Posted on by L&R Forum · 1 Comment

Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion stories from around the web:

  • In Roake v. Brumley, a Louisiana federal district court found that Louisiana violated the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses when it passed a law that required a copy of the Ten Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom in the state. The court reasoned that the Louisiana statute burdened plaintiffs’ sincere religious practices and beliefs and was not neutral toward religion.
  • Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt announced the launch of the Oklahoma Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The new division of state government is meant to act as a point of contact for faith-based and nonprofit organizations, facilitating connections with state services, including creating a repository of state agency programs and recognizing impactful faith-based organizations through partnerships with state agencies.
  • Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced he would resign after a report revealed that he failed to launch a proper investigation into claims of widespread abuse of boys and young men that occurred decades ago at Christian summer camps.
  • In Bird v DP (a pseudonym), the High Court of Australia found that a Catholic diocese was not vicariously liable for sexual abuse of a young child by a priest from a parish church. The High Court determined that the priest was not employed by the Diocese or engaged by the Diocese as an independent contractor and, therefore, was not an agent of the Diocese.
Posted on by L&R Forum

Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In United States v. City of Lansing, Michigan, the Justice Department filed a Title VII lawsuit on behalf of a newly-hired Seventh Day Adventist detention officer. The complaint alleges that the city “failed to provide [the officer] with a reasonable accommodation or to show undue hardship and terminated her employment because she could not work from Friday sundown through Saturday sundown due to her religious observance of the Sabbath.” 
  • In Stewart v. City and County of San Francisco, California, a California federal district court issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of a San Francisco Park Code provision requiring a permit for any religious event held in a public park involving 50 or more persons. 
  • A former Southwest flight attendant has been awarded damages after being fired from the airline for publicly posting anti-abortion posts. The federal jury in Texas sided with the former flight attendant, stating that Southwest unlawfully discriminated against her because of her sincerely held religious beliefs. 
  • In In re Texas Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, a Texas state appellate court held that the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine deprives the trial court of jurisdiction over a dispute between the Fort Worth Northwest Seventh-Day Adventist Church and the Conference, its hierarchical parent body. At issue was control over the Church’s funds and property. 
  • More than 100 churches are suing the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church to immediately disaffiliate from the denomination. The lawsuit comes amid a slow-moving schism in the United Methodist Church – largely over the ordination and marriage of its LGBTQ members. 
  • A 76-year-old English grandmother who was fined for praying near an abortion clinic has successfully overturned her financial penalty. The fine was issued during the country’s lockdown in February 2021 after a policeman questioned why she was outdoors. The Merseyside Police have now conceded that Plaintiff should not have been detained since she was firmly within her rights to silently pray while walking outside and that her actions were reasonable and acceptable under COVID-19 regulations. 
Posted on by L&R Forum

Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Toor v. Berger, four Sikh recruits filed suit against the Marine Corps seeking an accommodation that would allow them to wear religious beards and turbans while serving.
  • In Riley v. Hamilton County Government, a Tennessee federal district court refused to dismiss an Establishment Clause claim brought against a Deputy Sheriff who failed to intervene when another Deputy Sheriff coerced the plaintiff into participating in a Christian baptism during a traffic stop.
  • A Virginia school board prohibited a group of student-athletes at Blacksburg High School from wearing “Pray for Peace” shirts in support of Ukraine during pre-game warm-ups on the ground that the shirts are “political” and “religious.”
  • Shawnee State University has agreed to pay $400,000 in damages plus attorney’s fees after the Sixth Circuit held that the University violated the free exercise rights of a philosophy professor by mandating that the Professor use students’ preferred gender pronouns.
  • The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has denounced restrictions that would limit the annual Holy Fire ceremony to 1,000 people inside the church, with 500 allowed on the church’s grounds. The Patriarchate claims that the restrictions imposed by Israeli officials infringe on their religious liberty.
  • A 76-year-old woman is seeking to overturn a fine she received for taking a “solitary prayer walk” during a COVID-19 lockdown in England.
Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New Treatment of Samuel Pepys

bab84c903c52ff8df197a2bb3a9e9b4bI’ll concede this book is a bit of a stretch for a law and religion site. But I’ve been intrigued by the 17th Century diarist, Samuel Pepys, ever since, as a high school student, I first read his description of the Great London Fire of 1666.  (I was too young to read some of the other entries). And there are law-and-religion associations, after all. Pepys lived through the Protectorate, the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution, and seems to have survived by being a Vicar-of-Bray sort of character. He began as a supporter of Cromwell, then became an Anglican, and then, under the Stuarts, was suspected of being a Catholic. Well, there is a certain charm in that sort of pliability.

