ReligiousLeftLaw.com

The First Amendment Dog

2012-01-27T05:09:16-08:00

In the Wall Street Journal this morning, David Skeel, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, criticizes the Obama administration’s refusal to exempt many religious organizations from the requirement that employer health-care plans cover all the costs of contraception. Skeel concedes that the decision by the Obama administration is probably consistent with existing First Amendment law, but he worries that this will lead to years of “unending” legal battles. According to Skeel, courts are “precisely the wrong place to resolve the difficult accommodation issues that are pressing in from every side.” This is an odd claim. After all, the legislature has left the Obama administration the discretion to make the decision it has made. Indeed, courts do not need to enforce First Amendment rights unless governments violate them. I would think it is precisely the role of the courts to enforce those rights. The real problem is that the...

A Revolutionary Spiritual Praxis

2012-01-24T00:01:10-08:00

Paul Wilson, translator of several of Václav Havel’s works, including his celebrated Letters to Olga (1983/1988), and one-time member of the underground band, The Plastic People of the Universe, has an eloquent and moving remembrance in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books: [….] “[Havel’s] vision [was] based on a democratic politics underpinned by a strong civil society and rooted in common decency, morality, and respect for the rule of law and human rights; a politics that sought to transcend racial, cultural, and religious differences by articulating a ‘moral minimum’ that Havel believed existed at the heart of most faiths and cultures and that would provide a basis for agreement and cooperation without sacrificing the unique gifts that each person, each culture, and each ‘sphere of civilization’ could bring to enrich modern life. [....] Like many great Czechs before him, Havel insisted on the importance of truth,...

Ten Steps for Radical Revolution in USA

2012-01-23T06:23:59-08:00

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967 One. Human rights must be taken absolutely seriously. Every single person is entitled to dignity and human rights. No application needed. No exclusions at all. This is our highest priority. Two. We must radically reinvent contemporary democracy. Current systems are deeply corrupt and not responsive to the needs of people. Representatives chosen by money and influence govern by money and influence. This is unacceptable. Direct democracy by the people is now technologically possible and should be the rule. Communities must be protected whenever they advocate for self-determination, self-development and human rights. Dissent is essential to democracy; we pledge to help it flourish. Three. Corporations are not people and are not entitled to human rights. Amend the...

American Divide

2012-01-23T05:14:54-08:00

Martin Marty has long been one of our most insightful commentators on religion in the United States. Here is his latest offering, from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago: Sightings 1/23/2012 American Divide Next week Crown Forum will publish Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. The weekend Wall Street Journal gave a generous two-page preview. The foretaste in the Journal presented no surprises, since the author, Charles Murray, offered the standard American Enterprise Institute blame-throwing: “As I’ve argued in much of my previous work, I think that the reforms of the 1960s jump-started the deterioration” of the culture, beginning with economic change. No doubt these urgent reforms did have a down-side and contributed to the “American Divide,” but this single-explanation approach leaves out too much about the “why” of the in accounting for the way “the working class falls further away from institutions like marriage...

On the Etiology of What Economically Ails Us (Updated)

2012-01-22T10:22:48-08:00

At New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science, Mark Lance writes: “There is an important article in today’s NYT. What is fascinating about this account of Apple’s iphone production in Asia is not the usual left criticism of Asian working conditions. That is mentioned. Work is structured in an authoritarian manner, for low pay, and with long hours. But a good case is made here that this is not the main issue. Rather, the US simply lacks the economic and educational infrastructure to get the job done at all. It would be nice if the NYT would delve into the causes of all this. They note that we lack the relevant numbers of workers with the relevant skills, that we lack huge amounts of manufacturing infrastructure, that what manufacturing we have has not kept up with the flexibility needed for 21st century production. They also note that a huge middle class...

“Is Art a Superstition, or a Way of Life?” (Part 4)

2012-01-21T16:50:25-08:00

Please Note: In the final installment of this series, I will attempt to highlight what I take to be the most compelling propositions of Coomaraswamy’s argument. I also hope to bring to the discussion later works in aesthetics and philosophy of art which treat some of the themes that concerned Coomaraswamy or capture some of the spirit of his critique of the condition of contemporary art and the myriad apologetic theories and ideologies that are both cause and effect of that condition (this being not so much the fault of art qua art, but something directly attributable to a post-modern civilizational ethos fashioned largely in the image of high technology and turbo-capitalism). Here are Parts 1, 2, and 3. “It is taken for granted that the artist is always working ‘for the good of the work to be done;’ from the coincidence of beauty with perfection it follows inevitably that...

