Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Guiding the Perplexed

One of the great and perennial problems in law is the relationship between “the rules” and the transcendental order (if any) that animates them. This is so in all the Abrahamic religions, which have, over the centuries, developed different understandings of that relationship. Even within a single religion, different strains emerge: the Thomism of Catholicism differs from the approach of the Christian East and from Protestant understandings. Luther burned the canon law books, after all.

A new book from Yale explores perhaps the greatest sage of Jewish law who attempted a synthesis between faith and legal reasoning: Maimonides: Faith in Reason. The author is Alberto Manguel. Here’s the publisher’s description:

An exploration of Maimonides, the medieval philosopher, physician, and religious thinker, author of The Guide of the Perplexed, from one of the world’s foremost bibliophiles
 
Moses ben Maimon, or Maimonides (1138–1204), was born in Córdoba, Spain. The gifted son of a judge and mathematician, Maimonides fled Córdoba with his family when he was thirteen due to Almohad persecution of all non-Islamic faiths. Forced into a long exile, the family spent a decade in Spain before settling in Morocco. From there, Maimonides traveled to Palestine and Egypt, where he died at Saladin’s court.
 
As a scholar of Jewish law, a physician, and a philosopher, Maimonides was a singular figure. His work in extracting all the commanding precepts of Jewish law from the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud, interpreting and commenting on them, and translating them into terms that would allow students to lead sound Jewish lives became the model for translating God’s word into a language comprehensible by all. His work in medicine—which brought him such fame that he became Saladin’s personal physician—was driven almost entirely by reason and observation.
 
In this biography, Alberto Manguel examines the question of Maimonides’ universal appeal—he was celebrated by Jews, Arabs, and Christians alike. In our time, when the need for rationality and recognition of the truth is more vital than ever, Maimonides can help us find strategies to survive with dignity in an uncertain world.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Law and Religion in the American Colonies

Here’s what looks like an extremely worthwhile historical study of the law of church and state in the 17th and 18th centuries before the American founding, Law and Religion in Colonial America: The Dissenting Colonies (Cambridge University Press), by Scott Douglas Gerber.

Law – charters, statutes, judicial decisions, and traditions – mattered in colonial America, and laws about religion mattered a lot. The legal history of colonial America reveals that America has been devoted to the free exercise of religion since well before the First Amendment was ratified. Indeed, the two colonies originally most opposed to religious liberty for anyone who did not share their views, Connecticut and Massachusetts, eventually became bastions of it. By focusing on law, Scott Douglas Gerber offers new insights about each of the five English American colonies founded for religious reasons – Maryland, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts – and challenges the conventional view that colonial America had a unified religious history.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

On Global Politics and Interreligious Dialogue

Continuing our international and comparative theme in the book notes this week, this forthcoming book from Oxford, The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue: Religious Change, Citizenship, and Solidarity in the Middle East, looks interesting. The history of the Mideast contains episodes of peaceful interreligious exchange, like those described here, and interreligious strife. Let’s hope the sort of recent interactions the author, political scientist Michael Driessen (John Cabot University, Rome) describes continue. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Over the last thirty years, governments across the globe have formalized new relationships with religious communities through their domestic and foreign policies and have variously sought to manage, support, marginalize, and coopt religious forces through them. Many scholars view these policies as evidence of the “return of religion” to global politics although there is little consensus about the exact meaning, shape, or future of this political turn.

In The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue, Michael D. Driessen examines the growth of state-sponsored interreligious dialogue initiatives in the Middle East and their use as a policy instrument for engaging with religious communities and ideas. Using a novel theoretical framework and drawing on five years of ethnographic fieldwork, Driessen explores both the history of interreligious dialogue and the evolution of theological approaches to religious pluralism in the traditions of Roman Catholicism and Sunni Islam. He analyzes state-centric accounts of interreligious dialogue and conceptualizes new ideas and practices of citizenship, religious pluralism, and social solidarity that characterize dialogue initiatives in the region.

