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Renard, “Fighting Words”

This December, the University of California Press will publish Fighting Words: Religion, Violence, and the Interpretation of Sacred Texts edited by John Renard (Saint Louis University). The publisher’s description follows.

One of the critical issues in inter-religious relations today is the connection, both actual and perceived, between sacred sources and the justification of violent acts as divinely mandated. Fighting Words makes solid text-based scholarship accessible to the general public, beginning with the premise that a balanced approach to religious pluralism in our world must build on a measured, well-informed response to the increasingly publicized and sensationalized association of terrorism and large-scale violence with religion. An Introduction provides background on the major scriptures of seven religious traditions. Eight main chapters then explore aspects of the interpretation of selected facets of scripture in seven traditions: Jewish, Christian (including chapters on Old as well as New Testaments), Islamic, Baha’i, Zoroastrian, Hindu and Sikh. Focus is on sacred texts so often claimed, both historically and more recently, as inspiration for and justification of every kind of violence from individual assassination to mass murder. A balanced approach to this complex topic also means that this is not merely a book about the religious sanctioning of violence, but about diverse ways of reading sacred textual sources.

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Agrama, “Questioning Secularism”

This October, the University of Chicago Press will publish Questioning Secularism: Islam, Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law in Modern Egypt by Hussein Ali Agrama (University of Chicago). The publisher’s description follows.

The central question of the Arab Spring—what democracies should look like in the deeply religious countries of the Middle East—has developed into a vigorous debate over these nations’ secular identities. But what, exactly, is secularism? What has the West’s long familiarity with it inevitably obscured? In Questioning Secularism, Hussein Ali Agrama tackles these questions. Focusing on the fatwa councils and family law courts of Egypt just prior to the revolution, he delves deeply into the meaning of secularism itself and the ambiguities that lie at its heart.

Drawing on a precedent-setting case arising from the family law courts —the last courts in Egypt to use Shari‘a law—Agrama shows that secularism is a historical phenomenon that works through a series of paradoxes that it creates. Digging beneath the perceived differences between the West and Middle East, he highlights secularism’s dependence on the law and the problems that arise from it: the necessary involvement of state sovereign power in managing the private spiritual lives of citizens and the irreducible set of legal ambiguities such a relationship creates. Navigating a complex landscape between private and public domains, Questioning Secularism lays important groundwork for understanding the real meaning of secularism as it affects the real freedoms of a citizenry, an understanding of the utmost importance for so many countries that are now urgently facing new political possibilities.

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Leiter, “Why Tolerate Religion?”

This October, Princeton University Press will publish Why Tolerate Religion? By Brian Leiter (University of Chicago Law School). The publisher’s description follows.

This provocative book addresses one of the most enduring puzzles in political philosophy and constitutional theory–why is religion singled out for preferential treatment in both law and public discourse? Why, for example, can a religious soup kitchen get an exemption from zoning laws in order to expand its facilities to better serve the needy, while a secular soup kitchen with the same goal cannot? Why is a Sikh boy permitted to wear his ceremonial dagger to school while any other boy could be expelled for packing a knife? Why are religious obligations that conflict with the law accorded special toleration while other obligations of conscience are not?

In Why Tolerate Religion?, Brian Leiter argues that the reasons have nothing to do with religion, and that Western democracies are wrong to single out religious liberty for special legal protections. He offers new insights into what makes a claim of conscience distinctively “religious,” and draws on a wealth of examples from America, Europe, and elsewhere to highlight the important issues at stake. With philosophical acuity, legal insight, and wry humor, Leiter shows why our reasons for tolerating religion are not specific to religion but apply to all claims of conscience, and why a government committed to liberty of conscience is not required by the principle of toleration to grant exemptions to laws that promote the general welfare.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Girl in Pakistani Quran Case Ruled a Minor

The lawyer representing a Pakistani girl charged with blasphemy for allegedly desecrating  a Quran announced today that a medical review board has determined the girl is a minor. According to the Guardian, this determination may defuse the case. The accusations against the girl, discussed here, have ignited her neighborhood and caused 900 Christians to flee for fear of reprisals. The Guardian explains:

The case has once again put the spotlight on Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which critics say can be used to settle vendettas or seek retribution. Many of Pakistan’s minorities, including Christians, live in fear of being accused of blasphemy.

Once someone is labelled a blasphemer, even if they are never convicted, they can face vigilante justice. In July, thousands of people dragged a Pakistani man accused of desecrating the Qur’an from a police station, beating him to death and setting his body alight.

The potential public backlash also means few people have spoken out to change or repeal the law. Last year two prominent politicians who criticised the blasphemy law were murdered, one by his own bodyguard, who then attracted adoring mobs.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 3 Comments

Is Conservative Judaism a Cartel?

CLR Forum reader John McGinnis points out an interesting article in the New York Times this weekend, about Duke Law Professor Barak Richman’s quest to have the courts declare Conservative Judaism’s rules for naming rabbis a violation of the Sherman Act. It’s not entirely clear from the Times article, but, as I understand it, synagogues that affiliate with Conservative Judaism must select rabbis from lists approved by the Rabbinical Assembly, a membership association of Conservative rabbis.  Richman believes this mechanism makes the Rabbinical Assembly an illegal “cartel” that “harms both the economic welfare and the religious interests of individual congregations.” He argues that the ministerial exception properly applies only to hierarchical religions and employers, not “congregational denominations,” like Conservative Judaism, in which individual congregations, not the central body, employ clergy. You can read his argument in an amicus brief he filed, along with several other antitrust scholars, in the Hosanna-Tabor case.