Israel, Iran & Nuclear Weapons

2012-01-21T12:14:31-08:00

At Opinio Juris, Kevin Jon Heller writes: “It’s difficult to accuse these guys of being soft on Tehran, so it’s hard to quibble with their conclusion: The intelligence assessment Israeli officials will present later this week to Dempsey indicates that Iran has not yet decided whether to make a nuclear bomb. The Israeli view is that while Iran continues to improve its nuclear capabilities, it has not yet decided whether to translate these capabilities into a nuclear weapon – or, more specifically, a nuclear warhead mounted atop a missile. Nor is it clear when Iran might make such a decision. This statement simply reinforces my argument that killing the Iranian nuclear scientists was an act of terrorism under the Terrorist Bombing Convention. Although I think killing the scientists would have been illegal under IHRL [International Human Rights Law] even if they had been helping to build a nuclear weapon, given...

William Stringfellow

2012-01-20T09:12:48-08:00

Are you familiar with Stringfellow's work? This book review, in the new issue of Commonweal, is a good place to begin: An Inconvenient Theology An Alien in a Strange Land: Theology in the Life of William Stringfellow, by Anthony Dancer Nathan Schneider William Stringfellow is one of the most intriguing modern American theologians, but you’re far from alone if you haven’t heard of him. Rowan Williams, Stanley Hauerwas, Jim Wallis, and Daniel Berrigan have all been influenced by his work, yet since his death in 1985, Stringfellow’s legacy has been sorely under-appreciated and his writings far too little sought after. Anthony Dancer’s new book, An Alien in a Strange Land: Theology in the Life of William Stringfellow, will help change that. It takes us from Stringfellow’s working-class upbringing in Massachusetts, to his coming-of-age in the 1950s as a Christian student leader, through his move from Harvard Law School to practicing...

Digital Addictions and the Sabbath

2012-01-20T05:06:00-08:00

The essays continue to appear on the need to escape, if only for a time, our digital addictions. For another, with citations to three other good ones (one already discussed by Patrick on rll and Taryn on her facebook page), see here. But the digital addictions are part of a larger phenomenon that has been addressed by religious traditions from the beginning. In this connection, I am reminded of a comment by Dara Horn referring “to the impossibility of removing oneself from the current of modern life and the equal impossibility of being forever caught in the current.” Horn’s comment was made in connection with praising Judith Schlevitz’s The Sabbath World. Schlevitz writes from a Jewish perspective, but compares the Jewish and Christian traditions in her book. As to the tension described by Horn, Shulevitz puts it nicely: “Americans once the most Sabbatarian people on earth are now the most...

Working Poor USA

2012-01-19T07:11:23-08:00

“Our nation, so richly endowed with natural resources and with a capable and industrious population, should be able to devise ways and means of insuring to all our able-bodied men and women, a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1937 Millions of people in the US work and are still poor. Here are eight points that show why the US needs to dedicate itself to making work pay. One. How many people work and are still poor? In 2011, the US Department of Labor reported at least 10 million people worked and were still below the unrealistic official US poverty line, an increase of 1.5 million more than the last time they checked. The US poverty line is $18,530 for a mom and two kids. Since 2007 the numbers of working poor have been increasing. About 7 percent of all workers and 4 percent of...

A Model for Qur’ānic Interpretation & The Qur’ān: A Select Bibliography

2012-01-18T08:37:26-08:00

I have liberally adapted the bulk of what follows from Abdullah Saeed’s Interpreting the Qur’ān: Towards a Contemporary Approach (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 150-154. The additional material is largely by way of clarification or explanation and although some of it is wholly new, I believe it is in the spirit of, if not faithful to, Saeed’s proposed model. * * * A Model for Qur’ānic Interpretation * * * Stage 1—Encounter with the world of the text Stage 1—A broad and general familiarization with the text(s) and its (their) world(s). Stage 2—Critical Analysis: (a) Linguistic considerations; (b) Literary context; (c) Literary form; (d) Parallel texts; (e) Precedents Stage 2—Here we are interested in what the text says about itself (its ‘self-referential’ character). This involves various fundamental analyses: Linguistic considerations: this entails analysis of the language of the text (linguistic units), semantics (the meaning of words and phrases involving features...

Why Romney's Religion Matters Politically

2012-01-17T05:45:53-08:00

Protestants move freely from one denomination to another depending on the preacher, the programs of the congregation, and the politics of the group. Religious doctrine seems not to matter. We no longer live in the seventeenth century. But religious doctrine matters in the Republican primaries. Many Republicans believe that Mitt Romney is not a real Christian and prefer other candidates for those reasons. Thus evangelicals met in Texas to rally around a single candidate to stop Romney. To be sure, those evangelicals doubt Romney’s dedication to conservative principles as well, but the religion of the candidate was explicitly an issue for the evangelicals. Why? As I understand it contemporary Mormons accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and they believe that Jesus is God, but they do not believe that Jesus is co-equal with the Father. For them, the traditional conception of the Trinity is a fourth century invention....

Martin Luther King, Jr.