A new book about Pepys from Yale University Press looks like a lot of fun: The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, by author Margaret Willes. No doubt it touches on Pepys’s, and England’s, religious tergiversations. Here’s the description from the Yale website:

An intimate portrait of two pivotal Restoration figures during one of the most dramatic periods of English history.

Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn are two of the most celebrated English diarists. They were also extraordinary men and close friends. This first full portrait of that friendship transforms our understanding of their times.

Pepys was earthy and shrewd, while Evelyn was a genteel aesthete, but both were drawn to intellectual pursuits. Brought together by their work to alleviate the plight of sailors caught up in the Dutch wars, they shared an inexhaustible curiosity for life and for the exotic. Willes explores their mutual interests—diary-keeping, science, travel, and a love of books—and their divergent enthusiasms, Pepys for theater and music, Evelyn for horticulture and garden design. Through the richly documented lives of two remarkable men, Willes revisits the history of London and of England in an age of regicide, revolution, fire, and plague to reveal it also as a time of enthralling possibility.

Posted on by Liam Ray

Corráin, “The Irish Church, Its Reform and the English Invasion”

In June, Four Courts Press will release The Irish Church, Its Reform and the English Invasion by Donnchadh Ó Corráin (University College Cork). The publisher’s description follows:

Irish HistoryThis book radically reassesses the reform of the Irish Church in the twelfth century, on its own terms and in the context of the English Invasion that it helped precipitate. Professor Ó Corráin sets these profound changes in the context of the pre-Reform Irish church, in which he is a foremost expert. He re-examines how Canterbury’s political machinations drew its archbishops into Irish affairs, offering Irish kings and bishops unsought advice, as if they had some responsibility for the Irish church: the author exposes their knowledge as limited and their concerns not disinterested.

The Irish Church, its Reform and the English Invasion considers the success of the major reforming synods in giving Ireland a new diocesan structure, but equally how they failed to impose marriage reform and clerical celibacy, a failure mirrored elsewhere. And when St Malachy of Armagh took the revolutionary step of replacing indigenous Irish monasticism with Cistercian abbeys and Augustinian priories, the consequences were enormous. They involved the transfer to the bishops and foreign orders of vast properties from the great traditional houses (such as Clonmacnoise and Monasterboice) which, the author argues, was better called asset-stripping, if not vandalism.

Laudabiliter satis (1155/6), Pope Adrian IV’s letter to Henry II, gave legitimacy to English royal intervention in Ireland on the specious grounds that the Irish were Christians in name, pagan in fact. Henry came to Ireland in 1171, most Irish kings submitting to him without a blow, and, at the Council of Cashel (1171/2), the Irish episcopate granted the kingship of Ireland to him and his successors forever – a revolution in church and state. These momentous events are re-evaluated here, the author delivering a damning verdict on the motivations of popes, bishops and kings.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“Great Christian Jurists in English History” (Helmholz & Hill, eds.)

In May, the Cambridge University Press will release “Great Christian Jurists in English History,” edited by Mark Hill (FTB Chambers) and R. H. Helmholz (University of Chicago).  The publisher’s description follows:

The Great Christian Jurists series comprises a library of national volumes of detailed biographies of leading jurists, judges and practitioners, assessing the impact of their 9781107190559Christian faith on the professional output of the individuals studied. Little has previously been written about the faith of the great judges who framed and developed the English common law over centuries, but this unique volume explores how their beliefs were reflected in their judicial functions. This comparative study, embracing ten centuries of English law, draws some remarkable conclusions as to how Christianity shaped the views of lawyers and judges. Adopting a long historical perspective, this volume also explores the lives of judges whose practice in or conception of law helped to shape the Church, its law or the articulation of its doctrine.

Posted on by Liam Ray

“The English Province of the Franciscans” (Robson, ed.)

In April, Brill Publishers will release The English Province of the Franciscans (1224-c. 1350) edited by Michael J. P. Robson (Cambridge University). The publisher’s description follows:

english-friars-provinceThis volume explores the rich diversity of the Franciscan contribution to the life of the order and its ministry throughout England between 1224 and c. 1350. The 21 contributions examine the friars’ impact across the different strata of English society, from the parish churches, the missions, the royal courts and the universities. Friars were ubiquitous in England throughout this period and they participated in various programmes of renewal.Contributors are (in order of appearance) Amanda Power, Philippa M. Hoskin, Jens Röhrkasten, Michael F. Custato, OFM, Michael W. Blastic, OFM, Jean-François Godet-Calogeras, Peter V. Loewen, Lesley Smith, Eleonora Lombardo, Nigel Morgan, Cecilia Panti, Hubert Philipp Weber, Timothy J. Johnson, Mary Beth Ingham, CSJ, Takashi Shogimen, Susan J. Ridyard, Michael J. Haren, Christian Steer, Anna Campbell, and Michael J. P. Robson.

