Why Spirituality Matters for Law: An Explanation

Social Analysis, 2009

Religion has always been intimately connected to law. Conversely, modern secular law, born of the separation of lex naturae from lex dei, has always been deeply theological. However, with transformations in the construction of the nation-state and changes in the sociopolitical scaffolding of the global order, the mutual infusion of law and religion appears to be extending both in scope and in substance-notwithstanding the ever more strident assertion of secularism by some nation-states. Counter-intuitively, the law itself appears to be ever more suffused with the sacral, while, across the planet, the sacral is reconstructing constitutional jurisprudence, administrative law, and much more besides. How do we account for this, for the rise of expansive cultures of theo-legality? Where is it leading? And with what implications?

Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, 2018

This article explores potential applications of the body-soul-spirit metaphor in the legal realm. After a justification of the validity of the metaphor as a source of legal meaning, and an explanation of the body-soul-spirit trichotomy in light of St. Paul’s letters and Edith Stein’s writings, the author focuses on some current debates on which the use of the metaphor sheds new light. Based on this metaphor, the author argues for respect for the law as a whole; the use of the spirit of foreign law by national legal systems; the living character of the constitutional body; the emergence of a global law founded on solidarity and not on the self-interest of nation-states; the intrinsic link between law and love, and the reasonable interaction between human law and suprarational (or divine) law.

An overview of the relationship between law and religion.

Journal of Iranian International Legal Studies (IIntbar), 2024

The essence of law lies not only in its written text but in its spirit. When a law lacks spirit, enforcement relies on force and coercion. Conversely, when a law possesses spirit, it is intrinsically acceptable and enforced by a higher moral authority, often perceived as divine. This article explores the dichotomy between laws devoid of spirit, leading to coercive enforcement, and laws imbued with spirit, fostering intrinsic acceptance and moral compliance.

How are we to make sense of the interaction between religion and law? How does law give meaning to our world – or, how is the world given meaning in terms of law? What is the relationship between law and religion, how are interactions between them conceptualized, and how does this affect the formation (and operation) of legal meaning? In this paper I will propose that these questions are best answered through an interdisciplinary analysis that takes the model of a form of ‘conversation’ between religion and law. Our religious understanding is an aspect of how we understand law, so that engagement with the religious deepens our reflection on the law and legal meaning.

Juvenile and Family Court Journal, 1996

The linkages among law, morality, faith and spiri tuality am historically accepted. Yet, the separation between law and moralitygaitW spirituality have also been accepted and expected in order to pmserve the traditional separation of c h u~h and state.

Immanent Frame Blog, 2019

In this online review essay I argue that religion poses special challenges as a category of law; and these challenges arise not simply because religion is difficult, if not impossible, to define nor because legal agents deploy the category in strategic, prejudicial, or inconsistent ways. Religion is a uniquely thorny category of law, I will insist, because the use of that category—in legislatures, courtrooms, and mediascapes—evokes (at least) five distinct discursive contradictions, opposing ways of representing and understanding those things that are supposed to be protected or regulated by law: contradictions of communality, authority, acquisition, imagination, and independence.

The Canopy Forum, Atlanta, 14 April 2020

Over the last few years, I have attempted to present a universal and coherent legal framework for the treatment of God, religion, and conscience by secular legal systems. This project is based on my objections to both traditional religious and current liberal approaches to religious freedom. The religious approach fails because it requires the concept of God to justify the secular legal system in a globalized and pluralistic society in which believing in God is no longer axiomatic or unquestionable. The liberal approach fails because it closes the door to Abrahamic religions-and specifically to God-by reducing God and religion to a matter of conscience. The religious approach is inevitably exclusivist, while the liberal approach is inevitably reductionist. To offset this lack of balance, I offer a third path to conceptualizing religious freedom. I advocate for a theistically oriented conception of the secular legal system that is able to embrace nontheistic approaches. In other words, I support a secular legal system that includes God but also supports perspectives that do not include God. My argument is secular, but my approach is religious at its heart. We can best understand the lack of X by first understanding X itself. Thus, for example, it is easier to understand nonexistence by first grasping existence than it is to do the reverse. The same goes for theism and non-theism. Thus, it is reasonable that the starting point of a comprehensive legal paradigm for religious freedom for both believers and nonbelievers should be theistic rather than nontheistic or atheistic. The risk of a nontheistic or atheistic legal approach falling into reductionism is a real one. Secular legal systems should approach God, religion, and conscience

11 Regent U L Rev 31, 1998

Conference of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools [FN1] involved the place of religion within legal education and the legal profession. In recent years, this issue has gained increasing prominence in legal scholarship, manifesting itself in relation to complex and profound questions. The past year has seen a number of law journals dedicate symposia to different aspects of the relationship between religion and the practice of law. One such symposium, in the Marquette Law Review, [FN2] addressed the question: "What role, if any, should religious persuasions have in a secular court?" [FN3] Although this symposium focused on judges, it continued a broader debate that, in the words of Professor Steven Smith, "centers on the claim that it is improper, or perhaps even unconstitutional, for government officials such as legislators and judges, and possibly for citizens, to rely on their religious convictions in making political decisions." [FN4] *32 Other scholars have extended the debate to the realm of legal ethics. For example, Professor Bruce Green has discussed the "tension between professional norms and personal moral values both for the legal profession and for individual lawyers," while "explor[ing] the extent to which lawyers actually may act on the basis of personal moral and religious beliefs while also claiming to conform with professional norms." [FN5] Thus, Professor Green addressed the political/constitutional question noted by Professor Smith but related it to more personal decisions that arise in the practice of law, involving questions that fall in the category of what Professor Russell Pearce has termed "religious lawyering." [FN6] The development of the "religious lawyering movement" formed the basis of another symposium, published this year by the Fordham Law Review. [FN7] The symposium memorialized "The Relevance of Religion to a Lawyer's Work: An Interfaith Conference," and aimed to "develop … a scholarly literature which would address systematically the range of theoretical issues raised by the existing religious lawyering literature." [FN8] Subsequently, the St. John's Law Review dedicated an issue of The Catholic Lawyer to a symposium on "Lawyering and Personal Values," [FN9] which looked to "recogniz[e] the important role that religious and other ethical values can play in the lives of lawyers." [FN10] At the Conference of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools, I had the opportunity to speak about my own involvement in some of the efforts of scholars to address the place of religion in legal education and the practice of law, which I have been asked to further discuss here. In Part II of this Essay, I take this opportunity to devel-11 REGULR 31