September 2014 - Page 6 of 7 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

Posted on September 8, 2014July 27, 2016 by

Kim & Kim, “A History of Korean Christianity”

In November, SUNY University Press will release “A History of Korean Christianity” by Sebastian C. H. Kim (York St. John University) and Kirsteen Kim (Leeds Trinity University). The publisher’s description follows:

With a third of South Koreans now identifying themselves as Christian, Christian churches play an increasingly prominent role in the social and political events of the Korean peninsula. Sebastian Kim and Kirsteen Kim’s comprehensive and timely history of different Christian denominations in Korea includes surveys of the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions as well as new church movements. They examine the Korean Christian diaspora and missionary movements from South Korea and also give cutting-edge insights into North Korea. This book, the first recent one-volume history and analysis of Korean Christianity in English, highlights the challenges faced by the Christian churches in view of Korea’s distinctive and multireligious cultural heritage, South Korea’s rapid rise in global economic power and the precarious state of North Korea, which threatens global peace. This History will be an important resource for all students of world Christianity, Korean studies and mission studies.

Posted on September 8, 2014July 27, 2016 by

Attias, “The Jews and the Bible”

In November, Stanford University Press will release “The Jews and the Bible” by Jean-Christophe Attias (École pratique des hautes études, Sorbonne, Paris). The publisher’s description follows:

Despite its deceptively simple title, this book ponders the thorny issue of the place of the Bible in Jewish religion and culture. By thoroughly examining the complex link that the Jews have formed with the Bible, Jewish scholar Jean-Christophe Attias raises the uncomfortable question of whether it is still relevant for them.

Jews and the Bible reveals how the Jews define themselves in various times and places with the Bible, without the Bible, and against the Bible. Is it divine revelation or national myth? Literature or legislative code? One book or a disparate library? Text or object? For the Jews, over the past two thousand years or more, the Bible has been all that and much more. In fact, Attias argues that the Bible is nothing in and of itself. Like the Koran, the Bible has never been anything other than what its readers make of it. But what they’ve made of it tells a fascinating story and raises provocative philosophical and ethical questions.

The Bible is indeed an elusive book, and so Attias explores the fundamental discrepancy between what we think the Bible tells us about Judaism and what Judaism actually tells us about the Bible. With passion and intellect, Attias informs and enlightens the reader, never shying away from the difficult questions, ultimately asking: In our post-genocide and post-Zionist culture, can the Bible be saved?

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Mark Movsesian

Thanks to the Lanier Theological Library

I’d like to thank the Lanier Theological Library in Houston for hosting my lecture on Mideast Christians this past weekend. I greatly appreciate the warm reception and great turnout — a credit to the library and the topic rather than the speaker — as well as the chance to share some of my thoughts. Once the library posts the video, I’ll link it here. Do check out the library’s website before then, though, and visit if you can. It’s a remarkable scholarly resource and a beautiful place.

Posted on September 8, 2014 by

“Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West” (Tottoli ed.)

Last month, Routledge Press released “Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West” edited by Roberto Tottoli (Università di Napoli L’Orientale). The publisher’s description follows:

Islam has long been a part of the West in terms of religion, culture, politics and society. Discussing this interaction from al-Andalus to the present, this Handbook explores the influence Islam has had, and continues to exert; particularly its impact on host societies, culture and politics.

Highlighting specific themes and topics in history and culture, chapters cover:

European paradigms
Muslims in the Americas
Cultural interactions
Islamic cultural contributions to the Western world
Western contributions to Islam

Providing a sound historical background, from which a nuanced overview of Islam and Western society can be built, the Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West brings to the fore specific themes and topics that have generated both reciprocal influence, and conflict.

Presenting readers with a range of perspectives from scholars based in Europe, the US, and the Middle East, this Handbook challenges perceptions on both western and Muslim sides and will be an invaluable resource for policymakers and academics with an interest in the History of Islam, Religion and the contemporary relationship between Islam and the West.

