I’m greatly looking forward to participating in next month’s ICLARS conference at Notre Dame Law School. I’ll be on a panel, “Status, Conduct, and Message,” along with Steven Collis of the University of Texas and Amy Sepinwall of the University of Pennsylvania. We’ll try to make sense of some of the Court’s recent religious freedom cases. Details in the conference program, below. Friends of the Mattone Center, please stop by and say hello!
“Liberation” and Ethnic Cleansing
Following on yesterday’s Legal Spirits podcast, I was interviewed today by GB News on UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s appalling statement about Azerbaijan’s “liberation” last year of Nagorno-Karabakh. In fact, Baku ethnically cleansed Karabakh of its 120,000 Christian Armenian inhabitants a year ago, in violation of an order from the International Court of Justice, which ruled that Baku was violating the international anti-racism treaty, and in defiance of a statement from the US that ethnic cleansing would not be tolerated. Well, listeners to the podcast will know my skepticism about international human rights law, which seems to matter only when great powers think it’s in their interest. But statements like Lammy’s are outrageous and incomprehensible.
You can listen to the GB News report at the link below:
Rome & Israel: Rivals in Law
The civilizational conflict between Rome and Israel in antiquity is much discussed. A new book from Princeton, Jews and Their Roman Rivals: Pagan Rome’s Challenge to Israel, maintains that the conflict was partly about law–specifically, whose law was superior. Looks very interesting. The author is French scholar Katell Berthelot (Aix-Marseille University). Here’s the description from the Princeton website:
Throughout their history, Jews have lived under a succession of imperial powers, from Assyria and Babylonia to Persia and the Hellenistic kingdoms. Jews and Their Roman Rivals shows how the Roman Empire posed a unique challenge to Jewish thinkers such as Philo, Josephus, and the Palestinian rabbis, who both resisted and internalized Roman standards and imperial ideology.
Katell Berthelot traces how, long before the empire became Christian, Jews came to perceive Israel and Rome as rivals competing for supremacy. Both considered their laws to be the most perfect ever written, and both believed they were a most pious people who had been entrusted with a divine mission to bring order and peace to the world. Berthelot argues that the rabbinic identification of Rome with Esau, Israel’s twin brother, reflected this sense of rivalry. She discusses how this challenge transformed ancient Jewish ideas about military power and the use of force, law and jurisdiction, and membership in the people of Israel. Berthelot argues that Jewish thinkers imitated the Romans in some cases and proposed competing models in others.
Shedding new light on Jewish thought in antiquity, Jews and Their Roman Rivals reveals how Jewish encounters with pagan Rome gave rise to crucial evolutions in the ways Jews conceptualized the Torah and conversion to Judaism.
Oman on Law and the LDS Church
I’m delighted to highlight a new book by my friend (and sometime Forum contributor and Tradition Project participant) Nate Oman on the relationship between law and LDS thought, Law and the Restoration: Law and Latter-day Saint Thought and Scripture, from Greg Kofford Books. Nate, a professor at William and Mary Law, writes in contracts and in law-and-religion, and is always a careful scholar. Amazon lists Nate’s new book as the #1 New Release in Christian Canon Law. Here’s the description from the publisher’s website:
Law and the Restoration: Law and Latter-day Saint History is a profound exploration of the intricate legal history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In this first of two volumes, Nathan B. Oman delves into the unique intersection of law and religion, uncovering how legal frameworks have shaped and been shaped by the experiences of Latter-day Saints. Through a series of meticulously researched essays, Oman reveals the profound impact of legal conflicts and developments on the growth and identity of the Church. From the early struggles for legal recognition and the battles over polygamy to the establishment of corporate entities and the role of religious courts, this book offers a comprehensive and enlightening narrative of the Church’s legal journey.
Oman’s scholarly work extends beyond mere historical recounting; it situates the Mormon legal experience within the broader context of American legal history. By examining the ways in which the Latter-day Saints navigated the legal challenges posed by a predominantly Protestant legal system, Oman provides invaluable insights into the broader themes of religious freedom, church-state relations, and legal pluralism. Each chapter is a testament to the resilience and adaptability of the Church, highlighting pivotal moments and key figures who influenced its legal standing.
