Volume 5 Number 2
| December 2011
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 Greetings!
Peace on earth is our primary wish for this holiday season. That perennial wish and prayer have become more urgent than ever this year. Indeed, it will be a difficult one to grant. Despite the democratic revolutions that washed across the Middle East this year, more than one-third of the world's 198 countries and territories report "high" or "very high" levels of religious oppression. We pray for those individuals, groups, communities, and peoples who suffer under these painful and unjust conditions.
We will attempt to explore some of the reasons behind this oppression and outline some possible ways forward as our "When Law and Religion Meet Lecture Series" continues in the spring semester. On January 25, we will take a look at "Shari'a in the West? What Place for Religious Family Law in America and Other Western Democracies?" I (John Witte) am honored to deliver this debut Don S. Browning Lecture.
On February 8, Candler School of Theology's Luke Timothy Johnson delivers our annual Alonzo L. McDonald Lecture in Christianity and Law. A world-renowned scholar on the literary, moral, and religious dimensions of the New Testament, and its meaning for us today, Johnson examines "Jesus and the Law of Marriage and Divorce."
On March 21, Emory Law's Michael J. Perry concludes the series with an exploration of "Freedom of Religion, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Catholic Church." Perry, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, delivers this year's Overton and Lavona Currie Lecture in Law and Religion.
These subjects and more are covered in great detail in the numerous books and articles generated by our Senior Fellows and Associated Faculty. We highlight our newest publications in this issue.
We hope to see you at one or more of our lectures, and we wish you a blessed holiday season.
Sincerely,
John Witte, Jr. Frank S. Alexander |
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 Spring Lectures to Probe Problems of Law & Religion
Can and should Western law accommodate Islamic law? Should governments recognize same-sex marriage as a human right? What did Jesus really say about marriage and divorce? Distinguished CSLR faculty -- John Witte, Jr., Luke Timothy Johnson, and Michael J. Perry -- attempt to answer these and other difficult questions at the nexus of law and religion during this spring's "When Law and Religion Meet Lecture Series." The series runs January-March. All lectures begin at 12:30 p.m. in Emory Law's Tull Auditorium. They are free and open to the public. READ MORE |
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 An-Na'im Honored for His Dedication to Human Rights
CSLR Senior Fellow Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im has received two major awards for his dedication to human rights: the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award by the Journal of Law and Religion and the 2011 Johnson Medal by the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University. READ MORE |
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 American Academy of Arts & Sciences Inducts Holifield
E. Brooks Holifield, Charles Howard Candler Professor of American Church History at Candler School of Theology and a CSLR Associated Faculty Member, was among 179 of the nation's most influential artists, scientists, scholars, authors, and institutional leaders who were inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October. READ MORE |
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 Foster Honored for Contributions to Racial Relations
CSLR Senior Fellow Frances Smith Foster has received the Gittler Prize from Brandeis University in recognition of her outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic, and religious relations. READ MORE |
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 Van der Vyver Assists Nations Caught in Law and Religion Battles
CSLR Senior Fellow Johan D. van der Vyver is traveling to countries in the midst of constitutional and church-state strife -- Nepal, India, Chile, and China -- to advise them on solutions tried by other nations. It's a role he's been playing since he helped bring an end to apartheid in his native South Africa nearly two decades ago. READ MORE |
 Emory Mourns Loss of Professor David J. Bederman
The Emory Law community mourns the loss of David J. Bederman, K. H. Gyr Professor of Private International Law, who died Sunday, December 4. Bederman, age 50, was a much-respected CSLR Associated Faculty Member. READ MORE |
 Emory Law Launches Juris Master's Degree
Emory University School of Law plans to launch a new Juris Master degree program for professionals, graduate students and select undergraduates, to aid their understanding of how law intersects with various disciplines. Students enrolled in the program will have access to more than 40 cross-listed courses in the CSLR's Law and Religion Degree Program. READ MORE |
 New Book Offers New Hope for Marriage
A newly released second edition of CSLR Director John Witte, Jr.'s ground-breaking book on Western marriage offers hope for restoring family life in America. In From Sacrament to Contract, Second Edition (Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), Witte explains that throughout history "the Western tradition of marriage has always found the resources to heal and reinvent itself. ...The prospect of healing and reinvention is no less likely today." READ MORE |
 New Book Bridges Gap Between Religion and Human Rights
