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Schaeffer, Kapstein, and Tuttle, Sources of Tibetan Tradition

Sources of Tibetan TraditionThis month Columbia University Press will publish Sources of Tibetan Tradition edited by Kurtis R. Schaeffer (University of Virginia), Matthew T. Kapstein (University of Chicago), and Gray Tuttle (Columbia University).  The publisher’s description follows.

 The most comprehensive collection of Tibetan works in a Western language, this volume illuminates the complex historical, intellectual, and social development of Tibetan civilization from its earliest beginnings to the modern period. Including more than 180 representative writings, Sources of Tibetan Tradition spans Tibet’s vast geography and long history, presenting for the first time a diversity of works by religious and political leaders; scholastic philosophers and contemplative hermits; monks and nuns; poets and artists; and aristocrats and commoners. The selected readings reflect the profound role of Buddhist sources in shaping Tibetan culture while illustrating other major areas of knowledge. Thematically varied, they address history and historiography; political and social theory; law; medicine; divination; rhetoric; aesthetic theory; narrative; travel and geography; folksong; and philosophical and religious learning, all in relation to the unique trajectories of Tibetan civil and scholarly discourse. The editors begin each chapter with a survey of broader social and cultural contexts and introduce each translated text with a concise explanation. Concluding with writings that extend into the early twentieth century, this volume offers an expansive encounter with Tibet’s exceptional intellectual heritage.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

USCIRF Calls for Obama Administration to Act on International Religious Freedom

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom yesterday called on the Obama Administration to take several steps to promote international religious freedom. From the press release:

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission dedicated to monitoring the universal right to freedom of religion or belief, urges the Obama Administration during its second term to promote religious freedom as both a pivotal human right and a practical necessity.  Religious freedom is a fundamental human right that encompasses other freedoms — including those of expression, association, and assembly.  It serves as the proverbial canary in the coal mine, as it often is the first freedom taken away.  Recent studies have also shown that restrictions on religion are rising worldwide, and with that, an increase in societal hostility and instability. Consequently, religious freedom has real national security relevancy, as conditions supporting religious freedom can help combat the rise of violent religious extremism.

Among the steps the Commission calls for are an executive order on international religious freedom, an interagency working group on international religious freedom at the National Security Council, and training of diplomats and military personnel. The full press release is here.

 

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Yilmaz on Muslim Secularism

Ihsan Yilmaz (Fatih University) has posted Towards a Muslim Secularism? An Islamic ‘Twin Tolerations’ Understanding of Religion in the Public Sphere. The abstract follows.

Since the mid-1920s, the top-down homogenization and secularization policies of the hegemonic Kemalist elite have aimed at socially engineering secularist nationalist Turkish citizens. The acronym LAST (Laicist, Atatürkist, Sunni, Turk) describes this ideal citizen typology. The state has also tried to monopolize Islam and has attempted to construct a state version of Islam (Lausannian Islam), marginalizing, vilifying and even criminalizing other Islamic interpretations. Nevertheless, non-state Islam and civil Muslim actors have not disappeared from the Turkish public sphere. One of these influential actors is the counter-hegemonic Turkish Islamists. They demand a role for Islam in the political realm, in a binary opposition to the assertively secularist Kemalists. Another influential actor, the intellectual leader of the largest faith-based movement in Turkey, Fethullah Gülen, offers a third way between these two extremes on state-religion-society relations.

This paper endeavors to show that an interpretation of Muslim secularism that inhabits religious and secular worlds simultaneously, that is in critical engagement with them and that blurs conventional political lines on the hotly debated issue of state-religion-society relations is possible.

This understanding of ‘Islamic twin tolerations’ challenges the artificially constructed binary oppositions. It also resonates with the Habermasian (2006) ‘religion in the public sphere.’ It argues that the faithful from all religious backgrounds can legitimately have demands based on religion in the public sphere and in the final analysis; it is the legislators’ epistemic task to translate these demands into a secular language in the legislative process.

