Posted on by Mark Movsesian

“Religious Broadcasting in the Middle East” (Hroub, ed.)

If you are promoting a political and legal blueprint for society, it helps to have a media outlet. Islamists in the Middle East have become very adept at using media networks to advance their aims. In Egypt, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood operates its own TV station, Misr25. A new collection  of essays from Columbia University Press, Religious Broadcasting in the Middle East (2012), investigates Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religious programming in the Middle East. The collection is edited by Khaled Hroub (Cambridge). The publisher’s description follows:

Religious broadcasting in the Middle East has benefited tremendously from new transnational media networks and the widespread availability of satellite broadcasting technology. Dozens of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religious channels are now on air, advocating different forms of religiosity and shaping public perceptions through dialogue and debate. Mainstream news channels, such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, broadcast popular religious programming, in some cases filled with highly politicized content. Others feature more apolitical commentary and are concerned only with preaching God’s word.

The Middle East’s highly-charged religious and political ferment has certainly been propitious for such broadcasters as they seek to convey their message. This has, in turn, reinforced the link between the dominant “religious atmosphere” and religious broadcasting. Monitoring the content-analysis of some of the region’s most influential religious channels and programs, the contributors to this volume provide pioneering insights into the Middle East’s burgeoning religious media market. They explore the themes, discourses, appearances, and “celebrities” of this rapidly expanding phenomenon and how its complex dynamics have transformed the region and the world.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Ripeness and the Passage of Time

Here’s a little thought about the effect of the passage of time on adjudication. The temporal dynamic I have in mind is the difference between being too late and being too early.  Being too late is best conceptualized in either/or terms.  If you file on time, you’re “in” and your law suit can move forward; if you file too late, your action is time-barred or falls outside an applicable statute of limitations, and you are “out.”  The issue of time is clean, hard-edged, and certain.  Acceptable and unacceptable are clearly designated.  The metaphors are of bells tolling, after which there is silence, or of nicely demarcated spatial boundaries.  Any exceptions are just that: exceptions to the rule, rather than judgments about the interpretation of the rule.

But a different conception of time best describes the condition of being too early.  Like a fruit, you want your action to be ripe.  The metaphor is one of maturity, and it is inevitably subject to graduated and individuated assessment.  The goal is to strike at a middle-point, at a moment between the time when the banana is cucumber-ish (unripe) and when it is a slimy, brown, putrid thing (overripe, or perhaps moot).  Likewise, the manipulation of time in the context of the metaphor of maturation looks distinctive.  The riper the action becomes — a function in part of the incremental passage of time — the more work the party resisting its ripeness must do to persuade the court that the time is not yet ripe to hear it.  With each day, the banana becomes more golden, and its characterization as unripe becomes more challenging.  And that is when the rhetoric of immaturity can assume an important function.

Take the HHS mandate litigation.  My own view is that these issues of time were in part responsible for the Eastern District of New York’s rejection of the standing and ripeness challenge by the federal government, where previous courts, adjudicating the claims at previous moments in time, had found otherwise.  Time had done, and may continue to do, its maturing work.

Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit handed down a short order holding in abeyance Wheaton College’s complaint against HHS as, at present, unripe.  The court dutifully noted the representation of the government in the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking of the forthcoming accommodation/change/emendation/difference.  But the court also said that at oral argument, “the government went further . . . . [I]t represented to the court that it will never enforce [the existing rule] in its present form against the appellants or those similarly situated . . . . We take the government at its word and will hold it to it.”  The first italics is in the original; the second is mine.

A couple of thoughts.  First, it is interesting to see that as time progresses, and the case moves toward maturity, the government must work harder, and extend itself further, to persuade a court that the case has not hit sufficient maturation just yet.  So the government made the calculation that for the sake of gaining more time, it needed to promise “never” to enforce the existing rule against the claimants, a statement that, it would appear from the court’s language, it had not made before and had a psychological effect on the court’s judgments about maturity. Second, the precise language used by the court to describe the oral representation of the government is interesting.  In order to stave off review but to keep things sufficiently vague to give itself maximal freedom, the government represented that it will not enforce the existing rule “in its present form.”  But that simply restates the promise that it plans to amend the rule.  So one wonders exactly what of substance the oral representation adds to the government’s previous position.  Perhaps nothing.  It may instead be that the key function of the oral representation is rhetorical.  It sounds like a change of position, though really it isn’t.  But the effect of the representation is to make the banana look greener and less golden than it is.  It is the kind of rhetoric that can make a difference when the question is whether you are too early, but not too late.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami · 2 Comments

Michelson, “The Pulpit and the Press in Reformation Italy”

This looks like an absolutely terrific book about the intellectual work of theThe Pulpit and the Press Italian clergy “in the public square” at a time of great political and social turmoil, The Pulpit and the Press in Reformation Italy (Harvard 2013), by Emily Michelson (St. Andrews).  The historical importance of the American political sermon has been understudied as well, though this is slowly changing (for me, Michael McConnell’s work has been helpful in bringing these fascinating texts to light, though others have written about them as well).  From the description below, it also appears that Professor Michelson usefully puts into some question the dichotomy that one often hears: Americans “choose” their religion while Europeans are “born into” theirs.  At any rate, I am greatly looking forward to reading Professor Michelson’s book.  The publisher’s description follows.

