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.
different languages, religions, and social customs. Chinese law evolved rapidly to accommodate these changes, as reflected in the great compendium Yuan dianzhang (Statutes and Precedents of the Yuan Dynasty). The records of legal cases contained in this seminal text, Bettine Birge shows, paint a portrait of medieval Chinese family life—and the conflicts that arose from it—that is unmatched by any other historical source.
Christian 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.
Christianity has a complex relationship to law. It does not prescribe rules of conduct in the way its sister faiths, Judaism and Islam, do. There is no Christian law of inheritance, for example. Yet Christians have reflected on the idea of law, and on Christianity’s role in informing civil law, for centuries. And those reflections have influenced the development of Western law in ways that are undeniable, even in our secular age.
treatises on ecclesiastical legal procedure. Beginning with the eleventh-century
Rabbi Warburg continues his in-depth discussion of rabbinical court arbitration decisions. He is the first rabbinic arbitrator to publish Piskei Din on cases in Jewish civil law. It is important that those who interact with the institution of a Beit Din know the inner dynamics and reasoning of those who issue rulings. This volume focuses on a number of topics such as the halakhic identity of an investment broker, the propriety of a civil will, contemporary issues relating to domestic violence, and the role of a rabbinical advocate in the Beit Din process. These topics and more are closely examined in “Rabbinic Authority” volume 2.
movements and doctrinal trends. While political and geographical factors certainly influenced the Islamic religious sciences, internal and intellectual factors exerted a much more substantial influence. This study gives priority to jurists’ intellectual operations throughout the Muslim world, covering the historical development of Islamic jurisprudence from the middle of 4th century. Bsoul’s examination of jurisprudential advances takes into account the shifting dominance of particular centers of legal scholarship in light of competing doctrines and their adherents. This work sheds light on jurists of North Africa and the Andalus, who are rarely mentioned in general modern works, and also aims to demonstrate Muslim women’s important role in the history of jurisprudence, highlighting their participation in the Islamic sciences. Bsoul relies mainly on Arabic primary sources to give an impartial presentation of these jurists and produce an accurate memory of the past based on objective knowledge.
Islam (the abode of Islam) and dar al-harb (the abode of war). This dual division of the world has led to a great amount of juridical discussion concerning what makes a territory part of dar al-Islam, what the status of Muslims living outside of this is, and whether they are obliged to obey Islamic jurisprudence. Susanne Olsson examines the differing understandings of dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, as well as related concepts, such as jihad and takfir. She thereby is able to explore how these concepts have been utilised, transformed and negotiated throughout history. As the subject of Muslims living in Europe is such a topical and sometimes controversial one, this book will appeal to researchers of modern Islam as integral to the Western experience.
Law: From Precepts and Inclinations to Deriving Oughts