Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Domingo on Law and Religion in a Secular Age

It’s a truism that law cannot exist on its own, a formal system that operates entirely within itself, without reference to extralegal norms. (OK, maybe not everyone agrees). Those norms, historically, have come from religion–in the West, from Christianity, specifically. As Christianity’s influence wanes, what will supply the norms? Scholar Rafael Domingo (University of Navarra) takes on this question in a new book from Catholic University Press, Law and Religion in a Secular Age. The book adds to a growing literature on the failures of positivism and the need to integrate law and morality. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Law and Religion in a Secular Age seeks to restore the connection between spirituality and justice, religion and law, theology and jurisprudence, and natural law and positive law by building a new bridge suitable for pluralistic societies in the secular age. The author argues for a multidimensional view of reality that includes legal, political, moral, and spiritual dimensions of human nature and society. Each of these dimensions of life needs to recognize the existence, influence, and function of the others, which act as a filter or check on the excesses of each other. This multidimensionality of reality clarifies why no legal theory can fully account for law from the legal dimension alone, just as no moral theory makes perfect sense of morality from the moral dimension—and, for that matter, nothing in physics can fully interpret the physical dimension of reality. The premises of a legal system cannot be fully explained by the legal dimension alone because the fundamental conditions and qualities of justice, freedom, and dignity touch all the dimensions of reality in which the human person acts, including the moral and the spiritual, not just the legal. Building on this multidimensional theory of reality, the author explores the core differences and the essential interconnections between law, morality, religion, and spirituality and some of the legal implications of these connections.

Rafael Domingo reminds readers of the vital role of religion in shaping the conceptual framework of Western legal systems, underscores the spirit of Christianity that inspired legal institutions, principles, and values, and recalls the contributions of specific Christian jurists as central figures for the development of justice in society.

Law and Religion in a Secular Age aims to be a valuable antidote against the dominant legal positivism that has cornered public morality, the defiant secularism that has marginalized religion, and any other legal doctrine that diminishes the spiritual dimension of law and justice.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Merry Christmas

To everyone who celebrates today, a very Merry Christmas!

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New Book on Law and Morality

A couple of months ago, Marc and I recorded a Legal Spirits episode with Julia Mahoney and Steve Smith on whether classical legal theory, which rejects positivism’s sharp distinction between law and morality, is ready for a comeback in American law–and whether that would be, on balance, a good thing. Obviously, something is in the air. This month, Harvard releases a new book by University of Michigan law professor Scott Hershovitz that addresses the relationship between law and morality and that takes a definite position on the question. The book is titled Law is a Moral Practice. Here’s the description from the Harvard website:

What is law? And how does it relate to morality? It’s common to think that law and morality are different ways of regulating our lives. But Scott Hershovitz says that this is a mistake: law is a part of our moral lives. It’s a tool we use to adjust our moral relationships. The legal claims we advance in court, Hershovitz argues, are moral claims. And our legal conflicts are moral conflicts.

Law Is a Moral Practice supplies fresh answers to fundamental questions about the nature of law and helps us better appreciate why we disagree about law so deeply. Reviving a neglected tradition of legal thought most famously associated with Ronald Dworkin, Hershovitz engages with important legal and political controversies of our time, including recent debates about constitutional interpretation and the obligations of citizens and officials to obey the law.

Leavened by entertaining personal stories, guided by curiosity rather than ideology, moving beyond entrenched dichotomies like the opposition between positivism and natural law, Law Is a Moral Practice is a thought-provoking investigation of the philosophical issues behind real-world legal debates.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Thanks to A Gentleman and a Scholar

It has been one of the great experiences of my academic life to work alongside Marc DeGirolami for the past 13 years. A few years ago, when Marc received the inaugural Cary Fields Professorship here at St. John’s, I wrote about his talents as a tireless, thoughtful, and influential academic. I won’t repeat my comments, but I do want to thank Marc for teaching me so much about what it means to be a scholar. I will do my best to live up to his example, now that he is moving down I-95 to become the St. John Henry Newman Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Law and the Human Person at Catholic University.

I also want to thank Marc for all his contributions to the Mattone Center. Whatever we have achieved here — this blog, as well as the many conferences, podcasts, colloquia, and webinars — has been a joint effort. And I want to thank Marc for the greatest gift of all: his steadfast friendship through thick and thin.

We’ll plan on continuing Legal Spirits — look for new episodes in 2024 — and collaborating on projects in the years ahead. For now, though, brother, congratulations to you and your new colleagues at Catholic, and Godspeed. I’ll miss you.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Farewell to St. John’s and the Mattone Center for Law and Religion

After nearly 15 years, I am leaving St. John’s Law School and the Mattone Center for Law and Religion. My professional life has been spent very happily here, in equable and productive study and teaching with my excellent, learned friend and colleague, Mark Movsesian. I have been proud of our Center’s work–from its large undertakings, such as our Tradition Project, to its smaller labors in our occasional seminars, podcasts, and our Reading Society (of which I have grown particularly fond). It has been an honor and delight for me to be a part of all of it.

Permit me to thank all of the participants and supporters that have made the work of our Center such a great joy for me over the years. In an era of turmoil for American higher education, the Center will live on in my memory as an example, and a beacon, of what true liberal learning in the law, at its finest, can be. For my cherished St. John’s students and, in teaching them, for me. MOD

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Announcing the Mattone Center for Law and Religion

We have exciting news to share! In recognition of a transformative gift to endow the Center’s activities, the St. John’s Center for Law and Religion has been renamed in honor of alumni Denise Melillo Mattone and Michael X. Mattone. The multimillion-dollar gift will allow the Center to offer new educational programs and expand its impact as a hub for exploring issues of law and religion in the United States and around the world. 

