Download or read book Witnessing Their Faith written by Jay Sekulow and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it was ratified in 1791, the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States sought to protect against two distinct types of government actions that interfere with religious liberty: the establishment of a national religion and interference with individual rights to practice religion. Since that time, no question has so bedeviled the U.S. Supreme Court as finding the best way to interpret and apply the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. In this unique and timely book, Jay Sekulow examines not only the key cases and their historical context that have shaped the law concerning church-state relations, but also, for the first time, the impact of the religious faith and practices of Supreme Court Justices who have ruled in each case. Covering cases from the teaching of religion in public schools and the use of federal funds for parochial schools to today's debates about the Pledge of Allegiance and public displays of the Ten Commandments, Witnessing Their Faith is essential reading for anyone interested in the history and future of religious freedom in America.

Download or read book Religion and the Law written by Elizabeth Eddy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are few issues as controversial as where to draw the line between church and state. The framers of the Constitution's Bill of Rights began their blueprint for freedom by drawing exactly such a line. Th e fi rst clauses of the First Amendment provide: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Th e justices of the Supreme Court have not been wanting for advice from self-appointed guardians. Th e diffi culty with such advice is that the contestants are more convincing when they criticize their opponents' interpretations than when they seek to establish the validity of their own.

Download or read book The Justices Find Religion written by Nantiya Ruan and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion matters to people. It matters a great deal to religious believers who wish to be free from discrimination and who believe the law should protect them from harassment and allow for accommodation of their religious requirements. It matters to those who do not ascribe to any religion because they want to be assured that religion is not encroaching on their rights and wish to remain free from harassing believers. This tension plays out most forcefully in two places in American society: the public sphere (e.g., public property and public schools) and the workplace. The public sphere is the forum where communities gather and express certain (often majority but also sometimes controversial) viewpoints. Yet the workplace is where most people spend most of their waking time, and therefore bump up against others of different views most frequently. There is reason to believe that the Supreme Court, with its recent personnel changes, will be supportive of more accommodation for religious expression in the workplace. If the Justices expanding public religious expression (such as Ten Commandments displays on public property) are to be consistent, they must revive the largely dormant religious accommodation clause of Title VII. The current statutory rule, that employers need undertake only de minimis accommodations of employee religion, flies in the face of the Court's recent pronunciation, in expanding religious expression under the Establishment Clause, that morality [is] essential to the well-being of society and that encouragement of religion [is] the best way to foster morality.This article urges greater judicial recognition of workplace religious expression rights as the only result both consistent with the Court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence and consistent with the legislative intent of statutory religious accommodation provisions. Respectful religious pluralism in the workplace should become the norm, through judicial requirements of best practices in the workplace. Such a view should be wholly supported by the current Court because it is consistent with the Establishment Clause case law stating that religion fosters moral good and that in a pluralistic society religious expression cannot automatically be deemed threatening to those with different views.

Download or read book Religion on Trial written by Phillip E. Hammond and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2004 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The free exercise of conscience is under threat in the United States. Already the conservative bloc of the Supreme Court is reversing the progress of religious liberty that had been steadily advancing. And this danger will only increase if more conservative judges are nominated to the court. This is the impassioned argument of Religion on Trial. Against Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Chief Justice Rehnquist, the authors argue that what the First Amendment protects is the freedom of individual conviction, not the rights of sectarian majorities to inflict their values on others. Beginning with an analysis of the origins of the Constitution and then following the history of significant church-state issues, Religion on Trial shows that the trajectory of American history has been toward greater freedoms for more Americans: freedom of religion moving gradually toward freedom of conscience regardless of religion. But in the last quarter-century, conservatives have gained political power and they are now attempting to limit the ability of the Court to protect the rights of individual conscience. Writing not just as scholars, but as advocates of church-state separation, Hammond, Machacek, and Mazur make the strong case that every American needs to pay attention to what is happening on the Surpeme Court or risk losing the liberties of conscience and religion that have been gained so far.