Posted on September 5, 2014September 5, 2014 by

Around the Web this Week

Some interesting law and religion news stories from around the web this week:

At the beginning of the United States Supreme Court’s next term, the Court will hear argument about whether prison officials may prohibit Muslim inmates from growing the beards required by their faith. As in the Hobby Lobby case decided last term (though this case implicates a different statute), the Court will consider whether the challenged government regulation places a substantial burden on religious practices. If so, the government must show that it had a compelling reason for the regulation and no less restrictive means of achieving it.
A new version of an Ohio bill, which would replace the Common Core in that state, removed language that could have opened the door for religious views to be taught in science classes and replaced it with language calling for “critiques of strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories,” among other changes.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2013 hate-crime conviction against 15 members of an Amish separatist group who forcibly cut the beards of others in their faith.
Emboldened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rise to power in May, leaders of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have joined right-wing activists to openly declare India a nation of Hindus, posing a challenge to its multi-faith constitutional commitment and sparking controversy as they work to convert all non-Hindus.
Turkish Environment and Urbanism Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar said that Christianity is no longer a religion but only a “culture,” and warned against a similar fate for Islam.
Opinion: Nabil Echchaibi, Associate Director of the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture at the University of Colorado, challenges all Arabs take up the fight against Islamic extremism.
Religion and gay rights take center stage in Brazil’s presidential race.
Indonesian and Malaysian authorities say they are keeping a close eye on local supporters of the Islamic State, who threaten religious minorities and host destructive demonstrations in Southeast Asia.
South Africa has denied the Dalai Lama a visa to enter the country for a third time.The reasons for denial are reported to have involved fear of angering the Chinese government.
After abducting more than 200 girls in Nigeria’s Borno State, Boko Haram has begun occupying churches in the country’s northeastern region, beheading men, forcing Christian women to convert to Islam and taking them as wives.
Russia’s Federal Migration Service in Crimea has rejected attempts by the Muftiate to allow for 23 Turkish imams and religious teachers to continue the service in Crimean mosques and madrassahs that they have been providing for many years.
A missionary group working in Nigeria recently reported that a six-year-old boy was beheaded by Boko Haram in the Christian village of Attagara, Nigeria, in June as a missionary was trying to get the beaten boy medical attention.
Illinois Bishop Daniel Jenky and Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York are engaged in a public dispute over which diocese has claim to Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s body, which is currently buried in New York.

Posted on September 5, 2014 by

Bakircioglu, “Islam and Warfare”

This November, Routledge Press will release “Islam and Warfare: Context and Compatibility with International Law” by Onder Bakircioglu (School of Law at the University of Leicester). The publisher’s description follows:

The question of how Islamic law regulates the notions of just recourse to and just conduct in war has long been the topic of heated controversy, and is often subject to oversimplification in scholarship and journalism. This book traces the rationale for aggression within the Islamic tradition, and assesses the meaning and evolution of the contentious concept of jihad. The book reveals that there has never been a unified position on what Islamic warfare tangibly entails, due to the complexity of relevant sources and discordant historical dynamics that have shaped the contours of jihad.

Onder Bakircioglu advocates a dynamic reading of Islamic law and military tradition; one which prioritises the demands of contemporary international relations and considers the meaning and application of jihad as contingent on the socio-political forces of each historical epoch.

This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of international law, Islamic law, war and security studies, and the law of armed conflict.

Posted on September 5, 2014 by

Chalmers & O’Reilly, “The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses”

This September, Oxford University Press will release “The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses” by James T. O’Reilly (University of Cincinnati College of Law) and Margaret S.P. Chalmers (Chancellor of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter). The publisher’s description follows:

The sexual abuse of children and teens by rogue priests in the U.S. Catholic Church is a heinous crime, and those who pray for a religious community as its ministers, priests and rabbis should never tolerate those who prey on that community. The legal disputes of recent years have produced many scandalous headlines and fuelled public discussion about the sexual abuse crisis within the clergy, a crisis that has cost the U.S. Catholic Church over $3 billion.

