Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 August 2012
The study of law and religion has exploded around the world. This article, prepared in celebration of the silver jubilee of the Ecclesiastical Law Society, traces the development of law and religion study in the United States. Despite its long tradition of strict separation of Church and state, and despite its long allegiance to legal positivism and intellectual secularisation, the United States has emerged as a world leader of the new interdisciplinary field of law and religion. Hundreds of American scholars, from different confessions and professions, are now at work in this field, and two dozen major research centres and journals have been established at American law schools. After canvassing some of the main themes and trends in American law and religion scholarship today, this article concludes with a brief reflection on some of the main challenges before Christian scholars who work in the field of ecclesiastical law.1
1 This article is an expansion of my lecture at the Silver Jubilee Conference of the Ecclesiastical Law Society held at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, on 3 March 2012. I am grateful to Professor Mark Hill QC and the Reverend Dr Will Adam for their editorial direction, and to fellow lecturers Professors Silvio Ferrari and Julian Rivers for their exquisite lectures and the learned conversation among the three of us. The material for this article is drawn in part from the following volumes, each of which provide more detailed footnotes: Witte, J and Alexander, F (eds), Christianity and Law: an introduction (Cambridge, 2008)Google Scholar; Witte, J and Alexander, F (eds), Modern Christian Teachings on Law, Politics, and Human Nature (2 vols, New York, 2006)Google Scholar; Witte, J and Nichols, J, Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment (third edition, Boulder, CO, 2010)Google Scholar; Witte, J, God's Joust, God's Justice: law and religion in the Western tradition (Grand Rapids, MI, 2006)Google Scholar.
2 See especially the early anchor text in this field by Berman, H, The Interaction of Law and Religion (Nashville, TN, 1974)Google Scholar, updated in Berman, H, Faith and Order: the reconciliation of law and religion (Grand Rapids, MI, 1993)Google Scholar; Berman, Het al, The Nature and Functions of Law (fifth edition, Westbury, NY, 2006)Google Scholar; Berman, H, Law and Language: effective symbols of community (Cambridge, 2013, forthcoming)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See further Hunter, H (ed), The Integrative Jurisprudence of Harold J. Berman (Boulder, CO, 1996)Google Scholar.
3 The following American law schools have structured law and religion programmes with joint degrees, cross-listed courses, research projects, public lectures and conferences and/or print, digital and social media offerings: Brigham Young, Campbell, Catholic, DePaul, Detroit, Duke, Emory, Faulkner, Fordham, George Washington, Hofstra, Notre Dame, Pepperdine, Regent, Rutgers, Seton Hall, St John's, St Mary's, St Thomas, Touro, Valparaiso, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Wake Forest.
4 See, eg, DeCoste, F and MacPhearson, L, Law, Religion, Theology: a selective annotated bibliography (West Cornwall, CT, 1997)Google Scholar; ‘Reviews on new books in law and religion’, (2001) 16 Journal of Law and Religion 249–1035Google Scholar and (2002) 17 Journal of Law and Religion 97–459; as well as ongoing scholarship reflected and reviewed in such specialised journals as the Ecclesiastical Law Journal, Studia Canonica, the Bulletin of the Medieval Canon Law Society, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung (Kanonisches Abteilung), Ius Commune, the Journal of Law and Religion, the Journal of Church and State, the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion and others.
5 For parallel secularisation movements in Europe, see, in this issue, Ferrari, S, ‘Law and religion in a secular world: a European perspective’, (2012) 14 Ecc LJ 355–370Google Scholar, and Rivers, J, The Law of Organized Religions: between establishment and secularism (Oxford, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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38 The main cases are In re Summers, 325 US 561 (1945); Girouard v United States, 328 US 61 (1946); First Unitarian Church v County of Los Angeles, 357 US 545 (1958).
39 The main case is Kedroff v St Nicholas Cathedral, 344 US 94 (1952).
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50 Rosenberger v University of Virginia, 515 US 819 (1995).
51 Mitchell v Helms, 530 US 793 (2000); Zelman v Simmons-Harris, 122 S Ct 2460 (2002).
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