Since 1982, the Center for the Study of Law and Religion's publications in multiple languages have been the Center's most visible and enduring contribution to the global conversation about law and religion. CSLR now edits three book series and an international journal, and its faculty and research projects have produced more than 300 books published by leading university and trade presses. CSLR faculty, scholars, and students also publish widely in journals of law, the humanities, and social sciences, and have edited several journal symposia on discrete law and religion themes.
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A Concise Code of Jewish Law for Converts
Michael J. Broyde
While the topic of conversion in Judaism has been extensively covered, no single book has explored the particular laws related to a convert after conversion. In A Concise Code of Jewish Law for Converts, Rabbi Michael J. Broyde explores many topics and questions that revolve around the life of a Jewish convert. Such topics include the place of a convert in a Jewish community according to Jewish law, the treatment of a convert with respect
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Sharia Tribunals, Rabbinical Courts, and Christian Panels: Religious Arbitration in America and the West
Michael J. Broyde
This book explores the rise of private arbitration in religious and other values-oriented communities, and it argues that secular societies should use secular legal frameworks to facilitate, enforce, and also regulate religious arbitration. It covers the history of religious arbitration; the kinds of faith-based dispute resolution models currently in use; how the law should perceive them; and what the role of religious arbitration in the United States and the western world should be. Part One
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Agape, Justice, and Law: How Might Christian Love Shape Law?
Robert F. Cochran Jr. and Zachary R. Calo
In a provocative essay, philosopher Jeffrie Murphy asks: 'what would law be like if we organized it around the value of Christian love, and if we thought about and criticized law in terms of that value?'. This book brings together leading scholars from a variety of disciplines to address that question. Scholars have given surprisingly little attention to assessing how the central Christian ethical category of love - agape - might impact the way we understand law.
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Christianity and Natural Law: An Introduction
Norman Doe
Historically, natural law has played a pivotal role in Christian approaches to the law, and a contested role in legal philosophy generally. However, comparative study of natural law across global Christian traditions is largely neglected. This book provides not only the history of natural law ideas across mainstream Christian traditions worldwide, but also an ecumenical comparison of the contemporary natural law positions of different traditions. Its focus is not solely theoretical: it tests the practical
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God and the Illegal Alien: United States Immigration Law and a Theology of Politics
Robert W. Heimburger
Today in the United States, millions of men, women, and children are considered 'illegal aliens' under federal law. While the presence of these migrants runs against the law, many arrive in response to US demand for cheap labor and stay to contribute to community life. This book asks where migrants stand within God's world and how authorities can govern immigration with Christian ethics. The author tracks the emergence of the concept of the illegal alien
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The Peril and Promise of Christian Liberty: Richard Hooker, the Puritans, and Protestant Political Theology
W. Bradford Littlejohn
How do Christians determine when to obey God even if that means disobeying human authorities? In this book W. Bradford Littlejohn addresses that question, with particular attention to the magisterial political-theological work of Richard Hooker, a leading figure in the sixteenth-century English Reformation. Littlejohn shows how Martin Luther and other Reformers considered Christian liberty to be compatible with considerable civil authority over the church, but he also analyzes the ambiguities and tensions of that relationship
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A Global Political Morality: Human Rights, Democracy, and Constitutionalism
Michael J. Perry
In A Global Political Morality, Michael J. Perry addresses several related questions in human rights theory, political theory and constitutional theory. He begins by explaining what the term 'human right' means and then elaborates and defends the morality of human rights, which is the first truly global morality in human history. Perry also pursues the implications of the morality of human rights for democratic governance and for the proper role of courts - especially the
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Calvin's Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church: Christ's Two Kingdoms
Matthew J. Tuininga
In Calvin's Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church, Matthew J. Tuininga explores a little appreciated dimension of John Calvin's political thought, his two kingdoms theology, as a model for constructive Christian participation in liberal society. Widely misunderstood as a proto-political culture warrior, due in part to his often misinterpreted role in controversies over predestination and the heretic Servetus, Calvin articulated a thoughtful approach to public life rooted in his understanding of the
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Christianity and Family Law: An Introduction
John Witte Jr. and Gary S. Hauk
The Western tradition has always cherished the family as an essential foundation of a just and orderly society, and thus accorded it special legal and religious protection. Christianity embraced this teaching from the start, and many of the basics of Western family law were shaped by the Christian theologies of nature, sacrament, and covenant. This volume introduces readers to the enduring and evolving Christian norms and teachings on betrothals and weddings; marriage and divorce; women's
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God and the Secular Legal System
Rafael Domingo
