Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Criminal Law in the Acts of the Apostles

Just the other day in my seminar, I told students one of my favorite episodes of legal process in the New Testament: Paul’s insistence that the magistrates who had illegally ordered him beaten and imprisoned without a trial–for Roman law prohibited treating Roman citizens that way–come to the prison to apologize and publicly exonerate him. And, according to the account in Acts, that’s just what the magistrates did: “The police reported [Paul’s] words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans, so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city.” Which goes to show that the early Christians knew how to use legal process to their advantage, at least occasionally.

I’m sure this episode appears in a new book from Cambridge University Press, Criminalization in Acts of the Apostles: Race, Rhetoric, and the Prosecution of an Early Christian Movement, by New Testament scholar Jeremy Williams (Texas Christian University). Here’s the publisher’s description:

In this study, Jeremy L. Williams interrogates the Book of Acts in an effort to understand how early Christian texts provide glimpses of the legal processes by which Roman officials and militarized police criminalized, prosecuted, and incarcerated people in the first and second centuries CE. Williams investigates how individuals and groups have been, and still are, prosecuted for specious reasons – because of stories and myths written against them, perceptions of alterity that render them subhuman or nonhuman, the collision of officials, and financial incentives that foster injustices, among them. Through analysis of criminalization in Acts, he demonstrates how Critical Race Theory, Black studies, and feminist rhetorical scholarship enables a reconstruction of ancient understandings of crime, judicial institutions, militarized police, punishment, and socio-political processes that criminalize. Williams’ study highlights how the criminalization of Jesus followers as depicted in Acts enables connections with contemporary movements. It also presents the ancient text as a critique against the shortcomings of some contemporary understandings of justice and human rights.

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Webinar: Understanding the Karabakh Crisis

Yesterday, I participated in an online panel organized by the St. John’s CRS Global Campus Committee, “Understanding the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict & Humanitarian Crisis.” The other participants were Artyom Tonoyan (Hamline) and Anna Hess Sargsyan (Austrian Center for Peace). Among the topics we discussed: the failure of international law in stopping the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and the complex role of religion in the conflict. I’d like to thank the organizers and my co-panelists for a very helpful, if somewhat depressing, discussion. You can view the webinar below.

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St. John’s University Panel on Karabakh Next Week

For anyone interested, I’ll be appearing (virtually) this coming Wednesday, November 1, on a panel St. John’s University is sponsoring on the ethnic cleansing of Armenian Christians from Karabakh: “Understanding theNagorno-Karabakh Conflict & Ongoing Humanitarian Crisis.” I’ll join Anna Hess Sargsyan of the Austrian Center for Peace and Artyom Tonoyan of Hamline University. Details below:

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Movsesian on RFRA and the Rise of the Nones

The Emory Center for the Study of Law and Religion has published my essay, “RFRA and the New Thoreaus,” which I presented in last week’s online symposium. Here’s an excerpt:

In short, the question whether RFRA’s definition of “religion” includes idiosyncratic, personal beliefs is not entirely clear. To be fair, when Congress enacted RFRA in 1993, one could dismiss the question as peripheral. As I have explained, at the time, more than 90% of Americans claimed a religious affiliation, and the question of idiosyncratic convictions did not have great legal significance. The Rise of the Nones has changed things. As Nones become more established in our religious culture, one can imagine many claims for exemptions based on idiosyncratic spiritual commitments: a vegetarian diet in prison, for example, or the right to wear certain clothing or insignia in the military–or, as has already occurred, an exemption from public health requirements, like vaccination and mask mandates. 

The rise of the Nones thus makes it likely that courts will have to grapple seriously with the definition of religion for purposes of RFRA–as well as the Free Exercise Clause and other laws. As I have argued elsewhere, the best approach would be a flexible one. At its core, religion means a collective phenomenon, a community of believers that exists through time, not a solitary spiritual quest. In common understanding, religion has always suggested a group of people linked together in worship. As sociologist Christian Smith writes, “religions are almost invariably social activities—communities of memory engaged in carrying on particular traditions.” Without a communal structure to give them meaning, religious practices such as prayer, fasting, and so on are incoherent, “simply the strange doings of odd people.” 

You can read the whole essay here.

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A New Book on Orthodox Canons

In the debate–mostly friendly nowadays, thankfully–between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, the importance of canon law has a major place. For the Orthodox, the idea of canon “law” is suspect, since it suggests legalism and an unfortunate focus on abstractions at the expense of economia and the life of the church. That’s why one typically refers to Orthodox “canons” as opposed to “canon law.” For Catholics, the failure to systematize things reflects an unfortunate lack of clarity and logic–and, therefore, a misunderstanding of the proper role of law in promoting justice in the church and in the state as well.

A new book out last month from one of the great figures of Orthodox scholarship, Lewis Patsavos (Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology), Introduction to Orthodox Canon Law, does use the phrase “canon law” to describe the East’s approach. I’m curious why. But I’m sure the book is worthwhile for anyone seeking to understand more of the Orthodox understanding of these matters. The publisher is Holy Cross Orthodox Press. Here’s its description of the book:

Based on course notes of forty years of teaching, this Introduction to Orthodox Canon Law is a foundational text for students. Chapters cover basic issues for anyone interested in canon law: its sources; the organization, structure, and governance of the Church; the qualifications for ordination, as well as its impediments; and issues of church membership, including reception of non-Orthodox and marriage. Throughout the Introduction, the canonical tradition is presented and thoroughly explained.

