Posted on by

Brewer, Mitchell & Leavey, “Ex-Combatants, Religion, and Peace in Northern Ireland”

In February, Palgrave MacMillan Publishing will publish Ex-Combatants, Religion, and Peace in Northern Ireland: The Role of Religion in Transitional Justice by John Brewer (University of Aberdeen, U.K.), David Mitchell, and Gerard Leavey. The publisher’s description follows.

Much has been written about the influence of religion on the Northern Ireland conflict and the part played by ex-combatants in the peace process. Yet we know very little about the religious outlook of ex-combatants themselves. Are they personally devout? Is religion important to their political identity? Did faith play a role in their decision to take up arms, or lay them down? And now that their war is over, does religion help them cope with the past?

Based on original interviews with ex-combatants from across the political and religious divide, this book addresses these questions, shedding new light on the interplay of religion, identity and violence in Ireland. It also shows how the case of Northern Ireland illuminates the current international debate around religion and peacemaking. Arguing that advocates of religious interventions in transitional justice often naively exaggerate its influence, a theoretical model for understanding the role of religion in transitional justice is proposed.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Smith, “Science and the Person: A Complacent Reflection”

CLR Forum friend and guest blogger Steve Smith has posted an enjoyable and thoughtful short essay (written with his distinctive grace and humor) about the implications of the developments in neuroscience for our legal understanding of the person (including our understanding of various issues in criminal law).  With an interesting qualification, his general sense is, there are no major destabilizing implications — hence his genial complacency.  Here’s a fragment involving that qualification, on the issue of whether neuroscience will affect our views about the intrinsic worth of the human person (footnotes omitted):

A better understanding of how the brain works and how it causes or correlates with mental states does not in itself tell us anything about whether persons have intrinsic worth, so far as I can see. Neither does an account of how persons may have evolved from other organisms. But it is possible that by giving more cachet to a naturalistic approach to understanding, advances in neuroscience and evolutionary psychology might contribute to the ascendancy of a worldview– or as I sometimes put it, an “ontological inventory” — in which things like intrinsic value don’t register. In this way, it is conceivable that neuroscience might for some people undermine belief in intrinsic value in the same way that for some people science undermines belief in God– not by scientifically demonstrating that God (or intrinsic value) aren’t real, but by promoting and reenforcing a vocabulary and conceptual framework, or ontological inventory, in which these things just don’t figure.

Some people will find this loss of faith in soul and intrinsic value invigorating; they will feel that their new-found skepticism is an indication of their tough-mindedness, or of their keeping up with current knowledge. Fine. The sad thing, I think, is when someone announces this loss of faith regretfully, because the sacrifice is, so far as I can see, pretty much gratuitous.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Conference on the Status of Iraqi Christians

The Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion at the Catholic University of America will host a conference, “The Status of the Christian Communities in Iraqi Kurdistan: Challenges and Opportunities,” on Wednesday, December 5, in Washington, DC. Panels will address the history of Christian communities in Iraqi Kurdistan, their present condition, and the legal challenges they face. Details are here.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 4 Comments

Lecture on Christians in the Middle East

This Thursday, November 29, I’ll be giving a lecture, “Equality for Christians in the Middle East, Yesterday and Today,” at the Armenian Orthodox seminary in New Rochelle, New York. My lecture will discuss the precarious state of Christian communities in the Middle East and the reasons why the goal of real legal equality has proved so elusive. Details are here. CLR Forum readers in the neighborhood, please stop by and say hello!

Posted on by

Domingo on the Dworkinian Approach to Religious Freedom

Rafael Domingo  (U. of Navarra) has posted Religion for Hedgehogs? An Argument against the Dworkinian Approach to Religious Freedom. The abstract follows.

According to Ronald Dworkin, the right to freedom of religion is a mere implication of a more general right of ethical independence in foundational matters. For Dworkin, just as a particular religion cannot be treated as special in politics, religion cannot be considered sui generis in the political arena. This article argues that the right of religious freedom should be regarded as sui generis. The epistemological and ethical theories that support a Dworkinian approach to religious freedom are reductive and misconceived. These theories close the door to transcendent meaning and revealed religion, to a conception of religion as a fact and a value. The Dworkinian paradigm does not sufficiently protect the principles of pluralism and self-determination that are at the heart of religious freedom. Finally, this article argues that, when properly understood, the right to religious freedom is based on ethical autonomy and the unity of the person rather than on Dworkin’s theories of ethical independence and the unity of value.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Kansas Municipality Changes City Seal After FFRF Complaint

The City Council of Buhler, Kansas, has decided not to fight the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which complained that Buhler’s City seal — which displays a very prominent Latin cross — violates the Establishment Clause.  You can see a story with the seal here; the seal was apparently created in 1988.  And here is an open letter from the Mayor of Buhler to its residents, indicating that the City did not have a taste for an expensive litigation with FFRF which it was very uncertain to win, and which might well deplete the City’s small budget.  Note some of the attachments to the letter as well, including a memorandum opinion from the ACLJ, suggesting that in light of Tenth Circuit case law, the City would be advised not to go to court.