Black Churches, Israel, and Palestine
Black churches have had enormous influence on American law and politics. Mostly, that influence is domestic. But like other Christians, African American Christians also take an interest in foreign policy and have tried to influence US international relations. Earlier this year, Columbia University Press published a study of African Americans’ engagement with the Israel-Palestine conflict. The book is Black Visions of the Holy Land: African American Christian Engagement with Israel and Palestine, by sociologist Roger Baumann (Hope College). Here is the description from Columbia’s website:
Since at least the high point of the civil rights movement, African American Christianity has been widely recognized as a potent force for social change. Most attention to the political significance of Black churches, however, focuses on domestic protest and electoral politics. Yet some Black churches take a deep interest in the global issue of Israel and Palestine. Why would African American Christians get involved—and even take sides—in Palestine and Israel, and what does that reveal about the political significance of “the Black Church” today?
This book examines African American Christian involvement in Israel and Palestine to show how competing visions of “the Black Church” are changing through transnational political engagement. Considering cases ranging from African American Christian Zionists to Palestinian solidarity activists, Roger Baumann traces how Black religious politics transcend domestic arenas and enter global spaces. These cases, he argues, illuminate how the meaning of the ostensibly singular and unifying category of “the Black Church”—spanning its history, identity, culture, and mission—is deeply contested at every turn. Black Visions of the Holy Land offers new insights into how Black churches understand their political role and social significance; the ways race, religion, and politics both converge and diverge; and why the meaning of overlapping racial and religious identities shifts when moving from national to global contexts.
Welcoming our Mattone Center Student Fellows for 2024-2025
They have been working hard on the blog and the podcasts since the summer, but now that the term has begun, I’d like to formally welcome our Mattone Center Student Fellows for 2024-2025: Noa Cadet ‘3L, Riki Markowitz ‘2L, Kalina Mesrobian ‘2L, and Panayiotis Xenakis ‘3L. You can read more about them in the Law School’s press release, here. Welcome aboard, gang!
The Paradox of Islamic Finance
Even people who know little about Islamic law know it forbids the lending of money at interest. A new book from Princeton, The Paradox of Islamic Finance: How Shariah Scholars Reconcile Religion and Capitalism, shows, perhaps surprisingly, that the ban on interest has not created obstacles for contemporary finance, as scholars have developed alternative ways for observant Muslims to participate in the global economy. How religious law adapts to modernity is always a fascinating topic. The author is sociologist Ryan Calder (Johns Hopkins). Here’s the description from the publisher’s website:
In just fifty years, Islamic finance has grown from a tiny experiment operated from a Volkswagen van to a thriving global industry worth more than the entire financial sector of India, South America, or Eastern Europe. You can now shop with an Islamic credit card, invest in Islamic bonds, and buy Islamic derivatives. But how has this spectacular growth been possible, given Islam’s strictures against interest? In The Paradox of Islamic Finance, Ryan Calder examines the Islamic finance boom, arguing that shariah scholars—experts in Islamic law who certify financial products as truly Islamic—have made the industry a profitable, if controversial, hybrid of religion and markets.
Critics say Islamic finance merely reproduces conventional interest-based finance, with the shariah scholars’ blessing. From an economic perspective, they are right: the most popular Islamic products act like conventional interest-bearing ones, earning healthy profits for Islamic banks and global financial heavyweights like Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Yet as Calder shows by delving into the shariah scholars’ day-to-day work, what seem like high-tech work-arounds to outsiders carry deep and nuanced meaning to the scholars—and to the hundreds of millions of Muslims who respect their expertise. He argues that Shariah scholars’ conception of Islamic finance is perfectly suited to the age of financialization and the global efflorescence of shariah-minded Islam.