2012-01-16T11:52:57-08:00

At Concurring Opinions, Frank Pasquale has kindly provided us with appropriate links in honor of today’s holiday in memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Martin Luther King Day Links

Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Intellectual Responsibility: The Playwright & The Philosopher

2012-01-14T13:28:03-08:00

Mark Edwards has a wonderful four-part (to date) series of posts on the late playwright, essayist and dissident intellectual Václav Havel (1936-2011) up at Concurring Opinions: Parts I, II, III, and IV. Havel was also the last president of Czechoslovakia (1989–1992) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). I wrote a memorial post on Havel here. The philosopher in the title is Jan Patočka. (Yours truly comments on several of the posts.) The image: On May 29, 1979, StB undertook a major police action against VONS members, subsequently ten of them were arrested and taken into custody. VONS is the Czech acronym for Výbor na obranu nespravedlivě stíhaných (Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Persecuted): “The committee was founded on April 27, 1978, by a group of Charter 77 signatories [among whom were Václav Havel and Jan Patočka, the latter having died of a stroke ‘after a...

Hosanna-Tabor and Religion Clause Anarchy

2012-01-13T06:33:05-08:00

In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, the Supreme Court held on Wednesday (here) that a religious school was immune from liability against a claim that it had violated the American Disabilities Act in firing a teacher because the teacher was determined to be a Lutheran minister. Under previous Supreme Court religion law the Court would have found no violation of religious freedom because the American Disabilities Act had no purpose to single out religion only a religious effect. The Court had previously determined in Employment Division v. Smith that in most circumstances, a religious burden imposed by a generally applicable statute unaccompanied by a purpose to single out religion did not even give rise to a freedom of religion issue. So if a law against ingesting peyote burdens the ingestion of peyote as a sacrament as part of a Native American religious ceremony, there was not even...

The Constitutionality of President Obama's Recess Appointments

2012-01-09T04:51:10-08:00

Friday the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times published warring op-ed pieces regarding the constitutionality of President Obama’s recent appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the NLRB. Neither agency has been able to function because the Republicans refuse to appoint a Chair for the former or enough members to allow a quorum for the latter. Ordinarily, when the Senate refuses to appoint someone the President regards to be important tasks, he waits until the Senate recesses and appoints someone then (the appointment is good until the “End of their next Session”). The problem is that the Senate is claiming to be in session for the purpose of preventing Obama from making recess appointments. Typically, the Senate is called to order every three days and adjourns shortly thereafter with an understanding that no business will be conducted. Two lawyers who served in the Reagan and George H.W....

“Is Art a Superstition, or a Way of Life?” (Part 3)

2012-01-06T23:11:07-08:00

Part 1 is here, and Part 2 here. “Art can…be defined as the embodiment in material of a preconceived form. The artist’s operation is dual, in the first place intellectual or ‘free’ and in the second place manual and ‘servile.’ ‘To be properly expressed,’ as Eckhart says, ‘a thing must proceed from within, moved by its form.’ It is just as necessary that the idea of the work to be done should first of all be imagined in an imitable form as that the workman should command the technique by which this mental image can be imitated in the available material. ‘It is,’ as Augustine says, ‘by their ideas that we judge of what things ought to be like.’ A private property in ideas is inconceivable, since ideas have no existence apart from the intellect that entertains them and of which they are the forms; there cannot be an authorship...

Opposing President Obama in the Primaries?

2012-01-06T05:36:45-08:00

Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if President Obama were opposed from the left in the primaries? I am not sure. I do think Romney is not helped by being opposed in the Republican primaries. Michael Lerner has an interesting discussion of the question of opposing Obama as a vehicle to raise issues on the progressive agenda and an excellent discussion of the disturbing ways in which he has fallen short. See here. It is well worth reading.

Which Entitlements?

2012-01-05T02:19:57-08:00

Mitt Romney argues against an entitlement society and in favor of an opportunity society. In another fine column Robert Reich asks which entitlements he is talking. See here. I wish it were the banks or the defense establishment. Can it be public schools, medicare, social security, parks,highways, support for the unemployed? Reich argues that support for public goods has generally been declining, not increasing, By spending most of his time attacking Obama, Romney avoids some of the lunacy of the primaries. Nonetheless, as Romney caters to the far right to win the primaries, he undercuts his appeal to moderate voters. It is doubtful that Santorum will be forced to drop out in the near future and in response, Romney well provide more material for Democratic attack ads. The Republican field is quite scary, but the polls show that the general electorate is turned off by the field as a whole...

All-American Muslim: Robert George and the Florida Family Association

2012-01-03T17:39:14-08:00

Robert George has posted on both First Things and Mirror of Justice an open letter to the Florida Family Association (FFA) on the topic of their campaign against The Learning Channel's reality show All-American Muslim. On their web site, the Florida Family Association says: The Learning Channel's new show All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law. The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish. In the open letter, George and his co-author, Dr. Jennifer Bryson, Director of the Witherspoon Institute's Research Project on Islam and Civil Society, say: All-American Muslim is a reality television show featuring five families; it does not purport to be a documentary about...