To make his case, Driessen presents four studies of dialogue in the Middle East–the Focolare Community in Algeria, the Adyan Foundation in Lebanon, KAICIID of Saudi Arabia, and DICID of Qatar–and highlights key interreligious dialogue declarations produced in the broader Middle East over the last two decades. Compelling and nuanced, The GlobalPolitics of Interreligious Dialogue illustrates how religion operates in contemporary global politics, offering important lessons about the development of alternative models of democracy, citizenship, and modernity.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

The Sociology of International Religious Freedom Litigation

Here’s what looks like an interesting new book about religious freedom advocacy in the international sphere, with interviews of some of the principal players: Faith in Courts: Human Rights Advocacy and the Transnational Regulation of Religion (Bloomsbury), by Lisa Harms.

The judicialisation of religious freedom conflicts is long recognised. But to date, little has been written on the active role that religious actors and advocacy groups play in this process. This important book does just that. It examines how Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims, Sikhs, Evangelicals, Christian conservatives and their global support networks have litigated the right to freedom of religion at the European Court of Human Rights over the past 30 years. Drawing on in-depth interviews with NGOs, religious representatives, lawyers and legal experts, it is a powerful study of the social dynamics that shape transnational legal mobilisation and the ways in which legal mobilisation shapes discourses and conflict lines in the field of transnational law.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Wuthnow on Religion’s Power

The eminent sociologist of religion, Robert Wuthnow, must be one of the most prolific scholars alive. Now emeritus at Princeton, he continues to churn out books that are essential for understanding American religion in the 21st century. His new book, Religion’s Power: What Makes It Work (Oxford) focuses on the communal rituals that give religion its strength. Community is central to a plausible definition of religion (or at least it should be), and Wuthnow’s new book will no doubt help show why that is so. Here’s a description from the Oxford website:

What makes religion so powerful? Why does it attract so many followers? Raise so much money? Influence how people vote? The usual answer is that religion is powerful because it offers divine hope. But there is more to it than that. Why does a worship service seem powerful? Why is it powerful to hear someone testify about their faith? Who sets the rules for who can be a member and who cannot? What does religion do to reinforce gender and racial differences? Or to challenge them?

Religion’s Power takes a fresh look at these questions by examining what happens during religious rituals to signal the leader’s power, the power of the deity being worshipped, and, inadvertently, why some people in the congregation are deemed more powerful than others. Robert Wuthnow explores how religious narratives are constructed to demonstrate sincerity, how religious organizations control time by controlling space, how codified knowledge gives religious organizations power, and the small ways in which religion shapes identities and politics. Building on classical work in the sociology of religion and drawing extensively on historical and ethnographic studies, Religion’s Power foregrounds cases ranging from nineteenth-century church organ and lightning rod controversies to current clashes about border walls and racial justice. This is a book for beginning students of religion as well as for advanced scholars and for practitioners, fellow travelers, and critics who want to understand better what makes religion powerful.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New Book on Christian-Muslim Relations in Syria

With the news of this month’s devastating earthquake, the world is again turning its attention to Syria. The earthquake has deeply affected many of the world’s oldest Christian communities–as well as many of the world’s oldest Muslim communities. A timely book from Routledge, Christian-Muslim Relations in Syria: Historic and Contemporary Religious Dynamics in a Changing Context, explores the relationship between these two faith communities. The author is Andrew W.H. Ashdown, an Anglican priest with long experience in the country. Here’s the description from the publisher’s website:

Offering an authoritative study of the plural religious landscape in modern Syria and of the diverse Christian and Muslim communities that have cohabited the country for centuries, this volume considers a wide range of cultural, religious and political issues that have impacted the interreligious dynamic, putting them in their local and wider context.

