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Why Law, Why Religion?—A Conversation Between a Lawyer and a Theologian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

Milner S. Ball
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Extract

Howard Vogel invited Doug Sturm and me to explain ourselves. Why did we take up law? Why theology? And why law and theology together? He encouraged us to offer personal accounts in response, and I am glad to comply.

Why law? The answer is simple. I had no choice. I was ordained to the ministry of the Presbyterian Church in 1961, and in 1962 became minister to a small congregation in a small town in middle Tennessee. In 1966 I was named the Presbyterian Campus Minister at the University of Georgia. My wife, June, our children and I moved to Athens.

The Presbyterian Center was notorious for its faithful witness in difficult, explosive times. I had read about the Center and its work a couple of years earlier in a New Yorker magazine article by Calvin Trillin. That article was subsequently incorporated into a well-taken book about the liberating trauma of integration in Georgia, especially at the University.

When Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter desegregated the University of Georgia, they were greeted by massive, violent riots.

Minority students who followed Charlayne and Hamilton and enrolled in the University, were subject to no less intimidation. The Presbyterian Center was a place of refuge for them, and some lived in apartments on the premises. In due course, the Center became a gathering place for people committed to remedying racism.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , 2008 , pp. 367 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2008

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References

1. Founder, Journal of Law and Religion; first Editorial Board Chairperson. Professor Emeritus, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

2. Trillin, Calvin, An Education in Georgia (U. Ga. Press 1992) (originally published Viking Press 1964)Google Scholar.

3. See e.g. Stringfellow, William, A Private and Public Faith (Eerdmans 1962)Google Scholar; Stringfellow, William, My People is the Enemy: An Autobiographical Polemic (Holt, Rinehart & Winston 1964)Google Scholar.

4. On religious lawyering, see e.g. Pearce, Russell G. & Uelman, Amelia J., Religious Lawyering's Second Wave, 21 J.L. & Religion 269 (2005–2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. This central expression is often and variously repeated. See e.g. Lehmann, Paul L., Ethics in a Christian Context 85, 101, 112 passim (Harper & Row 1963)Google Scholar.

6. See e.g. Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, pt. 2 at 280–361 (Bromiley, G.W. & Torrance, T.F. eds., Thomson, G.T. & Knight, Harold trans., T & T Clark 1956)Google Scholar.

7. See Ball, Milner S., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in The Teachings of Modern Christianity On Law, Politics, and Human Nature Vol. 1, at 386–389 (Witte, John Jr. & Alexander, Frank S. eds., Colum. U. Press 2006)Google Scholar.

8. Ball, Milner S., The Word and the Law 75–76 (U. Chi. Press 1993)Google Scholar; Alexander, Frank, William Stringfellow, in The Teachings of Modern Christianity On Law, Politics, and Human Nature 465, at 471–472Google Scholar.

9. See e.g. Asad, Talal, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam 27–54 (Johns Hopkins U. Press 1993)Google Scholar.

10. See e.g. Cavanaugh, William T., Does Religion Cause Violence?, 35 Harv. Divinity Bull. 24 (Spring/Summer 2007)Google Scholar; Cavanaugh, William T., Religion and Violence, Harv. Divinity Bull. 7 (Winter 2008)Google Scholar.

11. James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience 387 (Harv. U. Press 1985)Google Scholar.

12. Barth, Karl, Dogmatics in Outline 30–33 (Thomson, G.T. trans., SCM Press 1949)Google Scholar.

13. Id. at 33.

14. See e.g. Cover, Robert M., The Supreme Court, 1982 Term—Foreword: Nomos and Narrative, 97 Harv. L. Rev. 4 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. The material on John is drawn from Ball, Milner, Called by Stories: Biblical Sagas and Their Challenge For Law 134–137 (Duke U. Press 2000)Google Scholar.