The Journal of Christian Legal Thought

This month the Institute for Christian Legal Studies published the inaugural issue of the Journal of Christian Thought, available in hard copy (to Christian Legal Society members) and in full electronic version at no cost. The mission of the Journal is to equip and encourage legal professionals to seek and study biblical truth as it relates to law, the practice of law, and legal institutions.

We hope to provide practitioners and students a vehicle through which to engage Christian legal scholarship that will enhance theological reflection about the law and the lawyer's work, and, in addition, to provide legal scholars a medium through which to explore the law in light of Scripture, under the broad influence of the doctrines and creeds of the Christian faith and on the shoulders of the communion of saints across the ages.

The Journal will usually feature two or three scholarly articles, abstracted in the print edition and available in full online. But we decided to make the first issue a special one, highlighting works that a variety of scholars view as important to the project of cultivating Christian legal thought. So we approached a number of Christian professors and theologians, and asked each to write 500 words on a book or article of his or her choice, “helpful to the project of cultivating Christian legal thought.” The result is a collection of 31 very short essays that give a diversity of expression to the concept of Christian legal thought.

The collection has a nice range: from broadly theological foundations—both Roman Catholic (Newman and John Paul II) and Protestant (Calvin and Kuyper) perspectives—to narrow practice areas (Climate Change and International Law), to sophisticated integration of the two (Uelmen’s Toward a Trinitarian Theory of Products Liability, and Craig Stern on Jeff Tuomala’s Christ’s Atonement as the Model for Civil Justice).

The essays cover a variety of sources for, perspectives on, and approaches to Christian thinking about law and legal institutions. Some essays address the body of work of an important thinker, others only one book or article. From the broadly philosophical to the very practical, there is something of interest here for every lawyer and law student.

I'd love to hear from readers with suggestions and ideas for future issues. Let me know what you think!

Annual Conference on Catholic Legal Thought

The Sixth Annual Conference on Catholic Legal Thought is set for May 17-19, 2011 at the University of Oklahoma College of Law.

The lineup this year is extraordinary:

Paul Griffiths

The Essential St. Augustine for 21st Century Lawyers and Law Professors

John Breen, Kevin Lee, Lisa Schiltz

The City of Man: What role should law playing in infusing the City of Man with the City of God?

Mark Osler, Meghan Ryan, Susan Stabile

Forgiveness and Conversion: What should be the law’s attitude toward and treatment of post-conviction criminals?

Steven Smith

“The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse”

I plan to be there.

Redeeming Law in Korean!

My book Redeeming Law: Christian Calling and the Legal Profession has been translated into Korean and is available through IVP Korea.

I will be visiting four law schools in South Korea next week, through the good work and support of ministry partner Grad Resources and the Korean Christian Lawyers Fellowship.

More details upon my return!

Hope for the Legal Academy & Crawfish Etouffee

Last week I spent a few days hanging with a great group of Christian law professors at the annual Lumen Christi Conference on Christian Legal Thought (in conjunction with the Law Professors' Christian Fellowship) in New Orleans. It was, as always, a blessing to hear panel after of panel of dedicated Christian scholars share their thoughts and scholarship on the relationship of law and theology.

To be honest, it was even more of a blessing to spend time with old friends from this group who challenge and encourage me in my work and faith. It's really hard to beat a good discussion about theology and law, especially if held in the vicinity of a steaming bowl of crawfish etouffee and oysters on the half shell. Mmmm.

My friend Bill Brewbaker, a law professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, even took some time to sit down with me to discuss Christian legal thought for a podcast. It's available over at Cross & Gavel Audio or by searching "Cross and Gavel" on iTunesU. It's a fun discussion.

The small but growing community of Evangelical, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox scholars is a good sign for the academy-- and for the church. This year, there were more younger professors than ever, it seemed, challenging the old fogies, such as myself, to deeper and more faithful work in the academy. The papers ranged from an excellent discussion of the current "expressive association" jurisprudence, to an encouragement to professors to meet with and mentor law students, to a challenge to "go deeper" on issues of private law by application of traditional Catholic social thought.

Professors David Forte and Mark Movsesian kicked off the proceedings with excellent, interesting papers on Islam, Christianity, and Law, each highlighting ways in which Islam's reliance on law is starkly different than Christianity's.

My friend and colleague Lynne Kohm encouraged us to think about issues of gender equality-- and the empowerment of women-- not in traditional feminist terms, which have proved general unhelpful to the overall well-being and happiness of women, but in light of the transforming power of Christ.

Campbell Law School's Kevin Lee presented an interesting paper on the Augustinian lawyer-- which he defined, in part, as one who takes into account the limits of judgment, the effects of the Fall, the dignity of the human person, the fact of both our spirituality and our "embodied-ness," and realizes the "miracle of the quotidian," all in light of the overarching virtue of hope.

It was a day well spent, to say the least.

Plenty more to dig into here, but for now, just some . . . well . . . food . . . for thought.

The Essential Law Student Reading List

A few months ago, I asked this question to a group of Christian law professors:

“Off the top of your head-- no need to noodle on this for more than two minutes—please provide your recommendations of the two or three (or so) books or essays that every Christian law student ought to read before or during law school?”

Here are the answers, grouped roughly according to how often a book was recommended.

