on issues of legitimacy, sovereignty, and governance. Thoughtful, provocative, sweeping in scope, this work is nothing less than a global guidebook for the 21st century.  

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

“Dubious”

The editorial page of the New York Times has come out in favor of Judge Richard Stearns’s decision in ACLU v. Sebelius.  The editorial is entirely bereft of legal analysis, other than offering the obviously heartfelt but otherwise unilluminating view that the opinion  is “sound.”  The editorial concludes with this:

The sound ruling could have implications for the faith-based initiative begun by President George W. Bush and continued under President Obama by calling into question the dubious notion of giving churches and other groups wide latitude to use public money for their religion-based social service programs.

I am not sure whether this was intended seriously or not, but on the assumption that it was, I’m afraid it is sorely, wildly mistaken — indeed, positively “dubious” as a legal matter.  On no plausible understanding of the Establishment Clause could the activity of distributing public money on a neutral basis to organizations which perform secular functions with religious motivations violate the Establishment Clause, at least not as the Clause has been interpreted by the Supreme Court, or as a matter of historical practice, or as a matter of tradition, or by any other constitutional methodology that has any serious adherents.  The claim is sufficiently extraordinary to motivate me to create a special new tag, “The New York Times on the Religion Clauses.”

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Norton on Using an Establishment Clause Analysis for Free Speech Claims

Helen L. Norton (University of Colorado School of Law) has posted The Equal Protection Implications of Government’s Hateful Speech. The abstract follows.

Under what circumstances should we understand government’s racist or otherwise hateful speech to violate the equal protection clause? Government speech that communicates hostility or animus on the on the basis of race, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, or other class status can facilitate private parties’ discriminatory behavior, deter its targets from certain important behavior, and communicate a message of exclusion and second-class status. Contemporary equal protection doctrine, however, does not yet fully address the harms potentially posed by such government expression. The recent emergence of the Court’s government speech doctrine — which to date has emphasized the value of government expression without yet fully addressing its potential costs — offers an important new opportunity to consider the situations in which government speech might offend equal protection values.
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Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 2 Comments

The Indiana Statehouse Chapel

Last week, I spent a couple of days in Indianapolis at a roundtable on law and the Protestant Reformation directed by my friend and sometime co-author, John McGinnis of Northwestern. During a break, I walked over to the Indiana Statehouse where, much to my surprise, I discovered the Indiana Chapel — that’s its official designation, though the sign on the door (right) says “Meditation Room” — on the fourth floor. It is apparently the first statehouse chapel in the United States, and one of only six, the others being in statehouses  in Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, and Texas. The chapel is a small room without sectarian symbols; to me, it resembles a Victorian parlor. There is, nonetheless, a Protestant feel to the room, no doubt created by the lectern at the front with a King James Bible, the hymnal on the electric organ, and the bookcase filled with Bibles, presumably for the  Bible studies advertised on a bulletin board outside the door (below). According to this website, a private evangelical Christian group called the Capitol Commission of Indiana regularly uses the room, though it doesn’t seem other groups are excluded. I don’t know if anyone has ever thought to bring a lawsuit about the Indiana Chapel, but, assuming the room really is open to everybody on an equal basis,  I don’t think an Establishment Clause challenge  would succeed, either under the Lemon/endorsement test or Marsh v. Chambers, the legislative chaplain case. In 1988, the Seventh Circuit held that a similar non-sectarian chapel/meditation room in the Illinois state capitol did not violate the Establishment Clause.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Copts Boycott Committee Drafting New Egyptian Constitution

Calling their participation “futile,” the Coptic Church yesterday withdrew its two representatives from the 100-person committee drafting Egypt’s new constitution. The committee, which is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis, has also suffered recent defections from liberal and secular members, who argue that the committee fails to represent the totality of Egyptian society. Even Al-Azhar University, the country’s leading seat of Islamic learning, has withdrawn from the process, suggesting a division within the Muslim community about the direction the committee is taking. These defections follow the Muslim Brotherhood’s announcement  Saturday that it will run a candidate in upcoming presidential election, notwithstanding earlier pledges to sit out the contest.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Lassner, “Jews, Christians, and the Abode of Islam”

This is an absolutely wonderful looking new study about the interaction of various religious traditions in the pre-early-medieval period — Jacob Lassner’s (Northwestern) Jews, Christians, and the Abode of Islam: Modern Scholarship, Medieval Realities (Chicago 2012).  The publisher’s description follows.