A new book edited by CSLR Director John Witte, Jr. and CSLR Senior Fellow M. Christian Green explores how the intersecting roles of religion and human rights can build a more effective human rights culture in the world. READ MORE |
 New Book Says Being Loved is First Human Right
A new book edited by CSLR Senior Fellow Timothy P. Jackson argues not only that being loved is the most fundamental right of children, but also that society should make sure children are taught to love. READ MORE l WATCH INTERVIEW |
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 New Book Explores Practical Side of Virture
A new book by CSLR Senior Fellow Julia Annas explores the nature and structure of virtue. Drawing on the ancient use of skill as an analogue for virtue, she creates a developmental account of virtue as a disposition with the structure of a skill, but also discusses ways in which virtue, unlike skills, is related to the good, and hence to happiness. READ MORE |
CSLR 'In the News'
Read CSLR Senior Fellow Michael J. Broyde's perspective on reproductive ethics in Huffington Post and a profile of Mary Ann Glendon, head of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in the Georgia Bulletin. Both spoke during last fall's "When Law and Religion Meet Lecture Series." These stories and other CSLR news coverage are available on the CSLR website. READ MORE |
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 Marriage and Divorce in a Multicultural Context
Joel Nichols ( Cambridge University Press, 2011) American family law makes two key assumptions: first, that the civil state possesses sole authority over marriage and divorce; and second, that the civil law may contain only one regulatory regime for such matters. These assumptions run counter to the multicultural and religiously plural nature of our society. This book elaborates how those assumptions are descriptively incorrect, and it begins an important conversation about whether more pluralism in family law is normatively desirable. READ MORE |
 Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not
Robert N. McCauley ( Oxford University Press, 2011) Over the course of the past two decades, scholars have employed insights gleaned from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and related disciplines to illuminate the study of religion. In this new volume, the author argues that our minds are better suited to religious belief than to scientific inquiry. Drawing on the latest research and illustrating his argument with commonsense examples, McCauley argues that religion has existed for many thousands of years in every society because the kinds of explanations it provides are precisely the kinds that come naturally to human minds. READ MORE |
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 The Ascent of Christian Law: Patristic and Byzantine Reformulations of Antique Civilization
John McGuckin (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2011)
What difference did Christianity make as a builder of civilization? This book seeks to answer this and other questions by looking at the main protagonists who consider the issues of law and theology from the early centuries to the medieval Byzantine period. A second part offers a series of reflective reviews on certain "points in question," including slavery, freedom of the person, ownership, reconciliation, and governance theory. READ MORE |
 Called to Happiness: Where Faith and Psychology MeetSidney Callahan (Orbis Books, 2011)
This account of "the new science of happiness" not only supports traditional faith but gives examples that we can use to live a fulfilling life. It breaks new ground in clarifying the convergence of psychotherapy, neuropsychology, and Christian spirituality and is ideal reading for everyone interested in human development, spiritual growth, and in the ways they mutually support and benefit each other. READ MORE |
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 Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Letters and Papers from Prison": A Biography
Martin E. Marty (Princeton University Press, 2011)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison has had a tremendous impact on both Christian and secular thought since it was first published in 1951. In this, the first history of the book's remarkable global career, the author tells how and why it has been read and used in such dramatically different ways, from the cold war to today. READ MORE |
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Emory International Law Review
Volume 25, Issue 2 (2011)
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im and M. Christian Green
This Symposia issue offers the first-of-its-kind comparative analysis of pluralistic family law developments in the West and in Africa. The essays are both theoretical and practical, viewing both the law on the books and the law in action in local communities. The issue is a joint venture between CSLR and the Center for International and Comparative Law and is an outcome of the CSLR's "Shari`a, Family, and Democracy Project" sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. READ MORE |
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"For if there is an actual and present rule of God in the world, then it must be found, not in the conquest of visible enemies, but in the triumph of love and life, however halting and partial, over sin and death. And this is the work of the Spirit. And it is the calling of the Church."
-- Luke Timothy Johnson
Candler School of Theology |
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