The newly named Denise ‘90 and Michael ‘91 Mattone Center for Law and Religion will offer educational opportunities, including innovative coursework, a visiting scholars program, and academic workshops and conferences at St. John’s campuses in New York, Paris, and Rome. It will also host programs for St. John’s alumni and the wider public, including podcasts, videos, and live events on pressing church-state issues. 

You can read more about the Mattones in the official announcement, here.

We are tremendously grateful to Denise and Michael for their confidence in us and are honored that the Center now bears their names. Stay tuned for further announcement about upcoming events in the new year!

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Christians and US Policy on Armenia

At SSRN, I’ve posted a draft essay on the role of Christian interest groups in U.S. policy toward Armenia, historically and today. The draft, which I wrote this past summer before the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh, will appear in a forthcoming collection of essays, Armenia and the Community of States (Georgi Asatryan ed.) (forthcoming 2024). Here’s the abstract:

International Relations scholarship has begun to focus on the influence of religious interest groups on foreign policy. In this draft, written in the summer of 2024 for a forthcoming collection of essays, I explore the impact of Christian groups on United States policy on Armenia, historically and today. During the Armenian Genocide 100 years ago, Christian groups mobilized a massive private relief campaign for Armenians but could not secure U.S. government support for the fledgling Armenian Republic. Today, Christian groups are trying once again to secure greater U.S. support for Armenia in connection with the Karabakh conflict. Although these groups have achieved some success, in the current domestic and geopolitical climate, securing greater U.S. government support has proven challenging—even in the context of an ethnic cleansing campaign. If Christian groups are to succeed, history suggests they must find a way to cast their arguments principally in terms of U.S. interests in the changing South Caucasus rather than humanitarian concerns or Christian solidarity.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Movsesian on Munoz

In the latest edition of the Journal of Law and Religion, I review Phillip Munoz’s excellent new book on the Religion Clauses, Religious Liberty and the American Founding. In the book, Phillip undertakes to show, to the extent one can, the original meaning of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses. That showing is elusive, he says, since “free exercise” and “establishment” didn’t have a clear meaning at the time of the Framing. Nonetheless, he argues that one can construct plausible meanings for these terms by focusing on the Framers’ understanding of religious liberty as a natural right.

For my take on Phillip’s argument, please read my review essay, linked below. Here’s a sample:

Religious Liberty and the American Founding is a pleasure to read. Muñoz writes well and exceptionally clearly, and his book will appeal both to the educated public and to constitutional lawyers and scholars who spend their time immersed in doctrinal debates. He offers a wealth of detail on the drafting and ratification of the religion clauses. And the story he tells is a persuasive one. History is argument without end, but Muñoz’s basic point that the framers disagreed on the precise meaning of establishment and free exercise in the First Amendment but understood those terms in light of their background conception of religious liberty seems entirely plausible. Precisely because the framers could not agree on what the natural right of religious liberty itself entailed with respect to specific government policies, though, it is not clear how helpful a natural-rights construction of original meaning can be in resolving specific constitutional disputes.

Movsesian on MunozDownload
Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Washington and Jefferson: Pals?

In our most recent Legal Spirits episode on the meaning of the Establishment Clause, Marc and I discuss the differing views of George Washington, who argued that religion was an essential basis for public morality, and Thomas Jefferson, who originated the phrase “separation of church and state.” This wasn’t the only disagreement these two Framers, and sometime friends, had. A forthcoming book from Harvard, A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic, discusses these disagreements and makes an important point. In the Framers’ generation, as in ours, Americans disagreed on the meaning and application of fundamental principles. Somehow, they were able to compromise–at least much of the time. The author is historian Francis Cogliano (University of Edinburgh). Here’s the description from the Harvard website:

The first full account of the relationship between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, countering the legend of their enmity while drawing vital historical lessons from the differences that arose between them.

Martha Washington’s worst memory was the death of her husband. Her second worst was Thomas Jefferson’s awkward visit to pay his respects subsequently. Indeed, by the time George Washington had died in 1799, the two founders were estranged. But that estrangement has obscured the fact that for most of their thirty-year acquaintance they enjoyed a productive relationship. Precisely because they shared so much, their disagreements have something important to teach us.

In constitutional design, for instance: Whereas Washington believed in the rule of traditional elites like the Virginia gentry, Jefferson preferred what we would call a meritocratic approach, by which elites would be elected on the basis of education and skills. And while Washington emphasized a need for strong central government, Jefferson favored diffusion of power across the states. Still, as Francis Cogliano argues, common convictions equally defined their relationship: a passion for American independence and republican government, as well as a commitment to westward expansion and the power of commerce. They also both evolved a skeptical view of slavery, eventually growing to question the institution, even as they took only limited steps to abolish it.

What remains fascinating is that the differences between the two statesmen mirrored key political fissures of the early United States, as the unity of revolutionary zeal gave way to competing visions for the new nation. A Revolutionary Friendship brilliantly captures the dramatic, challenging, and poignant reality that there was no single founding ideal—only compromise between friends and sometime rivals.

Posted on by L&R Forum

Legal Spirits 055: Speaker Mike Johnson on the Separation of Church and State

Speaker Mike Johnson on CNBC last month

In a TV interview last month, House Speaker Mike Johnson raised eyebrows by asserting that Framers welcomed religion in public life and that the Establishment Clause protects religion from the encroachment of government, not the other way around. In this podcast, we show how Johnson was both right and wrong. Many Framers shared his view, but others did not. The controversy over Johnson’s comments is just the latest episode in a continuing debate over the meaning of religious liberty. When we argue about the past, we are really arguing about what our country should be, today. Listen in!

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