Download or read book Religious Influence in Supreme Court Decision Making written by Mary L.. Carver and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In cases where freedom of religion is at the heart of the legal question before the U.S. Supreme Court, political ideology alone cannot explain the decisions' outcomes. Research reveals that other factors may explain the decisional behavior of Supreme Court Justices in freedom of religion cases. Although religion plays a large role in America's political landscape and elite decision-making, very little scholarship examines the role the faith traditions of the Justices play in the decisions of the Supreme Court. In my dissertation, I argue that the dominant policy-based models of Supreme Court decision- making provide an incomplete framework for understanding religious influence in Supreme Court decision-making. My dissertation research uses the social background model to investigate the influence of the Justices' faith traditions in the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause cases decided by the Supreme Court. Freedom of religion cases are examined based upon the assumption that Justices hold very personal and perhaps strong religious beliefs that may invoke a religiously influenced response when deciding freedom of religion cases. The data for this research is based on all freedom of religion cases decided by the Supreme Court from 1946 to 2005. Unlike prior research, this study attempts to determine whether the faith traditions of the Justices, as the primary independent variable, influence Court outcomes during this timeframe. The findings reveal that some faith traditions are significantly correlated to the Justices' voting behavior in religion cases. This research reveals that the level of significance varies as to the type of case, whether the case concerns a Free Exercise or Establishment of religion, and the political ideology of the Justice. (p. VII).

Download or read book Religion and Social Justice written by S. Thakur and published by Springer. This book was released on 1996-10-04 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a philosophical examination of the relationship between religion and social justice. Its main thesis is that, since the primary purpose of religion is the moral and spiritual transformation of human nature, it ought not to be construed as a direct instrument of social justice on earth - as it is by Liberation theologians, for example, as well as by many liberal Christians and Jews. Indirectly, however, religion may well be a pre-condition of social justice. For it can be argued that, without the counteracting effects of the moral and spiritual values prescribed by religion, the liberal vision of individual rights and social justice may be self-defeating. Humanity is best served if this liberal vision is counterbalanced by the completely contrary utopia enshrined in the biblical idea of the kingdom of God, and its equivalents in the other great religions of the world.

Download or read book Enlisting Faith written by Ronit Y. Stahl and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A century ago, as the United States prepared to enter World War I, the military chaplaincy included only mainline Protestants and Catholics. Today it counts Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Christian Scientists, Buddhists, Seventh-day Adventists, Hindus, and evangelicals among its ranks. Enlisting Faith traces the uneven processes through which the military struggled with, encouraged, and regulated religious pluralism over the twentieth century. Moving from the battlefields of Europe to the jungles of Vietnam and between the forests of Civilian Conservation Corps camps and meetings in government offices, Ronit Y. Stahl reveals how the military borrowed from and battled religion. Just as the state relied on religion to sanction war and sanctify death, so too did religious groups seek recognition as American faiths. At times the state used religion to advance imperial goals. But religious citizens pushed back, challenging the state to uphold constitutional promises and moral standards. Despite the constitutional separation of church and state, the federal government authorized and managed religion in the military. The chaplaincy demonstrates how state leaders scrambled to handle the nation’s deep religious, racial, and political complexities. While officials debated which clergy could serve, what insignia they would wear, and what religions appeared on dog tags, chaplains led worship for a range of faiths, navigated questions of conscience, struggled with discrimination, and confronted untimely death. Enlisting Faith is a vivid portrayal of religious encounters, state regulation, and the trials of faith—in God and country—experienced by the millions of Americans who fought in and with the armed forces.

Download or read book Jesus Jobs and Justice written by Bettye Collier-Thomas and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2010-02-02 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Negroes must have Jesus, Jobs, and Justice,” declared Nannie Helen Burroughs, a nationally known figure among black and white leaders and an architect of the Woman’s Convention of the National Baptist Convention. Burroughs made this statement about the black women’s agenda in 1958, as she anticipated the collapse of Jim Crow segregation and pondered the fate of African Americans. Following more than half a century of organizing and struggling against racism in American society, sexism in the National Baptist Convention, and the racism and paternalism of white women and the Southern Baptist Convention, Burroughs knew that black Americans would need more than religion to survive and to advance socially, economically, and politically. Jesus, jobs, and justice are the threads that weave through two hundred years of black women’s experiences in America. Bettye Collier-Thomas’s groundbreaking book gives us a remarkable account of the religious faith, social and political activism, and extraordinary resilience of black women during the centuries of American growth and change. It shows the beginnings of organized religion in slave communities and how the Bible was a source of inspiration; the enslaved saw in their condition a parallel to the suffering and persecution that Jesus had endured. The author makes clear that while religion has been a guiding force in the lives of most African Americans, for black women it has been essential. As co-creators of churches, women were a central factor in their development. Jesus, Jobs, and Justice explores the ways in which women had to cope with sexism in black churches, as well as racism in mostly white denominations, in their efforts to create missionary societies and form women’s conventions. It also reveals the hidden story of how issues of sex and sexuality have sometimes created tension and divisions within institutions. Black church women created national organizations such as the National Association of Colored Women, the National League of Colored Republican Women, and the National Council of Negro Women. They worked in the interracial movement, in white-led Christian groups such as the YWCA and Church Women United, and in male-dominated organizations such as the NAACP and National Urban League to demand civil rights, equal employment, and educational opportunities, and to protest lynching, segregation, and discrimination. And black women missionaries sacrificed their lives in service to their African sisters whose destiny they believed was tied to theirs. Jesus, Jobs, and Justice restores black women to their rightful place in American and black history and demonstrates their faith in themselves, their race, and their God.