I don’t know whether this mechanism would violate the Sherman Act in a commercial setting. I’m confident the logic of the ministerial exception applies here, though. From what I can gather, Conservative Judaism is a hybrid polity, not hierarchical but not strictly congregational, either. Authority seems to be shared between the central body, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and local congregations. It hardly seems inappropriate to require local congregations that affiliate with the central body to choose clergy the central body approves; otherwise, the central body could lose control over the movement’s meaning and message. Although Professor Richman is correct that the rules impinge on individual congregations’ power to choose whomever they wish as clergy, that’s just a consequence of affiliating with the central body. If congregations want total freedom of choice, they can organize outside the Conservative movement and select whomever they wish.

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Hicks on Power, Empire, and Expansion in Studies of North American Religions

Rosemary R. Hicks (Tufts U.) has posted Between Lived and the Law: Power, Empire, and Expansion in Studies of North American Religions. The abstract follows.

Taking debates about the Park51 (or ‘Ground Zero’) mosque and Islamic Community Center as a case study, this article demonstrates the need for scholars of religious traditions in North America to move beyond liberal modes of historicizing that pluralize narratives about religion but ignore how religion is defined and regulated. Liberal modes of historicizing create space for different traditions by first naturalizing differences as ostensibly fixed, inherent, and eternal – a dynamic that has proven to produce antagonistic narratives and relations as well as ‘tolerant’ ones. This is in part due to the fact that such narratives somewhat broaden the inclusivity of the U.S. public sphere but in so doing obscure the various means and power dynamics by which the boundaries of acceptable religiosity are policed. Finally, this article examines and offers analyses that provide more robust mechanisms by which to understand issues of religious diversity and liberty in the United States.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Wheaton College Case Against HHS Dismissed on Standing and Ripeness Grounds

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has dismissed Wheaton College’s complaint against Kathleen Sebelius and the Department of Health and Human Services on standing and ripeness grounds.  As to standing, the court held that Wheaton’s allegations only made out claims of “future possible injury” because HHS has informed Wheaton that it qualifies for the safe harbor provisions of the mandate, and because an enforcement action by HHS within the safe harbor is neither imminent nor likely.  As to ripeness, the court said: “Because they are in the process of being amended, the preventive services regulations are by definition a tentative agency position,” and therefore unfit for adjudication.

The case is Wheaton College v. Sebelius, 2012 WL 3637162 (D.D.C. Aug. 24, 2012).

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Sarat (Ed.), “Legal Responses to Religious Practices in the United States”

Next month, Cambridge University Press will publish Legal Responses to Religious Practices in the United States, edited by Austin Sarat (Amherst College). The collection of essays includes works by Meredith Render, Paul Horwitz, Steven D. Smith and Richard W. Garnett. The publisher’s description follows.

There is an enormous scholarly literature on law’s treatment of religion. Most scholars now recognize that although the U.S. Supreme Court has not offered a consistent interpretation of what “non-establishment” or religious freedom means, as a general matter it can be said that the First Amendment requires that government not give preference to one religion over another or, although this is more controversial, to religion over non-belief. But these rules raise questions that will be addressed in Legal Responses to Religious Practices in the United States: Namely, what practices constitute a “religious activity” such that it cannot be supported or funded by government? And what is a religion, anyway? How should law understand matters of faith and accommodate religious practices?

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Does Eating Food Provided by a Church Violate the Establishment Clause?

It is difficult to know exactly what the facts in this case really are, because, as reported here, I cannot understand what possible complaint the Freedom From Religion Foundation could have.  The story reports that it is a longstanding tradition of a high school football team in Texas to provide players with pre-game meals made by various churches in the area.  If this truly is all that there is to the story, then I feel confident in saying that FFRF has no case under the Establishment Clause.  I cannot see how, even under any of the watery tests currently in use, eating food that a church prepares comes close to violating the Establishment Clause.  If it does, so much the worse for that silly interpretation.

There is, however, some suggestion in the story in a quote by FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel that the students were taken to a church to eat the food there and that the pastors were “shar[ing] the gospel of Jesus Christ” while they ate.  If there was indeed proselytism going on while the team members were eating at an event, in church, that they were required to attend, then that is, in my view, a much stronger case for violation of the Establishment Clause.  Indeed, one doesn’t need to talk about anything as loose and unclear as the endorsement test to find that sort of state-sponsored proselytism, at a public school function and at an event where students were required to be present, problematic.

What about taking students to a church at which they ate some food prepared by the church, but at which there was no proselytism?  Well, this is admittedly a more intermediate situation, but it’s worth noting that context will likely matter here, too.  See, e.g., the Seventh Circuit opinion recently discussed here, where in a very narrow holding the court decided that having a public school graduation inside a church with rich iconography violated the Establishment Clause, but that it would not necessarily do so in all cases.  See also this post by my colleague Mark, and particularly the second point he makes about the issue of proselytism.

The deviled eggs are in the details.