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Gaylord on Free Exercise and the HHS Mandate

Scott Gaylord (Elon University School of Law) has posted For-Profit Corporations, Free Exercise, and the HHS Mandate. The abstract follows.

Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, most employers must provide their employees with health insurance that covers all FDA approved contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures (the “HHS mandate”). Across the country, individuals, religious schools, and corporations have sued to enjoin the mandate, arguing, among other things, that it violates the free exercise clause of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”). Federal district courts have reached conflicting decisions in the 15 cases decided to date, leaving the Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Tenth, and D.C. Circuits to sort out the complex relationship between the free exercise clause and laws, such as the HHS mandate, that are alleged to be neutral and generally applicable. But these cases are made even more difficult because of a specific claim that is raised in each case — that corporations can exercise religion under the First Amendment and RFRA. As several district courts have noted, “whether secular corporations can exercise religion is an open question.” This paper analyzes this novel and unresolved issue, arguing that, just as corporations can engage in free speech under Citizens United, for-profit corporations can exercise religion under the free exercise clause and RFRA.

Although the Supreme Court has not addressed this specific issue, I argue that it has established rules for determining whether corporations can invoke particular constitutional rights and that, under these rules, corporations can invoke the protection of the free exercise clause. Several district courts have reached the opposite conclusion, while several others have avoided the issue altogether. Relying primarily on a single footnote in First Nat’l Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the courts denying free exercise protection to for-profit corporations maintain that the free exercise of religion is a “purely personal” right that is limited to individuals and religious non-profit organizations. This paper contends, however, that a more detailed review of Bellotti, Citizens United, and the Court’s other decisions regarding the constitutional rights of corporations reveals that free exercise, like the freedom of speech, is not a “purely personal” right. Consequently, corporations — whether for-profit or non-profit — can claim its protection. Moreover, in the wake of Bellotti and Citizens United, neither the “profit motive” of a for-profit corporation nor the “religious nature” of religious organizations (e.g., churches) justifies limiting the free exercise clause only to individuals and non-profit religious organizations. Although many (perhaps most) corporations may choose not to engage in religious activities, there is no constitutional basis for precluding a priori all for-profit businesses from raising free exercise claims.

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Waltman, “Congress, the Supreme Court, and Religious Liberty”

This June, Palgrave MacMillan will publish Congress, the Supreme Court, and Religious Liberty: The Case of City of Boerne v. Flores by Jerold Waltman (Baylor University).  The publisher’s description follows.Waltman

In the landmark case City of Boerne v. Flores, the Supreme Court struck down a major federal statute – the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. This decision raised questions not only about religious freedom in America, but also about federalism and separation of powers. Using the narrative framework of a tense dispute that divided a small Texas town, Waltman offers the first book-length analysis of the constitutional jurisprudence involved in the passage of the act. Congress, the Supreme Court, and Religious Liberty shows how this case and others like it stimulated and advanced an intense legal debate still ongoing today: Can and should the Supreme Court be the exclusive interpreter of the Constitution?

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McCrudden & O’Leary, “Courts and Consociations”

This May, Oxford University Press will publish Courts and Consociations: Human Rights versus Power-Sharing by Christopher McCrudden (Queen’s University, Belfast & University of Michigan Law School) and Brendan O’Leary (Queen’s University, Belfast).  The publisher’s description follows.Courts

Consociations are power-sharing arrangements, increasingly used to manage ethno-nationalist, ethno-linguistic, and ethno-religious conflicts. Current examples include Belgium, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Burundi, and Iraq. Despite their growing popularity, they have begun to be challenged before human rights courts as being incompatible with human rights norms, particularly equality and non-discrimination.

Courts and Consociations examines the use of power-sharing agreements, their legitimacy, and their compatibility with human rights law. Key questions include to what extent, if any, consociations conflict with the liberal individualist preferences of international human rights institutions, and to what extent consociational power-sharing may be justified to preserve peace and the integrity of political settlements.

