Introduction to American Law and Religion Discourse

Abstract

My aim in this foreword is to offer a comparative perspective on the law and religion field as it has emerged in the American academy -- principally in American law schools, but also in selected colleges and seminaries. I discuss a few factors that helped spur the new interdisciplinary study of law and religion in the American academy—namely, the eclipse of legal positivism and strict separationism; the rise of strong Catholic social and legal teachings after the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965; the rise of Evangelical political activism in response to the Supreme Court’s school prayer and abortion cases of the 1960s and 1970s; and the gradual recognition in many spheres, including law schools, that religion, in sundry forms, has proved its resilience and its inevitability in public life. Then, I map out several contours of law and religion scholarship. Law and religion are conceptually and methodologically related, I explain. Some of the most important and interesting law and religion work in America has been directed to five themes. First, a great deal of law and religion scholarship concerns the relationship between churches and other religious organizations and the state, under both federal and state constitutional and statutory laws. Second, much scholarship is also devoted to the questions of the free exercise rights of religious individuals and groups under federal and state law. A third intense area of scholarship concerns the relationship between religion and human rights more generally – especially in the international human rights sphere. A fourth area of intense law and religion scholarship is the relationship between religion and the family. Finally, a growing area of scholarship concerns the internal law of religious communities, viewed separately and in comparative perspective, viewed historically and in their current forms. 

Keywords: Law and Religion, American Constitutional Law, Religious Freedom, Free Exercise, First Amendment, Church-State Relations, Human Rights, Religion and Family Law, Religious Law