Posted on by Liam Ray

Ambler, “Bishops in the Political Community of England, 1213-1272”

In March, Oxford University Press will release Bishops in the Political Community of England, 1213-1272 by S. T. Ambler (University of East Anglia). The publisher’s description follows:

bishops-in-englandThirteenth-century England was a special place and time to be a bishop. Like their predecessors, these bishops were key members of the regnal community: anointers of kings, tenants-in-chief, pastors, counsellors, scholars, diplomats, the brothers and friends of kings and barons, and the protectors of the weak. But now circumstance and personality converged to produce an uncommonly dedicated episcopate-dedicated not only to its pastoral mission but also to the defence of the kingdom and the oversight of royal government. This cohort was bound by corporate solidarity and a vigorous culture, and possessed an authority to reform the king, and so influence political events, unknown by the episcopates of other kingdoms.

These bishops were, then, to place themselves at the heart of the dramatic events of this era. Under King John and Henry III-throughout rebellion, civil war, and invasion from France, and the turbulent years of Minority government and Henry’s early personal rule-the bishops acted as peacemakers: they supported royal power when it was threatened, for the sake of regnal peace, but also used their unique authority to reform the king when his illegal actions threatened to provoke his barons to rebellion. This changed, however, between 1258 and 1265, when around half of England’s bishops set aside their loyalty to the king and joined a group of magnates, led by Simon de Montfort, in England’s first revolution, appropriating royal powers in order to establish conciliar rule.

Bishops in the Political Community of England, 1213-1272 examines the interaction between the bishops’ actions on the ground and their culture, identity, and political thought. In so doing it reveals how the Montfortian bishops were forced to construct a new philosophy of power in the crucible of political crisis, and thus presents a new ideal-type in the study of politics and political thought: spontaneous ideology.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Dauber, “State and Commonwealth”

This month, the Princeton University Press will release “State and Commonwealth: The Theory of the State in Early Modern England, 1549–1640,” by Noah Dauber (Colgate University).  The publisher’s description follows:

In the history of political thought, the emergence of the modern state in early modern England has usually been treated as the development of an increasingly centralizing k10754and expansive national sovereignty. Recent work in political and social history, however, has shown that the state—at court, in the provinces, and in the parishes—depended on the authority of local magnates and the participation of what has been referred to as “the middling sort.” This poses challenges to scholars seeking to describe how the state was understood by contemporaries of the period in light of the great classical and religious textual traditions of political thought.

State and Commonwealth presents a new theory of state and society by expanding on the usual treatment of “commonwealth” in pre–Civil War English history. Drawing on works of theology, moral philosophy, and political theory—including Martin Bucer’s De Regno Christi, Thomas Smith’s De Republica Anglorum, John Case’s Sphaera Civitatis, Francis Bacon’s essays, and Thomas Hobbes’s early works—Noah Dauber argues that the commonwealth ideal was less traditional than often thought. He shows how it incorporated new ideas about self-interest and new models of social order and stratification, and how the associated ideal of distributive justice pertained as much to the honors and offices of the state as to material wealth.

Broad-ranging in scope, State and Commonwealth provides a more complete picture of the relationship between political and social theory in early modern England.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Dehanas, “London Youth, Religion, and Politics”

In August, Oxford University Press will release “London Youth, Religion, and Politics: Engagement and Activism from Brixton to Brick Lane,” by Daniel Nilsson DeHanas (King’s College London). The publisher’s description follows:

For more than a decade the “Muslim question” on integration and alleged extremism has vexed Europe, revealing cracks in long-held certainties about the role of religion 9780198743675in public life. Secular assumptions are being tested not only by the growing presence of Muslims but also by other fervent new arrivals such as Pentecostal Christians. London Youth, Religion, and Politics focuses on young adults of immigrant parents in two inner-city London areas: the East End and Brixton. It paints vivid portraits of dozens of young men and women met at local cafes, on park benches, and in council estate stairwells, and provides reason for a measured hope.

In East End streets like Brick Lane, revivalist Islam has been generating more civic integration although this comes at a price that includes generational conflict and cultural amnesia. In Brixton, while the influence of Pentecostal and traditional churches can be limited to family and individual renewal, there are signs that this may be changing. This groundbreaking work offers insight into the lives of urban Muslim, Christian, and non-religious youth. In times when the politics of immigration and diversity are in flux, it offers a candid appraisal of multiculturalism in practice.