This timely book offers a theistic approach to secular legal systems and demonstrates that these systems are neither agnostic nor atheist. Critical but succinct in its approach, this book focuses on an extensive range of liberal legal approaches to religious and moral issues, and subjects them to critical scrutiny from a secular perspective. Expertly written by a leading scholar, the author offers a rare combination of profundity of ideas and simplicity of expression. It is
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How Marriage Became One of the Sacraments: The Sacramental Theology of Marriage from its Medieval Origins to the Council of Trent
Philip L. Reynolds
Among the contributions of the medieval church to western culture was the idea that marriage was one of the seven sacraments, which defined the role of married folk in the church. Although it had ancient roots, this new way of regarding marriage raised many problems, to which scholastic theologians applied all their ingenuity. By the late Middle Ages, the doctrine was fully established in Christian thought and practice but not yet as dogma. In the
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Christianity and Freedom, Volume 1: Historical Perspectives
Timothy Samuel Shah and Allen D. Hertzke
In Volume 1 of Christianity and Freedom, leading historians uncover the unappreciated role of Christianity in the development of basic human rights and freedoms from antiquity through today. These include radical notions of dignity and equality, religious freedom, liberty of conscience, limited government, consent of the governed, economic liberty, autonomous civil society, and church-state separation, as well as more recent advances in democracy, human rights, and human development. Acknowledging that the record is mixed, scholars
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Christianity and Freedom, Volume 2: Contemporary Perspectives
Timothy Samuel Shah and Allen D. Hertzke
Volume 2 of Christianity and Freedom illuminates how Christian minorities and transnational Christian networks contribute to the freedom and flourishing of societies across the globe, even amidst pressure and violent persecution. Featuring unprecedented field research by some of the world's most distinguished scholars, it documents the outsized role of Christians in promoting human rights and religious freedom; fighting injustice; stimulating economic equality; providing education, social services, and health care; and nurturing democratic civil society. Readers
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Texts and Contexts in Legal History: Essays in Honor of Charles Donahue
John Witte Jr., Sarah McDougall, and Anna di Robilant
Renowned legal historian, Charles Donahue, serves as the inspiration for this volume of essays covering a range of topics of interest to legal historians, legal scholars, and others. Inspired by Donahue's insights into the value of understanding both text and context, this volume brings together 26 contributions from leading historians in Europe and North America.
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Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment
John Witte Jr. and Joel A. Nichols
This accessible introduction tells the American story of religious liberty from its colonial beginnings to the latest Supreme Court cases. The authors provide extensive analysis of the formation of the First Amendment religion clauses and the plausible original intent or understanding of the founders. They describe the enduring principles of American religious freedom—liberty of conscience, free exercise of religion, religious equality, religious pluralism, separation of church and state, and no establishment of religion—as those principles
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Religious Organizations and the Law
William W. Bassett, W. Cole Durham, and Robert T. Smith
Religious Organizations and the Law is a complete analytical guide to the constitutional law, federal and state decisions, statutes, ordinances, and regulations affecting the operation of religious entities.
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Pope Benedict XVI's Legal Thought: A Dialogue on the Foundation of Law
Marta Cartabia and Andrea Simoncini
Throughout Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's pontificate he spoke to a range of political, civil, academic, and other cultural authorities. These speeches reveal a striking sensitivity to the fundamental problems of law, justice, and democracy. He often presented a call for Christians to address issues of public ethics such as life, death, and family from what they have in common with other fellow citizens: reason. This book discusses the speeches in which the Pope Emeritus reflected
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Political Agape: Christian Love and Liberal Democracy
Timothy P. Jackson
What is the place of Christian love in a pluralistic society dedicated to "liberty and justice for all"? What would it mean to take both Jesus Christ and Abraham Lincoln seriously and attempt to translate love of God and neighbor into every quarter of life, including law and politics? Timothy Jackson here argues that agapic love of God and neighbor is the perilously neglected civil virtue of our time — and that it must be
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The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law
Brent A. Strawn
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law offers the most up-to-date and extensive treatment of biblical law attempted in a comparable genre. The work focuses biblical law, its nature, collections, and genres, such as the Book of the Covenant, the Deuteronomic Code, the Decalogue/Ten Commandments, testimony and witnesses, trial procedure, judges, law in the New Testament, etc. It also focuses on the ancient contexts of biblical law, such as everyday law in ancient Israel,
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Acts of Aggression and Prosecuting the Crime of Aggression
Johan D. van der Vyver
There was a time when taking up arms as a means of resolving international disputes was commonplace in the world. More recently, the international community of states has attempted to restrict armed conflicts to certain defined circumstances only; yet, acts of aggression still seem to prevail in this day and age. While the Security Council of the United Nations has been charged with a primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security, efforts to entrust
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