Combining fieldwork undertaken within government-held areas during the Syrian conflict with critical historical and Christian theological reflection, this research makes a significant contribution to understanding Syria’s diverse religious landscape and the multi-layered expressions of Christian-Muslim relations. It discusses the concept of sectarianism and how communal dynamics are crucial to understanding Syrian society. The complex wider issues that underlie the relationship are examined, including the roles of culture and religious leadership; and it questions whether the analytical concept of sectarianism is adequate to describe the complex communal frameworks in the Middle Eastern context. Finally, the study examines the contributions of contemporary Eastern Christian leaders to interreligious discourse, concluding that the theology and spirituality of Eastern Christianity, inhabiting the same cultural environment as Islam, is uniquely placed to play a major role in interreligious dialogue and in peace-making.

The book offers an original contribution to knowledge and understanding of the changing Christian-Muslim dynamic in Syria and the region. It should be a key resource to students, scholars and readers interested in religion, current affairs and the Middle East.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami · 1 Comment

Religious Speech as Free Speech Prototype

In my class this semester on Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Inquiry, I have been struck by how many of the foundational arguments for and against tolerance for free speech have been made in the context of religious belief and expression. Whether it is Hobbes’ antagonism toward such speech in Book II.29 of “Leviathan,” or Locke’s defense of toleration in his “Letter,” or again Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance,” and so on, the root exemplar of free speech historically was religious speech.

A new book treats this subject systematically, Religious Speech and the Quest for Freedoms in the Anglo-American World, by Wendell Bird (Cambridge University Press), and argues for a similar conclusion, it appears.

In the secular, contemporary world, many people question the relevance of religion. Many also wonder whether religiously-informed speech and beliefs should be tolerated in the public square, and whether religions hinder freedom. In this volume, Wendell Bird reminds us that our basic freedoms are the important legacies of religious speech arising from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Bird demonstrates that religious speech, rather than secular or irreligious speech based on other belief systems, historically made the demands and justifications for at least six critical freedoms: speech and press, rights for the criminally accused, higher education, emancipation from slavery, and freedom from discrimination. Bringing an historically-informed approach to the development of some of the most important freedoms in the Anglo-American world, this volume provides a new framework for our understanding of the origins of crucial freedoms. It also serves as a powerful reminder of an aspect of history that is steadily being forgotten or overlooked-that many of our basic freedoms are the historical legacies of religious speech arising from Judeo-Christian faiths.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Sacred Foundations

Harold Berman famously wrote about the influence of the medieval church on the pluralism that, he argued, was the defining feature of the Western legal system. There is a chapter on law, and Berman’s work is discussed, in this new book from Princeton on the influence of medieval Christianity on the rise of the state in Europe, Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State, by Stanford Professor Anna Grzymala-Busse. Looks very interesting. Here’s the description from the Princeton website:

Sacred Foundations argues that the medieval church was a fundamental force in European state formation. Existing accounts focus on early modern warfare or contracts between the rulers and the ruled. In contrast, this major study shows that the Catholic Church both competed with medieval monarchs and provided critical templates for governing institutions, the rule of law, and parliaments.

The Catholic Church was the most powerful, wealthiest, and best-organized political actor in the Middle Ages. Starting in the eleventh century, the papacy fought for the autonomy of the church, challenging European rulers and then claiming authority over people, territory, and monarchs alike. Anna Grzymała-Busse demonstrates how the church shaped distinct aspects of the European state. Conflicts with the papacy fragmented territorial authority in Europe for centuries to come, propagating urban autonomy and ideas of sovereignty. Thanks to its organizational advantages and human capital, the church also developed the institutional precedents adopted by rulers across Europe—from chanceries and taxation to courts and councils. Church innovations made possible both the rule of law and parliamentary representation.