Italian preachers during the Reformation era found themselves in the trenches of a more desperate war than anything they had ever imagined. This war—the splintering of western Christendom into conflicting sects—was physically but also spiritually violent. In an era of tremendous religious convolution, fluidity, and danger, preachers of all kinds spoke from the pulpit daily, weekly, or seasonally to confront the hottest controversies of their time. Preachers also turned to the printing press in unprecedented numbers to spread their messages.

Emily Michelson challenges the stereotype that Protestants succeeded in converting Catholics through superior preaching and printing. Catholic preachers were not simply reactionary and uncreative mouthpieces of a monolithic church. Rather, they deftly and imaginatively grappled with the question of how to preserve the orthodoxy of their flock and maintain the authority of the Roman church while also confronting new, undeniable lay demands for inclusion and participation.

These sermons—almost unknown in English until now—tell a new story of the Reformation that credits preachers with keeping Italy Catholic when the region’s religious future seemed uncertain, and with fashioning the post-Reformation Catholicism that thrived into the modern era. By deploying the pulpit, pen, and printing press, preachers in Italy created a new religious culture that would survive in an unprecedented atmosphere of competition and religious choice.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Jacoby, “The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought”

Here’s a celebration of Robert Ingersoll, the silver-tongued anti-IngersollCatholic, ardent supporter of James G. Blaine and his notions of separation of church and state, and one-time member of the late nineteenth-century progressive “National Liberal League”: The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought (Yale University Press 2012), by the popular polemicist Susan Jacoby.  Ingersoll once wrote that America would “tear the bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of science,” and such rhetoric stood him in very good stead in the Republican party of the 1870s and 1880s.  The publisher’s description follows.

During the Gilded Age, which saw the dawn of America’s enduring culture wars, Robert Green Ingersoll was known as “the Great Agnostic.” The nation’s most famous orator, he raised his voice on behalf of  Enlightenment reason, secularism, and the separation of church and state with a vigor unmatched since America’s revolutionary generation. When he died in 1899, even his religious enemies acknowledged that he might have aspired to the U.S. presidency had he been willing to mask his opposition to religion. To the question that retains its controversial power today—was the United States founded as a Christian nation?—Ingersoll answered an emphatic no.

In this provocative biography, Susan Jacoby, the author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, restores Ingersoll to his rightful place in an American intellectual tradition extending from Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine to the current generation of  “new atheists.” Jacoby illuminates the ways in which America’s often-denigrated and forgotten secular history encompasses issues, ranging from women’s rights to evolution, as potent and divisive today as they were in Ingersoll’s time. Ingersoll emerges in this portrait as one of the indispensable public figures who keep an alternative version of history alive. He devoted his life to that greatest secular idea of all—liberty of conscience belonging  to the religious and nonreligious alike.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Bilici, “Finding Mecca in America”

Here’s a very interesting book in the sociology of religion about the ascent ofFinding Mecca Islam in the United States, Finding Mecca in America: How Islam is Becoming an American Religion (University of Chicago Press 2012), by Mucahit Bilici (John Jay College).  The publisher’s description follows.

The events of 9/11 had a profound impact on American society, but they had an even more lasting effect on Muslims living in the United States. Once practically invisible, they suddenly found themselves overexposed. By describing how Islam in America began as a strange cultural object and is gradually sinking into familiarity, Finding Mecca in America illuminates the growing relationship between Islam and American culture as Muslims find a homeland in America. Rich in ethnographic detail, the book is an up-close account of how Islam takes its American shape.

In this book, Mucahit Bilici traces American Muslims’ progress from outsiders to natives and from immigrants to citizens. Drawing on the philosophies of Simmel and Heidegger, Bilici develops a novel sociological approach and offers insights into the civil rights activities of Muslim Americans, their increasing efforts at interfaith dialogue, and the recent phenomenon of Muslim ethnic comedy. Theoretically sophisticated, Finding Mecca in America is both a portrait of American Islam and a groundbreaking study of what it means to feel at home.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Lytton, “Kosher”

From Harvard University Press, a new book by Timothy Lytton (Albany Law School) about kosher supervision in America, Kosher: Private Regulation in the Age of Industrial Food (forthcoming 2013). Looks very interesting. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Generating over $12 billion in annual sales, kosher food is big business. It is also an unheralded story of successful private-sector regulation in an era of growing public concern over the government’s ability to ensure food safety. Kosher uncovers how independent certification agencies rescued American kosher supervision from fraud and corruption and turned it into a model of nongovernmental administration.