“The Best Man,” Sixty Years Later
For people who are interested, over at Law & Liberty, I have an essay on the 60th anniversary of Gore Vidal’s classic film on presidential nominating conventions, 1964’s “The Best Man.” I’ve always loved the film, which captures some of the fun and banality of democratic politics–as well as its deeply cynical, even nihilistic side. Very relevant this election year. Here’s an excerpt:
This year marks the 60th anniversary of perhaps the greatest political film of all time, 1964’s The Best Man. Based on a play of the same name by Gore Vidal, who also wrote the screenplay, The Best Man tells the story of a deadlocked political convention at which two candidates vie for their party’s presidential nomination. Sixty years on, the film remains tremendously entertaining: clever, suspenseful, with an exceptional cast. The dialogue is outstanding. Considering what we have witnessed in the current presidential campaign—and it’s only August—Americans might again find interest in Vidal’s depiction of the backroom intrigue that determines a nomination.
The Best Man holds up for its mordant but profound observations about American democracy. There’s not much idealism here. The film’s most principled character has flaws that make him unfit to lead and the ultimate nominee is a “nobody” whose lack of record is his best quality. But there are important lessons about the sort of person who seeks high office in a democracy—and the sort of person high office requires. Perhaps surprisingly, given that Vidal was a man of the Left and had a rather acid personality, The Best Man offers a basically fair, even forgiving, depiction of progressives and conservatives. Neither are wholly good nor wholly bad, just human.
You can read the whole essay here.
A New Edition of Tocqueville
If Western philosophy consists of a series of footnotes to Plato, American sociology consists of a series of footnotes to Tocqueville. Again and again one finds, in researching religion or democracy in the US, that contemporary scholars repeat or develop observations that appear first in Democracy in America. Like the Simpsons, Tocqueville already did it.
Last month, Regnery released a new edition of Democracy in America, edited by law professor Bruce Frohnen (Ohio Northern). Here’s the description of the new edition from the publisher’s website:
This classic analysis of America’s unique political character is quoted heavily by politicians and perennially pops up on history professors’ reading lists.
The enduring appeal of Democracy in America lies in the eloquent, prophetic voice of Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), a French aristocrat who visited the United States in 1831. A thoughtful young man in a still-young country, he succeeded in penning this penetrating study of America’s people, culture, history, geography, politics, legal system, and economy.
Tocqueville asserts, “I confess that in America I saw more than America; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or hope from its progress.”
As Bruce Frohnen notes in his introduction to this edition, this republication of Henry Reeve’s “important translation” beautifully showcases “one of the world’s greatest achievements in political philosophy.”
Hittinger on Natural Law
This summer, Scholarship Roundup has focused on the revival (if that is the right word) of natural law thinking in American jurisprudence. That revival features especially prominently in scholarship in the Catholic tradition, and one of its leading figures is Russell Hittinger (University of Tulsa). This fall, Catholic University of America Press will publish a new volume of essays by Hittinger, On the Dignity of Society: Catholic Social Teaching and Natural Law. Here’s the description from the publisher’s website:
In this collection of essays, Francis Russell Hittinger shows that Catholic social teaching is not only an articulate defense of the dignity of the human person, but perhaps more fundamentally an elucidation of the dignity of society. Indeed, Hittinger enables us to see that one cannot properly defend the dignity of the person without also showing the dignity of societies in which human persons – as naturally familial, political, and ecclesial animals – seek their own perfection in communion with others. Hittinger has been a renowned scholar of Catholic social doctrine for some time now, and the essays presented here are the fruit of his mature thinking on the topic over the course of many years. As each chapter shows, Hittinger’s historically important body of work on Catholic moral and social philosophy and theology is rooted in natural law theory and Thomistic philosophy, but also animated by St. Augustine’s thought and thus consistently sensitive to historical contexts and arenas for moral and theological disputation. These magisterial essays therefore integrate historical studies of the development of Catholic social teaching with systematic exposition of the theological coherence of that tradition, while also articulating the essential role of philosophy and natural law within both.
The volume is divided into three parts. The first part is comprised of six essays on Catholic social teaching, the second part is made up of six essays on natural law and its role in social doctrine, and the third part includes two essays discussing the first principles of the Church’s teaching on social issues. This collection will no doubt become a standard in the field of scholarship on Catholic social teaching.