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Japanese Integralism?

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There’s a lot of discussion in the American academy today about integralism. The word has various meanings, but the basic definition, as I understand it, is a melding of the spiritual and the political. That is, integralism opposes the Lockean separation of religion and state that has been an essential feature of classical liberalism.

A forthcoming book from Rowman and Littlefield, Religion, State, and Political Culture in Japan: Implications for the Post-Secular World, discusses the relationship of state and religion in Japan. Although it doesn’t use the word, it suggests that Japan has always been rather integralist, in that the country has never had socially influential religions that exist apart from the state. The author, Tokihisa Sumioto (Tokyo Institute for Global Peace and Humanity), appears to argue that Japan should chart a new path. Looks interesting. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Japan had developed a secular civilization long before going through its modern period, characterized by the officially-sanctioned unification of nationalism and state-worship that reached its apotheosis during World War II, followed by the economic growth-oriented post-war period. While the relationship between religion and state has varied significantly over time, what has been consistently observed throughout Japan’s history is the absence of religions that are socially influential but independent from the state, or the absence of a dualistic relationship between religion and state. The kind of political ethos that should underpin democratic principles such as the rule of law and human rights has remained underdeveloped. 

This book examines the concept of “reconstructive postmodernism,” a perspective that has emerged from a normative approach to international relations that emphasizes the need to democratize and humanize the secularistic civilizations based on the reconstruction of spirituality and religiosity. Using this concept, this book offers a number of implications of its findings to the case of Japan and for global governance in the post-secular age more broadly. 

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Online Symposium: RFRA at 30 (Oct. 19, 2023)

I’m greatly looking forward to participating in an upcoming online symposium, “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act at 30,” sponsored by Emory’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion. I’ll present a paper on how the rise of the Nones will put pressure on the concept of religious exemptions. Details here. Register to listen in!

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Finding Gold in the Dark

Had John Aroutiounian lived, he would have been a great political essayist. A graduate of Yale, where he was the speaker of the Yale Political Union (as a member of the Federalist Party), he was a student at Columbia Law School when he died of an aggressive cancer in 2019. The Abigail Adams Institute and Cluny Media have now published a posthumous collection of his writings, Finding Gold in the Dark: Reflections on Modern America, Virtue, and Faith, which display remarkable wit, insight, and eloquence, especially for so young a person. Worth reading. Here is the publisher’s description:

“A true citizen must always consider how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country–each tradition is a potential treasure and the past is filled with gifts.”

These are not the words of some eminent statesman with the wisdom of years at his disposal; nay, they are the words of a young man but twenty-one years of age, given to a gathering at Yale University. For John Aroutiounian, fidelity to truth, elegance in style, and brilliance in wit and humor went hand in hand, as this collection of his writings so aptly shows. A prolific essayist, John wrote scores of pieces over the course of his life, engaging on matters of faith and culture, national identity and political discourse, societal disparity and religious persuasions—always, in sundry fashion, in light of the Armenian Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions. Finding Gold in the Dark: Reflections on Modern America, Virtue, and Faith is a testament to this fact: the reflections of a conscientious, principled gentleman on the realities and aspirations of his time.

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On Human Rights Hypocrisies

In a new podcast from Parallax Views, I discuss the situation in Karabakh right now. Not for the first time, great power rivalries and human rights hypocrisy have led to the destruction of a vulnerable religious minority–this time, Armenian Christians. The host, J.G. Michaels, and I spend a lot of time on Western hypocrisy, in particular, and how Mideast Christians fail to gain much traction in Western politics. Mideast Christians are too Mideast for the Right and too Christian for the Left. Listen in: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-vdntv-14ba395

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Lugato on Tradition in Customary International Law

It’s not a law-and-religion piece, exactly, but I’d like to draw attention to a fantastic essay by our Tradition Project partner, Professor Monica Lugato of LUMSA, on the role of tradition in customary international law. This is a complicated subject, and Monica handles it masterfully. I highly recommend it. The essay appears in a new collection, Human Society and International Law: Reflections on the Present and Future of International Law, published last summer by Wolters Kluwer and edited by Carlo Focarelli at Roma Tre. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Where is international law headed for? Should it rather head elsewhere, and why? These are the questions that the ten contributors to this first Special Volume in the Series Convivenza umana e diritto internazionale – Human Society and International Law have been asked to address, each one within their main area of expertise. The ten topics elected by the authors – all members of the Editorial Board of the new Series – make the three parts of this Volume, respectively on the making of international law (with chapters on the sources of international law; the principle of acquiescence; the codification of the right to development; and the legal status and transformative potential of the SDGs); the implementation of international law (with chapters on international custom and the traditionality of international law; the localising of international law; and the constitutional im- port of the SDGs); and the analysis of international law (with chapters on populism and the integrity of international law; the past, present and future of international law’s teaching; and the demands placed on legal analysis by the present climate crisis). As the questions posed to the contributors and the Volume’s subtitle suggest, this work was designed to encourage a reflection, by prominent scholars, on the dynamics of international law across a sample of key topics, mindful of the legal framework as a whole, and its trajectories over time. The underlying assumption – and wish – is that the Volume’s attempt to encourage an overall vision of the discipline, its most recent trends, and its theoretical framework (including of change) will inspire new theses and book proposals for the Series.