In three critical cases, the European Court of Human Rights has considered equality challenges to important consociational practices, twice in Belgium and then in Sejdic and Finci v Bosnia regarding the constitution established for Bosnia Herzegovina under the Dayton Agreement. The Court’s decision in Sejdic and Finci has significantly altered the approach it previously took to judicial review of consociational arrangements in Belgium. This book accounts for this change and assess its implications. The problematic aspects of the current state of law are demonstrated. Future negotiators in places riven by potential or actual bloody ethnic conflicts may now have less flexibility in reaching a workable settlement, which may unintentionally contribute to sustaining such conflicts and make it more likely that negotiators will consider excluding regional and international courts from reviewing these political settlements.

Providing a clear, accessible introduction to both the political use of power-sharing settlements and the human rights law on the issue, this book is an invaluable guide to all academics, students, and professionals engaged with transitional justice, peace agreements, and contemporary human rights law.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Lecture Series: Christianity and Secularism (April 15-29)

The Immaculate Conception Church in Astoria will host a three-part lecture series next month by Ryan Williams of the Immaculate Conception Seminary: “Christianity and Secularism.” Details are here.

Posted on by annicchino

True Power as Service

pope

At the special Mass celebrated for the beginning of his new pontificate, Pope Francis focused his homily on the protection of the weak, the poor, and the environment.  Some passages from the homily make it possible to understand what Pope Francis has in mind when he speaks of a renovated way of understanding the nature of power and its use.

In the homily, Pope Francis stated, “I would like to ask all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men  and women of goodwill: Let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment.” And he added: “Let us never forget that authentic power is service … . Only those who serve with love  are able to protect.”

The election of Pope Francis comes at a time of profound changes in the Church and also in the wider society. The invitation I have quoted from his homily probably should be read as an appeal to both realities. The changes in the governance of the Church will be an important issue on the new Pope’s agenda and Francis probably wanted to signal the necessity of understanding and making use of power in a reinvigorated way. In this regard, it is noteworthy that he will hold Mass on Holy Thursday at Casal del Marmo Detention Center in  Rome and will wash the feet of the young inmates detained there.

The coherence between words and actions seems to be what Pope Francis is asking of the Church and society’s leaders, political and non-political.

The full text of the homily is available here.

 

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Conference on Pacem in terris

The Lumen Christi Institute in Chicago will host a symposium on April 4, “Pacem in terris After 50 Years,” on the important Vatican II document:

On April 11, 1963, amid the global tensions of the Cold War, and shortly after the erection of the Berlin Wall, Pope John XXIII addressed his famous encyclical Pacem in terris to all people of good will. He invites them to consider the conditions for establishing universal peace on earth in truth, justice, charity, and liberty. On the 50th Anniversary of this event, this symposium will examine the affirmations of Pacem in terris as they bear on human rights, religious freedom, and the international political and economic order today.

Speakers include Mary Ann Glendon, Russ Hittinger, and Joseph Weiler. Details are here.

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The Top Five New Law & Religion Papers on SSRN

From SSRN’s list of most frequently downloaded law and religion papers posted in the last 60 days, here are the current top five:

1. Suffer the Teenage Children: Child Sexual Abuse in Church Communities by Patrick Parkinson (U. of Sydney – Faculty of Law) [219 downloads]

2. God and the Profits: Is There Religious Liberty for Money-Makers? by Mark Rienzi (Catholic U. of America – Columbus School of Law) [206 downloads]

3. Rethinking Religious Reasons in Public Justification by Andrew F. March (Yale U.) [188 downloads]

4. The Causes and Cures of Unethical Business Practices – A Jewish Perspective by Steven H. Resnicoff  (DePaul U. College of Law) [145 downloads]

5. Bankrupting the Faith by Pamela Foohey (U. of Illinois College of Law) [131 downloads]