Next month, Fordham’s Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer’s Work will host a lecture by Rabbi Gordon Tucker, “Between Validity and Truth Falls the Shadow: Law-talk and God-talk in Judaism.” Details are here.
Sunday Forum at Grace Church
For any readers who are local and free on Sunday morning: I will be giving an informal talk at Grace Church in the Village. Here is the church’s description:
“Do religious organizations have special constitutional protection from government regulation? Professor Tebbe will explain and lead discussion on recent Supreme Court rulings on employment discrimination and challenges to the Affordable Care Act.”
Movsesian at NY Catholic Lawyers Guild
Tomorrow morning, I’ll be the speaker at the New York Guild of Catholic Lawyers First Friday series. My talk, which will address the law of religious symbols in the United States and Europe, will begin at 8:15 am at the Church of Our Saviour, 59 Park Ave. (at 38th St.). For details, please contact Robert Crotty at Kelley Drye & Warren, LLP. CLR Forum readers in the neighborhood, stop by and say hello.
Lecture on Christians in the Middle East
This Thursday, November 29, I’ll be giving a lecture, “Equality for Christians in the Middle East, Yesterday and Today,” at the Armenian Orthodox seminary in New Rochelle, New York. My lecture will discuss the precarious state of Christian communities in the Middle East and the reasons why the goal of real legal equality has proved so elusive. Details are here. CLR Forum readers in the neighborhood, please stop by and say hello!
Panel: Islam and Politics
On November 29, the New York City Bar Association will host a panel, “Islam and Politics.” According to the organizers, the event will “focus on the role of religion in Muslim majority States, especially as it pertains to competition both among Sunnis, Shi’a, and Salafists as well as between Muslims and other religious minorities.” Details are here.
Panel: Overcoming Genocide Denial
Fordham Law School’s Leitner Center for International Law and Justice will host a panel, “Overcoming Genocide Denial,” on December 4. The panel will offer a comparative examination of the Holocaust and the Armenian, Rwandan, and Sudanese Genocides. Speakers include Taner Akçam (Clark University), Gregory Stanton (George Mason University) and Sheri Rosenberg (Cardozo Law School). Details are here.
Lecture: The Arab Spring and International Law (Update)
The lecture at Fordham’s Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer’s Work, “The Arab Spring: Its Impact on International Politics, International Law, and International Relations,” originally scheduled for November 1 and canceled because of Hurricane Sandy, has been rescheduled for December 4. Details are here.
CLR Co-Hosts Briefing With UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief
In New York yesterday, CLR co-hosted a lunch briefing with Professor Heiner Beielefeldt (left), the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Beielefeldt was in New York to present his annual report, “Elimination of All Forms of Religious Intolerance,” to the UN’s General Assembly. (I attended the General Assembly meeting as well; I’ll write more about that in a subsequent post).
Beilefeldt’s report focuses on the right of conversion as an essential component of the freedom of religion or belief. Although international human rights law grants a right to change one’s religion, the right has proved controversial in practice, especially, though not exclusively, in Muslim-majority countries, which often criminalize apostasy from Islam. In his briefing, Beilefeldt explained that his report identifies four versions of the right of conversion, all of which merit protection: (1) the right to change one’s religion; (2) the right not to Read more
Lecture: The Arab Spring and International Law
Fordham’s Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer’s Work will host a lecture, “The Arab Spring: Its Impact on International Politics, International Law, International Organizations,” on Thursday, November 1. The speaker will be Yassin El-Ayouty, who teaches Islamic Law at Fordham. Details are here.
Panel: “Whose God Rules?”
This Friday, Harvard Law School will host a panel on “Whose God Rules?”, a recent book that outlines a new “theolegal” theory of American government. The description follows. Details for the panel are here.
Is the United States a secular nation or a theolegal democracy? The theolegal theory describes a political system that allows public officials to use theology in its democratic process to shape law without instituting an official state religion. Join co-editors of the new book “Whose God Rules?” (Palgrave Macmillan) for a review of how preeminent scholars debate theology theory, which describes the gray area between a secular legal system, where theology is dismissed as irrational and a threat to the separation of religion and state, and a theocracy, where a single religion determines all law. The United States is neither a secular nation nor a theocracy, leading scholars to ask whether the United States is a theolegal democracy. If so, whose God rules?