Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A History of Evangelicals and Religious Freedom

Here is an interesting-looking collection of essays from Baylor on the history of Evangelical Christians and politics–especially, the politics of religious freedom: The Gospel and Religious Freedom: Historical Studies in Evangelicalism and Political Engagement. Like most religious communities, Evangelicals have a mixed record in this regard, supporting religious freedom in some contexts and opposing it in others. The book’s chapters cover episodes from Wilberforce to Trump. The editor is David Bebbington (University of Stirling-Scotland). Here’s the publisher’s description:

Religious freedom as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights remains a perennial concern across the globe. Over the centuries many evangelicals have not enjoyed this right in practice, but they have generally advocated its acceptance, especially to allow the spread of the gospel. Not always, however, have they supported freedom for religious groups besides themselves and sometimes they have endorsed discrimination against other bodies.

The Gospel and Religious Freedom explores the complex relationship in theory and practice between evangelicals and religious freedom, covering periods from the eighteenth century to the present. The volume includes studies of the intellectual lineage of asserting the free exercise of religion, of evangelicals in the United States who endorsed religious liberty in the early twentieth century, and of recent American evangelical political pressure on behalf of freedom of religion at home and abroad. Other contributions address the evangelical defense of the cause in British territories in the age of William Wilberforce, the apparent threat to religious liberty by Roman Catholics throughout the world, an evangelical attempt to restrain Muslim laws in Nigeria, and the persecution of believers by Communists in Eastern Europe and China.

Evangelical Christians emerge as preeminently concerned with evangelism but in other respects diverse in their responses to challenges in various global regions. This volume is designed to demonstrate something of the significance of the evangelical movement in the history of the modern world.

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

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

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 Mark Movsesian

Legal Thought in Eastern Orthodox Christianity

Orthodox Christianity doesn’t receive too much attention in the Western Christian world, including the law-and-religion academy. Mostly, I think, that’s a matter of demography. The numbers of Orthodox Christians in the West are comparatively small, and, consequently, Orthodox Christianity doesn’t figure in many legal debates. But that situation seem to be changing. Earlier this fall, I posted about a new monograph on Orthodox canon law. And here is a new collection of essays from Routledge: Legal Thought and Eastern Orthodox Christianity: The Addresses of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. The editors are Norman Doe (Cardiff) and Aetios Nikiforos (Ecumenical Patriarchate), and contributors include Center friends like John Witte, Andrea Pin, Frank Cranmer, Mark Hill, and Christy Green. Looks very interesting. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide, has thought profoundly about the role of law as it applies to the church, to civic life in Europe, to human rights, to religious freedom, and to the environment. In this book, leading scholars across the world reflect critically on the significance of his legal thought for human flourishing, for Christian social teaching, and for Christian unity. His legal thought is summed up in five key public addresses that he has delivered around the world in recent years, on: church law as an ecumenical instrument; the role of religion in a changing Europe; Orthodoxy and human rights; religion and freedom; and climate change, ecumenical imperatives. The collection presents critical reflections on the legal thought in these five important, distinct, and topical fields of human life. Its ten chapters, with two chapters devoted to each of his five addresses, are written by leading scholars across the world from different Christian traditions with expertise in the fields studied. They provide an analysis of the legal thought of the Patriarch, explain its significance legally, theologically, and politically, and propose its unifying value for the whole of global Christianity today. The book will be essential reading for academics and researchers working in the areas of law and religion, legal philosophy, comparative canon law, theology, and ecumenical studies.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

A Tome of Essays on Christianity and the Law

In our most recent podcast, Mark and I spoke with Professors Julia Mahoney and Steven Smith about the prospects for a revival of classical law in America. That retrieval would depend, at least in part, upon the systematic reintroduction of Christian concepts and categories. Our guests had mixed views on the matter, reflecting different feelings about what the future might hold.

Here is a new volume of essays that seems to support Professor Mahoney’s sense of things (and to which Professor Smith contributed a chapter!): The Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Law, co-edited by our friend and law-and-religion titan, Professor John Witte, Jr., and Professor Rafael Domingo. The book is massive, and I don’t see a single chapter I am not interested to read. A must-have to usher in the season of Advent.

This volume tells the story of the interaction between Christianity and law—historically and today, in the traditional heartlands of Christianity and around the globe. Sixty new chapters by leading scholars provide authoritative but accessible accounts of foundational Christian teachings on law and legal thought over the past two millennia as well as the current interaction and contestation of law and Christianity on all continents. Several chapters explore the ways in which Christianity shaped and was shaped by core public, private, penal, and procedural laws. Other chapters analyze various old and new forms of Christian canon law, natural law theory, and religious freedom norms as well as Christian teachings on fundamental principles of law, politics, and legal order. A final cluster of chapters probe Christian contributions to controversial and cutting legal issues of migration, biotechnology, environmentalism, and racial justice. Together, the chapters make clear that Christianity and law have had a perennial and permanent influence on each other over time and across cultures, albeit with varying levels of intensity and effectiveness.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

George Washington’s Political Writing

Thanksgiving is the holiday that most perfectly reflects the political theology of America. Its distinctive blend of religious politics, and political religion. And there are few better representatives of this fusion than George Washington. Listen to the music of his political theology in this, the beginning of his famous Thanksgiving Day proclamation of 1789:

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be– That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks–for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation–for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war–for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed–for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted–for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

As it happens, an excellent edited collection has just been published by Carson Holloway and our dear friend and outgoing executive director of the James Madison program at Princeton, Bradford P. Wilson: The Political Writings of George Washington (Cambridge University Press). I’m told a paperback edition is in the offing as well, but this one looks well worth a holiday splurge.

The Political Writings of George Washington includes Washington’s enduring writings on politics, prudence, and statesmanship in two volumes. It is the only complete collection of his political thought, which historically, has received less attention than the writings of other leading founders such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton. Covering his life of public service—from his young manhood, when he fought in the French and Indian Wars, through his time as commander-in-chief of the revolutionary army; his two terms as America’s first president, and his brief periods of retirement, during which he followed and commented on American politics astutely—the volumes also include first-hand accounts of Washington’s death and reflections on his legacy by those who knew or reflected deeply on his significance. The result is a more thorough understanding of Washington’s political thought and the American founding.

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.