In Jews, Christians, and the Abode of Islam, Jacob Lassner examines the triangular relationship that during the Middle Ages defined—and continues to define today—the political and cultural interaction among the three Abrahamic faiths. Lassner looks closely at the debates occasioned by modern Western scholarship on Islam to throw new light on the social and political status of medieval Jews and Christians in various Islamic lands from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries. Utilizing a vast array of primary sources, Lassner balances the rhetoric of literary and legal texts from the Middle Ages with other, newly published medieval sources, describing life as it was actually lived among the three faith communities. Lassner shows just what medieval Muslims meant when they spoke of tolerance, and how that abstract concept played out at different times and places in the real world of Christian and Jewish communities under Islamic rule. Finally, he considers what a more informed picture of the relationship among the Abrahamic faiths in the medieval Islamic world might mean for modern scholarship on medieval Islamic civilization and, not the least, for the highly contentious global environment of today.
Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Breton, “Different Gods”

An interesting looking book by Raymond Breton (Toronto) about some of the challenges faced by Canada, Different Gods: Integrating Non-Christian Minorities Into a Primarily Christian Society (McGill-Queen’s University Press 2012).  The publisher’s description follows.

In recent decades the ebb and flow of immigration to Canada has changed significantly, with the majority of immigrants coming from non-European countries. A striking feature of this shift is that a significant proportion of immigrants are non-Christians newly immersed in a society entrenched in Christian ideals.

In Different Gods, Raymond Breton looks at the significance of religious differences and what they mean for immigrants, non-immigrants, and Canada’s future. Breton examines the evolution over time of the religious attitudes and behaviour of the new minorities and the challenges that their presence poses to the receiving society. The analysis consists of a review of recent research and formulates possible conclusions about the transformations that integration may bring about for both the minorities and the receiving society.

An important analysis of immigration in an era of rapidly changing social values, Different Gods looks boldly into issues of collective identity and cultural accommodation.

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Silvestri on the Identities of Europe’s Muslim Women

In June, Columbia University Press will publish Europe’s Muslim Women: Beyond the Burqa Controversy, by  Dr. Sara Silvestri, Senior Lecturer in International Politics at City University London.  Silvestri’s text attempts to transcend the international debates—e.g., about the burqa, the niqab, and subjection to men—surrounding Muslim women in Europe that inadvertently have the effect of obscuring who these women actually are.  Through the content of interviews and surveys, Silvestri hopes to paint a truer portrait of the domestic, religious, and socio-political identities of Europe’s Muslim women.

Please see the publisher’s description after the jump. Read more

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Marietta on the Politics of Sacred Rhetoric

In March, Baylor University Press published, The Politics of Sacred Rhetoric: Absolutist Appeals and Political Persuasion, by Morgan Marietta, who teaches American politics and political psychology at the University of Georgia.  The volume explores the uses and effects of American politicians’ reliance on religious tropes in expressing their political positions, even where the connection between their language and the sacred is not overt.  The first part of the volume discusses this trend and its effect in general.  The second part delves into how such rhetoric has been used in specific social movements; by specific presidents, such as George W. Bush; and in specific political undertakings, like the 2008 Democratic  campaign.

For the publisher’s description, please follow the jump. Read more

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Kwall on Women, Synagogue and the Cultural Analysis Paradigm

Roberta Rosenthal Kwall  (DePaul U. College of Law) has posted The Cultural Analysis Paradigm: Women and Synagogue Ritual as a Case Study. The abstract follows.

This Article develops an original cultural analysis paradigm with significant implications for understanding the relationship between law and culture. It also illustrates how this relationship should inform the normative application of areas of law in which tensions exist between modern sensibilities and traditional practices steeped in cultural perspectives form other times. Indeed, the negotiation between preservation and change confronts all ancient cultural traditions in modernity. The specific application invoked in this Article concerns the issue of women being called to read publicly from the Torah, a subject of serious academic debate among observant Jews. The analysis demonstrates that the virtually unanimous practice of excluding women from participation in public Torah reading exists despite long-standing ambiguity in the strictly legal realm of the tradition. This reality reveals that the prevailing practices and legal justifications have been markedly influenced by cultural considerations. Thus, the story of women and public Torah reading provides the ideal subject for exploring the synergies between law, culture, and tradition. This story also serves as a model for how cultural analysis can inform the discourse on a broad range of issues in which settled law confronts cultural shifts.