Bringing to light a wealth of historical evidence about papal conflict, excommunications, and ecclesiastical institutions, Sacred Foundations reveals how the challenge and example of powerful religious authorities gave rise to secular state institutions and galvanized state capacity.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami · 1 Comment

The Disintegrating Conscience

Perhaps this notice comes slightly early, but I had the pleasure of reading Professor Steven Smith’s new book, The Disintegrating Conscience and the Decline of Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press), in its pre-publication draft, and I was delighted to offer this book blurb about it: “Steven Smith is the greatest law and religion scholar of his generation. Every book he writes is illuminating, and this one is no exception. The Disintegrating Conscience and the Decline of Modernity is far and away the most insightful, balanced, and convincing account of the religion clauses to appear in the last five years at least.” Here is the description:

Steven D. Smith’s books are always anticipated with great interest by scholars, jurists, and citizens who see his work on foundational questions surrounding law and religion as shaping the debate in profound ways. Now, in The Disintegrating Conscience and the Decline of Modernity, Smith takes as his starting point Jacques Barzun’s provocative assertion that “the modern era” is coming to an end. Smith considers the question of decline by focusing on a single theme—conscience—that has been central to much of what has happened in Western politics, law, and religion over the past half-millennium. Rather than attempting to follow that theme step-by-step through five hundred years, the book adopts an episodic and dramatic approach by focusing on three main figures and particularly portentous episodes: first, Thomas More’s execution for his conscientious refusal to take an oath mandated by Henry VIII; second, James Madison’s contribution to Virginia law in removing the proposed requirement of religious toleration in favor of freedom of conscience; and, third, William Brennan’s pledge to separate his religious faith from his performance as a Supreme Court justice. These three episodes, Smith suggests, reflect in microcosm decisive turning points at which Western civilization changed from what it had been in premodern times to what it is today. A commitment to conscience, Smith argues, has been a central and in some ways defining feature of modern Western civilization, and yet in a crucial sense conscience in the time of Brennan and today has come to mean almost the opposite of what it meant to Thomas More. By scrutinizing these men and episodes, the book seeks to illuminate subtle but transformative changes in the commitment to conscience—changes that helped to bring Thomas More’s world to an end and that may also be contributing to the disintegration of (per Barzun) “the modern era.”

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 2 Comments

Law Like Love?

It may seem a little strange to say it this way, given the fact that Christianity has been dealing with the subject for 2000 years, but lately the global legal academy has begun to show interest in Christian jurisprudence. Marc has written a couple of posts about the phenomenon, and our latest Legal Spirits podcast discusses it as well–specifically, what Marc has taken to calling the “Australian School.” Here is a new, interesting-looking collection of essays on Christian jurisprudence from Routledge, Christianity, Ethics, and the Law: The Concept of Love in Christian Legal Thought, edited by Zachary Calo (Hamad bin Khalifa University, Qatar), Joshua Neoh (Australian National University), and A. Keith Thompson (University of Notre Dame, Australia). The Australian School seems very much in evidence. The essays focus on how the central Christian virtue of love can influence law and legal philosophy:

This book examines how Christian love can inform legal thought. The work introduces love as a way to advance the emergent conversation between constructive theology and jurisprudence that will also inform conversations in philosophy and political theory.

Love is the central category for Christian ethical understanding. Yet, the growing field of law and religion, and relatedly law and theology, rarely addresses how love can shape our understanding of law. This reflects, in part, a common assumption that law and love stand in necessary tension. Love applies to the private and the personal. Law, by contrast, applies to the public and the political, realms governed by power. It is thus a mistake to envisage love as having anything but a negative relationship to law. This conclusion continues to govern Christian understandings of the meaning and vocation of law. The animating idea of this volume is that the concept of love can and should inform Christian legal thought. The project approaches this task from the perspective of both historical and constructive theology. Various contributions examine how such thinkers as Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin utilised love in their legal thought. These essays highlight often neglected aspects of the Christian tradition. Other contributions examine Christian love in light of contemporary legal topics including civility, forgiveness, and secularism. Love, the book proposes, not only matters for law but can transform the terms on which Christians understand and engage it.

The book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of legal theory; law and religion; law and philosophy; legal history; theology and religious studies; and political theory.