Group 1: Most Recommended

Augustine, City of God

Harold L. Berman, Law and Revolution (Harvard 1983)

Holy Bible (read through)

J. Budziszewski, Natural Law for Lawyers (Blackstone)

Hamilton, Madison, & Jay, The Federalist (at least 9, 10, 47‐51, and 78)

McConnell, Cochran, & Carmella, eds., Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought (Yale 2001)
(Michael McConnell's essay on classical liberalism and Jeff Powell’s essay received specific
mention)

Michael P. Schutt, Redeeming Law: Christian Calling and the Legal Profession (InterVarsity 2007)

Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Law

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Group 2: Significant Support

Joseph Allegretti, The Lawyer's Calling (Paulist Press 1996)

Baker and Floyd, Can A Good Christian Be A Good Lawyer? (Notre Dame 1997)

Gerard V. Bradley, A Student’s Guide to the Study of Law (ISI 2006)

Roger Cramton, The Ordinary Religion of the Law School Classroom, 29 J. Leg. Ed. 247 (1978)

Os Guinness, The Call (Word 1998)

Phillip E. Johnson, Reason in the Balance (InterVarsity 1995)

Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism

Arthur Leff, Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law, 1979 Duke L.J. 1229

Oliver O'Donovan and Joan Lockwood O'Donovan, eds. From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought (Eerdman’s 1999) (I would call this 838‐page book an essential reference, rather than essential reading, but maybe I’m a slacker. ‐ MS).

Tom Shaffer, Lawyers as Prophets 15 St. Thom. L. Rev. 469 (2003)

Steven D. Smith, Law's Quandary (Harvard 2007)

Craig A. Stern, God’s Caesar (Blackstone) (unpublished)

Jeffrey C. Tuomala, Christ’s Atonement as the Model for Civil Justice, 38 Am. J. Juris. 221 (1993).

John Witte, The Reformation of Rights: Religion and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge 2008)

Group 3: Some Recommendations

Albert Alschuler, Law Without Values (University of Chicago 2002)

William Blackstone, Commentaries (jurisprudence sections)

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (Simon & Shuster 1987)

James Bratt, ed., Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader (Eerdman’s 1998)

J. Budziszewski, What We Can’t Not Know (Spence 2004)

J. Budziszewski, Written on the Heart: The Case For Natural Law (InterVarsity 1997)

Steven G. Calabresi, Originalism: A Quarter Century of Debate (Regnery 2007)

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (sections on law)

Thomas Folsom, Evaluating Supernatural Law, 21 Regent U. L. Rev. 105 (2008)

Steve Garber, The Fabric of Faithfulness (InterVarsity Press 1996)

Robert George, Making Men Moral (Oxford 1995)

John Paul II, The Splendor of Truth

J.M. Kelly, A Short History of Western Legal Theory (Oxford 1992)

Peter Kreeft, The Unaborted Socrates (InterVarsity 1983)

Karl N. Llewellyn, The Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study

Martin Luther, On Temporal Authority

George Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (Oxford 1998)

John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths (1960)

John Noonan, A Private Choice

Michael Novak's On Two Wings (2003)

Michael Novak, The Truth About Religious Freedom, First Things, March 2006
(http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=98)

Michael Novak, The Faith of the Founding, First Things, April 2003
(http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=98)

Plato, Republic

Herbert Schlossberg: Idols for Destruction (1983)

Craig A. Stern, The Common Law and the Religious Foundations of the Rule of Law Before Casey, 38 U. San Francisco L. Rev. 499 (2004)

Brian Tamanaha, Legal Instrumentalism (Cambridge 2006)

Herbert W. Titus, God’s Revelation: Foundation for the Common Law, 4 Regent U. L. Rev. 1 (1994)

Scott Turow, One‐L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School (Warner 2007)

Nicholas Wolterstorff, The God Who Loves Justice and Our Love of the God Who Loves Justice (Conference Paper). See also his new book, Justice.

John Witte, God’s Joust, God’s Justice (Eerdman’s 2006)

Summer Reading Program

Next week the Christian Legal Society's Law Student Ministries begins its Summer Reading Program. Think of it as an online book club. I'll be facilitating most of the discussion with the help of Dan Kim at LSM.

We suggest that participants begin reading June 1, but the discussion begins June 5, a week from today. The discussion will happen in the Cross & Gavel discussion forum, so sign up for the C&G Community (it takes about 20 seconds) to join. It's a short list, but here's what we'll be reading this summer:

Michael P. Schutt, Redeeming Law (InterVarsity 2007) (read the introduction and the first chapter online free at IVP)
Harold L. Berman, Law and Revolution (Harvard 1983)
Aquinas, Treatise on Law
J. Budziszewski, Natural Law for Lawyers (Blackstone 2006)

Go here for the full syllabus, complete schedule, and instructions. The more, the merrier!!

Also new this week at Cross & Gavel: C&G Audio, my weekly podcast. The first two episodes are online, and we hope to post a new one every Thursday.

Announcing Cross & Gavel

I am excited to announce that Regent Law School and the Christian Legal Society, through ICLS, have launched Cross & Gavel, a comprehensive web resource for Christian law students and lawyers. Here's a taste of the main sections:

Browse resources relating to the intersection of faith & law. Dig into the blogroll, search the web magazines and print journals for interesting articles and opinion, or look for an organization to help you fulfill your own calling in law.


You'll find the latest in legal news and issues of interest to the Christian legal community. Explore links to major legal news providers, feeds updating you on current events, and a range of opinions on the news.


Connect to others thinking about law from a Christian perspective. If you want to find a speaker or scholar to address a particular topic, hope to start a discussion on an issue, or desire feedback on a note, essay, or article you've written, visit our community.


Find ways to get involved, visit our list of events that will help you engage the law faithfully. If you're looking for summer jobs, symposia, academic seminars, competitions, or essay contests, check here first.

This is an exciting project, and I'll be sharing more about it in the next few weeks.