In The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses, two eminent experts, James O’Reilly and Margaret Chalmers, draw on the lessons of recent years to discern the interplay between civil damages law and global church-based canon law. In some countries civil and canon law, although autonomous systems of law, both form part of the church’s legal duties. In the United States, freedom of religion issues have complicated how the state adjudicates both cases of abuse and who can be held responsible for clerical oversight. This book examines questions of civil and criminal liability, issues of respondeat superior and oversight, issues with statutes of limitations and dealing with allegations that occurred decades ago, and how the Church’s internal judicial processes interact or clash with the civil pursuit of these cases.

Posted on September 4, 2014September 4, 2014 by Marc O. DeGirolami

“Constitutional Contraction: Religion and the Roberts Court”

I’ve posted a new paper, Constitutional Contraction: Religion and the Roberts Court. Here’s the abstract:

This essay argues that the most salient feature to emerge in the first decade of the Roberts Court’s law and religion jurisprudence is the contraction of the constitutional law of religious freedom. It illustrates that contraction in three ways.

First, contraction of judicial review. Only once has the Roberts Court exercised the power of judicial review to strike down federal, state, or local legislation, policies, or practices on the ground that they violate the Free Exercise or Establishment Clauses. In this constitutional context the Court has been nearly uniformly deferential to government laws and policies. That distinguishes it from its two predecessors—the Rehnquist and Burger Courts—both of which exercised judicial review more regularly.

Second, contraction in the range of voting patterns. The votes of the Justices in law and religion cases overwhelmingly are either unanimous or split 5-4, with relatively few separate dissents or concurrences expressing distinctive approaches, and with the split correlating with partisan political or ideological divisions. The “liberal” and “conservative” wings vote in bloc, and frequently reason in bloc as well. This again contrasts with the voting patterns of prior Courts in religious freedom cases.

Third, contraction in coverage. As a substantive matter, the Court is narrowing the religion clauses. Every member of the Court seems now to accept that Employment Division v. Smith properly interpreted the Free Exercise Clause. Matters are more complicated for the Establishment Clause, where there is far greater division among the Justices. Nevertheless, the essay claims that the Court is moving in a variety of ways toward a narrow interpretation of the Establishment Clause as well.

Whether the Roberts Court’s contraction of the religion clauses, and its general preference for narrow readings of both, are positive developments will depend on one’s views about fundamental questions of constitutional interpretation. Yet there is a conceptual unity to the Court’s approach—logical and complementary, even if not inevitable: just as the Rehnquist Court narrowed the scope of constitutional protection for free exercise, so, too, is the Roberts Court narrowing the scope of constitutional prohibition under the Establishment Clause. In this corner of constitutional law, the Court is gradually withdrawing from the scene.

Comments are welcome!

Posted on September 4, 2014July 27, 2016 by

Lorberbaum, “In God’s Image: Myth, Theology, and Law in Classical Judaism”

In November, Cambridge University Press will release “In God’s Image: Myth, Theology, and Law in Classical Judaism” by Yair Lorberbaum (Bar-Ilan University, Israel). The publisher’s description follows:

The idea of creation in the divine image has a long and complex history. While its roots apparently lie in the royal myths of Mesopotamia and Egypt, this book argues that it was the biblical account of creation presented in the first chapters of Genesis and its interpretation in early rabbinic literature that created the basis for the perennial inquiry of the concept in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yair Lorberbaum reconstructs the idea of the creation of man in the image of God (tselem Elohim) attributed in the Midrash and the Talmud. He analyzes meanings attributed to tselem Elohim in early rabbinic thought, as expressed in Aggadah, and explores its application in the normative, legal, and ritual realms.

Posted on September 3, 2014November 20, 2020 by

Videos from the Rome Conference on International Religious Freedom and the Global Clash of Values

Here are the videos from June’s conference, “International Religious Freedom and the Global Clash of Values,” which the Center for Law and Religion co-hosted in Rome, together with the St. John’s Center for International and Comparative Law and the Faculty of Law at Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta (LUMSA):

Introduction by Michael Simons, Dean of St. John’s University School of Law