Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New History of the Religion Clauses

From Oxford University Press, here is a new history of the religion clauses, Free Exercise: Religion, the First Amendment, and the Making of America, focusing especially on the social and cultural context at the time of the Framing, and foregrounding the experience of marginalized religious communities like Jews and Catholics, among others. The author is historian Chris Beneke of Bentley University. Oxford’s description follows:

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF. Those words, scratched on parchment in 1789, open the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. From them, countless interpretations have been drawn. As a consequence, an astonishing variety of activities in modern America-prayer after football games, Bible reading in classrooms, company healthcare policies, the baking of wedding cakes, and Ten Commandment displays around courthouses-have been alternately authorized, prohibited, or modified.

In this compelling historical account, Chris Beneke explains how the religion clauses came into existence and how they were woven into American culture. He brings prominent early national figures to life, including George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Paine, while chronicling the First Amendment’s relationship to defining social conditions like slavery, civility, family life, and the free market. Beneke probes what kind of nation America was when the religion clauses were framed and what kind of nation it was becoming.

Going beyond traditional church-state scholarship, Beneke also demonstrates how white women, African Americans, Roman Catholics, Jews, and nonbelievers widened religious liberty’s application and illuminated its boundaries. In doing so he makes a groundbreaking contribution to both constitutional history and the history of American pluralism.

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The Waldensians and the History of Italian Church-State Relations

The Waldensians are, if one may put it this way, the indigenous Protestants of Italy. Their history goes back centuries and, although their numbers are quite small, they represent a not insignificant part of Italy’s religious culture. A new book from Generis Publishing, Nationalism and Separation of Church and State: Protestant Contributions in Catholic Italy, argues that the group influenced the thought of the 19th Century liberal prime minister, Count Cavour, and thus had an effect on church-state relations during the Risorgimento. The author is Ottavio Palombaro of New College Franklin in Tennessee. Here’s the publisher’s description:

The recent rise of debates concerning Christianity, nationalism and separation of church and state require going back to the roots of such concepts. The advent of modern nationalism meant either the embracement of a positive form of separatism according to the American Revolution, or of a drastic form of separation according to the French Revolution. While the modern state of Italy dealt with the tension between church and state largely through drastic separation, there were some exceptions. Here I intend to investigate what role the Calvinistic understanding of relations between church and state did play through the political involvement of the Waldensians during the movement for Italian independence called Risorgimento (1848-1870). The Calvinistic view of civil government, as stated during that era by the Reformed Pastor Alexandre Vinet, was a determinant factor in the political stand that Waldensian Church took during these times for example through pastors such as Giuseppe Malan or Paolo Geymonat. Their ideas were also reflected beyond the Waldensians in the thought of the first Italian prime minister Camillo Benso conte di Cavour in his formula “free church in a free state.”

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A Natural Law Framework for Evangelicals

As readers of this blog know, natural law has re-emerged as an important part of contemporary jurisprudence, especially among Catholic legal scholars. Evangelical scholars have shown interest in the subject, too, as evidenced by this forthcoming book from InterVarsity Press, Hopeful Realism: Evangelical Natural Law and Democratic Politics. The book addresses, from an Evangelical perspective, one of the thorniest practical problems with natural-law reasoning in a society like ours. How does one make a persuasive natural-law argument in a pluralistic society where people’s priors differ so greatly? The authors are political theorists Jesse Covington (Westmont College), Bryan T. McGraw (Wheaton College), and Micah Watson (Calvin University). The publisher’s description follows:

A Natural Law Framework for Evangelicals Today

During a time when political conversations are marked by deep polarization and difficult decision-making, what resources do evangelicals have to think critically and theologically about public life?

For political theorists Bryan T. McGraw, Jesse Covington, and Micah Watson, a crucial resource is to be found in natural law, a rich tradition of Christian political thought often neglected by evangelicals. Grounded in the hope and realism of the gospel, their evangelical natural law theory is deep in moral conviction yet oriented toward practical political decision-making. Relevant to all dimensions of political life, they show how an evangelical natural law framework can speak into debates about the economy, family life and marriage, violence and war, and religious freedom.

Hopeful Realism is a generous guide for evangelicals concerned with bringing their theological commitments to bear on their political judgments. A volume that brings together robust theory with practical cases, Covington, McGraw, and Watson show how evangelicals can participate as evangelicals in a pluralistic, often polarized, democracy.