Perhaps the problem was in the tension within Buhler’s own motto, “Traditional Values, Progressive Ideas.”  Sounds like a recipe for conflict.

Posted on by JCPW

Yavuz, “Toward an Islamic Enlightenment: The Gülen Movement”

This December, Oxford University Press will publish Toward an Islamic Enlightenment: The Gülen Movement by Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah). The publisher’s description follows.

M. Hakan Yavuz offers an insightful and wide-ranging study of the Gulen Movement, one of the most imaginative developments in contemporary Islam. Founded in Turkey by the Muslim thinker Fethullah Gulen, the Gulen Movement aims to disseminate a ”moderate” interpretation of Islam through faith-based education. Its activities have fundamentally altered religious and political discourse in Turkey in recent decades, and its schools and other institutions have been established throughout Central Asia and the Balkans, as well as western Europe and North America. Consequently, its goals and modus operandi have come under increasing scrutiny around the world.

 Yavuz introduces readers to the movement, its leader, its philosophies, and its practical applications. After recounting Gulen’s personal history, he analyzes Gulen’s theological outlook, the structure of the movement, its educational premise and promise, its financial structure, and its contributions (particularly to debates in the Turkish public sphere), its scientific outlook, and its role in interfaith dialogue. Towards an Islamic Enlightenment shows the many facets of the movement, arguing that it is marked by an identity paradox: despite its tremendous contribution to the introduction of a moderate, peaceful, and modern Islamic outlook-so different from the Iranian or Saudi forms of radical and political Islam-the Gulen Movement is at once liberal and communitarian, provoking both hope and fear in its works and influence.

Posted on by JCPW

Tadros, “Copts at the Crossroads: The Challenges of Building Inclusive Democracy in Egypt”

This May, Oxford University Press will publish Copts at the Crossroads: The Challenges of Building Inclusive Democracy in Egypt by Mariz Tadros (Institute of Development Studies, UK). The publisher’s description follows.

In the light of the escalation of sectarian tensions during and after Mubarak’s reign, the predicament of the Arab world’s largest religious minority, the Copts, has come to the forefront. This book poses such questions as why there has been a mass exodus of Copts from Egypt, and how this relates to other religious minorities in the Arab region; why it is that sectarian violence increased during and after the Egyptian revolution, which epitomized the highest degree of national unity since 1919; and how the new configuration of power has influenced the extent to which a vision of a political order is being based on the principles of inclusive democracy.

The book examines the relations among the state, the church, Coptic citizenry, and civil and political societies against the backdrop of the increasing diversification of actors, the change of political leadership in the country, and the transformations occurring in the region. An informative historical background is provided, and new fieldwork and statistical data inform a thoughtful exploration of what it takes to build an inclusive democracy in post-Mubarak Egypt.

Posted on by

White, “Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks”

This month, Princeton University Press will publish Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks by Jenny White (Boston University). The publisher’s description follows.

Turkey has leapt to international prominence as an economic and political powerhouse under its elected Muslim government, and is looked on by many as a model for other Muslim countries in the wake of the Arab Spring. This book reveals how Turkish national identity and the meanings of Islam and secularism have undergone radical changes in today’s Turkey, and asks whether the Turkish model should be viewed as a success story or cautionary tale.

Jenny White shows how Turkey’s Muslim elites have mounted a powerful political and economic challenge to the country’s secularists, developing an alternative definition of the nation based on a nostalgic revival of Turkey’s Ottoman past. These Muslim nationalists have pushed aside the Republican ideal of a nation defined by purity of blood, language, and culture. They see no contradiction in pious Muslims running a secular state, and increasingly express their Muslim identity through participation in economic networks and a lifestyle of Islamic fashion and leisure. For many younger Turks, religious and national identities, like commodities, have become objects of choice and forms of personal expression.

This provocative book traces how Muslim nationalists blur the line between the secular and the Islamic, supporting globalization and political liberalism, yet remaining mired in authoritarianism, intolerance, and cultural norms hostile to minorities and women.

Posted on by

Hatzis on Anti-Discrimination Law and Clergy in the U.K.

Nicholas Hatzis (University of Oxford) has posted The Church-Clergy Relationship and Anti-Discrimination Law. The abstract follows.

Should antidiscrimination norms apply to the relationship between a religious group and its clergy? In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v EEOC the US Supreme Court affirmed the existence of a “ministerial exception” which bars discrimination claims by ministers of religion against their church. In 2005 the House of Lords had reached the opposite conclusion, ruling, in Percy v Board of National Mission of the Church of Scotland, that the decision to dismiss an ordained minister was not a spiritual matter falling outside the scope of secular law. This article examines the constitutional foundations of the ministerial exception, argues that Percy ignored important aspects of church autonomy and suggests that courts should consider creating a narrowly tailored rule exempting decisions to appoint or remove clergy from the scope of anti-discrimination law.