Download or read book Doing Justice to Mercy written by Jonathan Rothchild and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2012-10-05 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is often assumed that the law and religion address different spheres of human life. Religion and ethics articulate complex systems of moral reasoning that concern norms, deliberation of ends, cultivation of disposition, and transformation of moral agency. Law, in contrast, seeks to govern human conduct through procedural justice, rights, and public good. Doing Justice to Mercy challenges this assumption by presenting the reader with an urgent conversation between the law and religion that yields a constructive approach, both theoretically and practically, to the complex role of mercy in our legal process. Authored by legal practitioners, activists, and theorists in addition to theologians and ethicists, the essays collected here are informed by timeless principles, and yet they could not be timelier. The trend in sentencing moves toward an increased severity, and the number of incarcerated people in the United States is at an all-time high. In the half-decade since 9/11, moreover, homeland security has established itself as a permanent fixture in our lives. In this atmosphere, the current volume seeks initially to clarify how justice and mercy intertwine in relation to a number of issues, such as rehabilitation, the death penalty, domestic violence, and war crimes. Exploring the legal, philosophical, and theological grounds for mercy in our courts, the discussion then moves to the practical ways in which mercy may be implemented. Contributors:Marc Mauer, The Sentencing Project * Lois Gehr Livezey, McCormick Theological Seminary * Ernie Lewis, Public Advocate, Commonwealth of Kentucky * Jonathan Rothchild, Loyola Marymount University * Albert W. Alschuler, Northwestern University School of Law * David Scheffer, Northwestern University School of Law * David Little, Harvard Divinity School * Matthew Myer Boulton, Andover Newton Theological School * Mark Lewis Taylor, Princeton Theological Seminary * Sarah Coakley, Cambridge University * William Schweiker, University of Chicago Divinity School * Kevin Jung, College of William and Mary * Peter J. Paris, Princeton Theological Seminary * W. Clark Gilpin, University of Chicago Divinity School * William C. Placher, Wabash College

Download or read book Religion and the Law of Church and State and the Supreme Court Classic Reprint written by Philip B. Kurland and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-12-02 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Religion and the Law of Church and State and the Supreme Court The election of a Catholic as President of the United States and the excitement over the proposed national aid-to-education bills have raised the debate over the proper relationship between church and state, God and Caesar, religion and law, to an unprecedented crescendo in this country. The subject is hardly a new one. Probably in prehistoric times, as among primitive peoples today, frequent power conflicts arose between the medi cine man and the chief. Certainly the problem was known to the Greeks and the Romans, though merger of the contestants frequently muted the issues. It provided the dominant theme for six hundred years of European history. The very slow development of the notion of religious toleration and the absence of any notion of separation of church and state in the English speaking world outside of America, both before and after the American Revolution, amply demonstrate the continued vitality of the problem, with dimensions until now unknown in America. Thus, for example, it may surprise some that, by law, religious qualifications for public office in England continued late into the nineteenth century. And perhaps equally disquieting is the fact that the ultimate arbiter of Anglican church doctrine is, even today, not any ecclesiastical authority but the English Parliament, most of whose members are not actively affiliated with the Anglican church. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Download or read book God s Joust God s Justice written by John Witte and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2006-10-31 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'God's Joust, God's Justice' provides a vista of the major debates over law and religion in the West, enabling readers to proceed toward a more integrated understanding of the foundational elements of modern democracy.