Currently, a network of over three hundred private certifiers ensures the kosher status of food for over twelve million Americans, of whom only eight percent are religious Jews. But the system was not always so reliable. At the turn of the twentieth century, kosher meat production in the United States was  Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Conversations: Stanford’s Religious Liberty Clinic

Last month, we posted the welcome news that Stanford Law School has founded the nation’s first law school clinic focused on religious liberty. This week, the new clinic’s director, Jim  Sonne (left), kindly agrees to answer some questions for us. He discusses, among other things, the clinic’s background, the sort of cases and clients it hopes to attract, the reception the clinic has received at Stanford, and the difference between a “religious liberty” and a “religion” clinic.

CLR Forum: Jim, congratulations on starting the country’s only law school clinic devoted to religious liberty. How did you come up with the idea? And why Stanford?

Thanks Mark! The original idea for the clinic was not mine, but Eric Rassbach’s at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Eric and the Becket Fund work closely with Professor Michael McConnell at Stanford. Eric, Professor McConnell, and the folks at Becket thought it would be a great project to bring here.

Coincidentally, while the Becket group was busy preparing a proposal to Stanford in concert with the Templeton Foundation, then-dean Larry Kramer and dean of clinics Larry Marshall were exploring with the faculty ways to expand and diversify the law Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

What’s Next for Syria’s Christians?

This week, the United States recognized the Syrian National Coalition, an umbrella organization of groups opposed to the Assad regime, as the government of Syria. Now, as everyone knows, the SNC relies heavily on fighters from the al-Nusra Front, an Islamist group that the United States has designated as a terrorist organization. There is very little chance that al-Nusra and other Islamists won’t play a major role in a post-Assad Syria, and the fact that the US calls them terrorists isn’t likely to change things. Already, in fact, the head of the Syrian opposition has called on America to reconsider its designation of al-Nusra as terrorists – and this while the SNC still needs American support in a life-or-death struggle with Assad.

What does all this mean for Syria’s Christians? Frankly, nothing good. Although the Syrian opposition has pledged to respect the rights of religious minorities, the minorities do not appear persuaded. And for good reason. All Christians have to do is look to Egypt, where, in the aftermath of a democratic revolution, Islamists have pushed aside Christians and secularists to draft a new, pro-Islamist constitution. Why should Christians believe that Syrian Islamists will behave differently? The fact that the Syrian opposition has made common cause with the Islamist government of Turkey, the historical persecutor of many of the Christian communities in Syria, only makes Christians more worried about their future.

For a sense of how Syria’s Christians perceive things, it’s worth reading this article from the New York Times about Syria’s Armenian community. Armenian Christians have been in Syria in numbers since the Genocide of 1915, when they fled or were forced out of neighboring Turkey. They have integrated into Syrian society and feel that Syria is their home. Yet they worry that the religious toleration they have known will cease if Assad falls and Islamists come to power. They could stay to see what happens, but, as one member of the community tells the Times, referring to the 1915 Genocide, “We lost 1.5 million people to this mentality that it will all work out.” Armenians feel they have no choice but to leave. Many have relocated to Armenia, a place which most of them have never seen and where cultural adjustments can be very difficult.

Or watch this elegiac documentary from Swiss television about the Syriac Orthodox community across the border in eastern Turkey. In the film, a Syriac Orthodox family that fled Turkey for Switzerland in the 1980s returns to see what has become of their village. What few Christians remain keep their heads down. They explain about phony land disputes and other strategies the Turkish state has adopted to make their life difficult. “Turkey is supposed to be secular,” someone explains, “but in practice it’s not like that.” Christians who can do so have escaped – to Europe, mostly. If this is the model for the future of Christian communities in Syria, it’s no wonder Christians are trying to get out while they can.

According to the New Testament, the followers of Jesus were first called Christians in Antioch, in Syria. It is hard to escape the feeling that one is witnessing the end of one of the world’s oldest religious civilizations in the place of its birth.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Lecture: “Law-Talk in Judaism”

Next month, Fordham’s Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer’s Work will host a lecture by Rabbi Gordon Tucker, “Between Validity and Truth Falls the Shadow: Law-talk and God-talk in Judaism.” Details are here.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

McGuckin, “The Ascent of Christian Law”

We’re a little late getting to it, but earlier this year Byzantinist John McGuckin (Columbia/Union Theological Seminary) wrote a new monograph as part of Emory’s Christian Jurisprudence series, The Ascent of Christian Law: Patristic and Byzantine Reformulations of Greco-Roman Attitudes in the Making of a Christian Civilization (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press 2012). The volume looks to be an important contribution to an unfortunately underwritten field: law in the Eastern Christian tradition.  Here’s the publisher’s description:

This volume aims to fill a large gap in the historical materials available to students of early Christian and Byzantine Christian studies. To that extent, it will be designed as a wide-ranging historical survey that covers the varying attitudes among the major early Christian theorists of law and governance issues as the church moved in its condition from a minority of resistance to the imperial church. The field of early studies of Christian law is dominated by scholars of Western canon law (though often microscopically treated). Eastern canon law remains massively neglected, relegated to studies by Orthodox canonists who have been concerned largely with issues of ecclesiastical precedence and protocol, rather than with large questions of the role of law in culture-making.

This book intends to consider questions such as: “What difference did Christianity make as a builder of civilization?” To what extent did the church, in presenting to late Roman society a vision of a Read more