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A New Collection of Primary Sources on Islamic Law

From Cambridge University Press, here is a new source book on Islamic Law, Islamic Law in Context: A Primary Source Reader. The book covers Islamic legal reasoning generally and several topics specifically, such as diet, family life, contracts, and criminal law. The editors are scholars Omar Anchassi (Universität Bern) and Robert Gleave (University of Exeter). The publisher’s description follows:

This volume surveys the diversity of Islamic legal thought and practice, a 1500 – year tradition that has been cultivated throughout the Islamic world. It features translations of Islamic legal texts from across the spectrum of literary genres (including legal theory, judicial handbooks, pamphlets) that represent the range of temporal, geographic and linguistic contexts in which Islamic law has been, and continues to be, developed. Each text has been chosen and translated by a specialist. It is accompanied by an accessible introduction that places the author and text in historical and legal contexts and explains the state of the relevant field of study. An introduction to each section offers an overview of the genre and provides a useful bibliography. The volume will enable all researchers of Islamic law – established academics, undergraduate students, and general readers – to understand the tremendous and sometimes bewildering diversity of Islamic law, as well the continuities and common features that bind it together.

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The Lubavitcher Rebbe

Many years ago, I asked a Hasidic Jewish colleague what prevented a mystical movement like his, devoted to ecstatic religious experience, from going off the rails. “Law,” he quickly responded, as someone who had heard the question before, and then he quickly clarified, “Jewish Law.” In my limited experience, Hasidic Jews do indeed view law as important, even for non-Jews like me. I’ve been approached once or twice on the street in New York City by Lubavitcher Jews who, when they learn I’m not Jewish, give me a card with the seven Noahide Laws I am supposed to follow. Had I been Jewish, I think they’d have given me a rather longer list!

A new biography of Menachem Schneerson, the rabbi who led Lubavitcher Hasidism to its greatest successes, no doubt discusses the relationship between law and ecstatic faith in Hasidism. The title (intended provocatively, I assume) is Menachem Mendel Schneerson: Becoming the Messiah, and the publisher is Yale University Press. The author is Ezra Glinter of the Yiddish Book Center. Here’s the description from Yale’s website:

The life and thought of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, one of the most influential—and controversial—rabbis in modern Judaism

The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, one of the world’s best-known Hasidic groups, is driven by the belief that we are on the verge of the messianic age. The man most recognized for the movement’s success is the seventh and last Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), believed by many of his followers to be the Messiah.

While hope of redemption has sustained the Jewish people through exile and persecution, it has also upended Jewish society with its apocalyptic and anarchic tendencies. So it is not surprising that Schneerson’s messianic fervor made him one of the most controversial rabbinic leaders of the twentieth century. How did he go from being an ordinary rabbi’s son in the Russian Empire to achieving status as a mystical sage? How did he revitalize a centuries-old Hasidic movement, construct an outreach empire of unprecedented scope, and earn the admiration and condemnation of political, communal, and religious leaders in America and abroad?

Ezra Glinter’s deeply researched account is the first biography of Schneerson to combine a nonpartisan view of his life, work, and impact with an insider’s understanding of the ideology that drove him and that continues to inspire the Chabad-Lubavitch movement today.

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On Wokism and Cultural Contradictions

For about 10 years now, US institutions have aggressively advocated for social justice. As many have observed, the “wokism” behind these efforts is itself a new civil religion, one that promises to succeed in promoting equality where the old civil religion of Americanism failed. A new book from Princeton University Press argues, though, that wokism has actually worked against the socially disadvantaged and marginalized and, ironically, has aided in the rise of a new elite of symbolic capitalists. The book is We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, by sociologist Musa al-Gharbi (Stony Brook). Looks interesting. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Society has never been more egalitarian—in theory. Prejudice is taboo, and diversity is strongly valued. At the same time, social and economic inequality have exploded. In We Have Never Been Woke, Musa al-Gharbi argues that these trends are closely related, each tied to the rise of a new elite—the symbolic capitalists. In education, media, nonprofits, and beyond, members of this elite work primarily with words, ideas, images, and data, and are very likely to identify as allies of antiracist, feminist, LGBTQ, and other progressive causes. Their dominant ideology is “wokeness” and, while their commitment to equality is sincere, they actively benefit from and perpetuate the inequalities they decry. Indeed, their egalitarian credentials help them gain more power and status, often at the expense of the marginalized and disadvantaged.

We Have Never Been Woke details how the language of social justice is increasingly used to justify this elite—and to portray the losers in the knowledge economy as deserving their lot because they think or say the “wrong” things about race, gender, and sexuality. Al-Gharbi’s point is not to accuse symbolic capitalists of hypocrisy or cynicism. Rather, he examines how their genuine beliefs prevent them from recognizing how they contribute to social problems—or how their actions regularly provoke backlash against the social justice causes they champion.

A powerful critique, We Have Never Been Woke reveals that only by challenging this elite’s self-serving narratives can we hope to address social and economic inequality effectively.