Download or read book Have a Little Faith written by Benjamin Justice and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-11-09 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It isn’t just in recent arguments over the teaching of intelligent design or reciting the pledge of allegiance that religion and education have butted heads: since their beginnings nearly two centuries ago, public schools have been embroiled in heated controversies over religion’s place in the education system of a pluralistic nation. In this book, Benjamin Justice and Colin Macleod take up this rich and significant history of conflict with renewed clarity and astonishing breadth. Moving from the American Revolution to the present—from the common schools of the nineteenth century to the charter schools of the twenty-first—they offer one of the most comprehensive assessments of religion and education in America that has ever been published. From Bible readings and school prayer to teaching evolution and cultivating religious tolerance, Justice and Macleod consider the key issues and colorful characters that have shaped the way American schools have attempted to negotiate religious pluralism in a politically legitimate fashion. While schools and educational policies have not always advanced tolerance and understanding, Justice and Macleod point to the many efforts Americans have made to find a place for religion in public schools that both acknowledges the importance of faith to so many citizens and respects democratic ideals that insist upon a reasonable separation of church and state. Finally, they apply the lessons of history and political philosophy to an analysis of three critical areas of religious controversy in public education today: student-led religious observances in extracurricular activities, the tensions between freedom of expression and the need for inclusive environments, and the shift from democratic control of schools to loosely regulated charter and voucher programs. Altogether Justice and Macleod show how the interpretation of educational history through the lens of contemporary democratic theory offers both a richer understanding of past disputes and new ways of addressing contemporary challenges.

Download or read book Non State Justice Institutions and the Law written by M. Kötter and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-02-02 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on decision-making by non-state justice institutions at the interface of traditional, religious, and state laws. The authors discuss the implications of non-state justice for the rule of law, presenting case studies on traditional councils and courts in Pakistan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Bolivia and South Africa.

Download or read book Justice in Love written by Nicholas Wolterstorff and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Common Justice written by Uriel I. Simonsohn and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-09-07 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Common Justice Uriel I. Simonsohn examines the legislative response of Christian and Jewish religious elites to the problem posed by the appeal of their coreligionists to judicial authorities outside their communities. Focusing on the late seventh to early eleventh centuries in the region between Iraq in the east and present-day Tunisia in the west, Simonsohn explores the multiplicity of judicial systems that coexisted under early Islam to reveal a complex array of social obligations that connected individuals across confessional boundaries. By examining the incentives for appeal to external judicial institutions on the one hand and the response of minority confessional elites on the other, the study fundamentally alters our conception of the social history of the Near East in the early Islamic period. Contrary to the prevalent scholarly notion of a rigid social setting strictly demarcated along confessional lines, Simonsohn's comparative study of Christian and Jewish legal behavior under early Muslim rule exposes a considerable degree of fluidity across communal boundaries. This seeming disregard for religious affiliations threatened to undermine the position of traditional religious elites; in response, they acted vigorously to reinforce communal boundaries, censuring recourse to external judicial institutions and even threatening transgressors with excommunication.

Download or read book Justice on the Brink written by Linda Greenhouse and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2022-10-04 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping story of the Supreme Court’s transformation from a measured institution of law and justice into a highly politicized body dominated by a right-wing supermajority, told through the dramatic lens of its most transformative year, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning law columnist for The New York Times—with a new preface by the author “A dazzling feat . . . meaty, often scintillating and sometimes scary . . . Greenhouse is a virtuoso of SCOTUS analysis.”—The Washington Post In Justice on the Brink, legendary journalist Linda Greenhouse gives us unique insight into a court under stress, providing the context and brilliant analysis readers of her work in The New York Times have come to expect. In a page-turning narrative, she recounts the twelve months when the court turned its back on its legacy and traditions, abandoning any effort to stay above and separate from politics. With remarkable clarity and deep institutional knowledge, Greenhouse shows the seeds being planted for the court’s eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, expansion of access to guns, and unprecedented elevation of religious rights in American society. Both a chronicle and a requiem, Justice on the Brink depicts the struggle for the soul of the Supreme Court, and points to the future that awaits all of us.

Download or read book Catechism of the Catholic Church written by U.S. Catholic Church and published by Image. This book was released on 2012-11-28 with total page 849 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 3 million copies sold! Essential reading for Catholics of all walks of life. Here it is - the first new Catechism of the Catholic Church in more than 400 years, a complete summary of what Catholics around the world commonly believe. The Catechism draws on the Bible, the Mass, the Sacraments, Church tradition and teaching, and the lives of saints. It comes with a complete index, footnotes and cross-references for a fuller understanding of every subject. The word catechism means "instruction" - this book will serve as the standard for all future catechisms. Using the tradition of explaining what the Church believes (the Creed), what she celebrates (the Sacraments), what she lives (the Commandments), and what she prays (the Lord's Prayer), the Catechism of the Catholic Church offers challenges for believers and answers for all those interested in learning about the mystery of the Catholic faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a positive, coherent and contemporary map for our spiritual journey toward transformation.