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On Christian Institutionalism in the Early Republic

The proper role of Christianity in American public life has sparked controversy from the beginning. Is the US a Christian nation, and what does that mean, exactly? Or is the US a secular republic? Like France, perhaps? Historian Miles Smith has written a new book, Religion & Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War, that argues that the true role of Christianity in the early Republic is captured by the phrase “Christian Institutionalism,” in which a public, Protestant Christianity coexisted with official disestablishment. Looks interesting. Here’s the description from the publisher’s website (Davenant):

In recent years, America’s status as a “Christian nation” has become an incredibly vexed question. This is not simply a debate about America’s present, or even its future–it has become a debate about its past. Some want to rewrite America’s history as having always been highly secular in order to ensure a similar future; others seek to reframe the American founding as a continuation of medieval Christendom in the hopes of reviving America’s religious identity today.

In this book, Miles Smith offers a fresh historical reading of America’s status as a Christian nation in the Early Republic era. Defined neither by secularism nor Christendom, America was instead marked by “Christian institutionalism.” Christianity–and Protestantism specifically–was always baked into the American republic’s diplomatic, educational, judicial, and legislative regimes and institutional Christianity in state apparatuses coexisted comfortably with disestablishment from the American Revolution until the beginning of the twenty-first century. 

Any productive discussion about America’s religious present or future must first reckon accurately with its past. With close attention to a wide range of sermons, letters, laws, court cases and more, Religion & Republic offers just such a reckoning

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A City on a Hill

I’d like to thank the members of our Law & Religion Reading Group who turned out last night for a wonderful discussion of John Winthrop’s famous essay, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630), the source of the oft-repeated saying that America is “a city on a hill.” A 400-year old Puritan text came to life. Look for a new Legal Spirits podcast on the subject soon!

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Constitutional Intolerance

Religious freedom begins with tolerance, but aspirationally goes beyond it, to the full participation of religious minorities in political and legal life. Lately, some European observers think that even tolerance for religious and other minorities is lacking. A book out from Cambridge next month, Constitutional Intolerance: The Fashioning of the Other in Europe’s Constitutional Repertoires, explores the phenomenon. The author is Marietta van der Tol (above), the Alfred Landecker Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Constitutional Intolerance offers a deeper reflection on intolerance in politics and society today, explaining why minorities face the contestation of their public visibility, and how the law could protect them. Van der Tol refers to historical practices of toleration, distilling from it the category of ‘the other’ to the political community, whose presence, representation, and visibility is not self-evident and is often subject to regulation. The book considers ‘the other’ in the context of modern constitutions, with reference to (ethno)religious, ethnic, and sexual groups. Theoretical chapters engage questions about the time and temporality of otherness, and their ambivalent relationship with (public) space. It offers examples from across the liberal-illiberal divide: France, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Poland. It highlights that vulnerability towards intolerance is inscribed in the structures of the law, and is not merely inherent to either liberalism or illiberalism, as is often inferred.

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Ending Persecution?

Readers of this blog and listeners to Legal Spirits will know that I’m skeptical that international human rights law can do much on its own to end religious persecution. Everything depends on state enforcement–and states, including the US, only get involved when their interests suggest they should. Even then, there is typically little the “international community” can do when local actors really want to punish a religious minority, other than offer asylum–collective action problems always seem to get in the way, and the international community typically loses interest in time. It’s a very sad fact. But I know that other people think this view is too pessimistic. For a more optimistic view on what international human rights law can do, here is a new book from the University of Notre Dame Press, Ending Persecution: Charting the Path to Global Religious Freedom, by longtime human rights lawyer Knox Thames. The publisher’s description follows:

Building on his extensive experience in the U.S. government and as an international human rights lawyer, H. Knox Thames provides fresh, decisive strategies to advance religious freedom for all.

Today, a scourge of religious persecution is impacting every faith community around the globe. In Ending Persecution: Charting the Path to Global Religious Freedom, author H. Knox Thames takes readers to some of the world’s most repressive countries in the Middle East and Asia, exposing the harsh reality of religious repression. Thames breaks down the devastating litany of human rights abuses faced by religious groups in these countries into four major types of persecution: terrorism in the Middle East, government-sponsored genocides in China and Burma, cultural changes due to extremism in Pakistan, and tyrannical democracy in Nepal and India.

Ending Persecution recounts the range of tools and policies that the U.S. government has used to encourage reform in repressive governments, leverage U.S. influence for the oppressed, and to reflect the best of American values of diversity, minority rights, and religious freedom. To help the persecuted in the twenty-first century, Thames argues, the United States must revitalize its approach and recommit to ending oppression by supporting coalition building and interfaith tolerance.