This essay examines the interplay between law, Christianity, and oppression in the thought of James Baldwin. This essay begins its inquiry from Baldwin’s own essay, Equal in Paris, and expands out to his broader writing. The essay makes four contributions. First, it shows that Equal in Paris presents a view of law and Christianity as simultaneously serving as instruments and sources of hypocrisy and injustice while representing critically important, if difficult to achieve, standards of justice and love. Second, the essay shows that for Baldwin avoidance and denial of collective moral failure underlies the hypocritical use of law and Christianity to perpetrate injustice rather than justice. Third, the essay reveals that Baldwin would see current legislative bans of critical race theory as a means of avoidance and denial of collective moral failure. Moreover, from a Baldwinian perspective, the maintenance of innocence through bans on critical race theory is a “crime” that typifies the problem at the root of racial oppression in America, which is the refusal to come to terms with the reality of white supremacy. Fourth, while agreeing with scholars who find significant overlap between Baldwin’s approach to law and critical race theory, the essay concludes that Baldwin’s work suggests that critical race theory’s neglect of love constitutes a critical shortcoming for critical race theory’s anti-subordinationist agenda.

In his article “Gender Identity Discrimination and Freedom of Religion,” Patrick Parkinson raises the important question of how the government should reconcile conflicts between the rights of religious people and the rights of transgender and gender-nonconforming people. By focusing on whether gender identity is best defined as a medical issue or a belief system, however, Parkinson does little to answer it. Whether gender identity is a medical issue may be relevant to determining the sincerity of an individual’s faith-based objection to complying with an antidiscrimination law. It has no bearing, however, on the strength of trans and gender-nonconforming individuals’ countervailing interest in being protected from discrimination. Defining gender identity as a belief system does no more to undermine this interest. This should be apparent to defenders of religious exemptions, who assert that belief systems offer a basis for extending, rather than contracting, legal protections. Characterizing an individual’s gender identity as either a medical issue or a belief system thus does not show why that individual’s interests should give way to the interests of religious objectors through an exemption. To reach this conclusion, one must instead turn to other values, such as those implicit—though inadequately defended—in Parkinson’s article.

This article surveys the evolution of the Catholic Church's official response to same-sex relations over the last two centuries. While the church has not altered its condemnation of same-sex relations, the justifications it offers for this negative judgment have shifted substantially, and they have moved, especially recently, in a direction that makes possible the acceptance of same-sex relations at some future—and perhaps not too-distant—date. This article explores the manualist tradition of the nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth centuries; twentieth-century developments in canon law; and the period of retrenchment and reaction under popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Its final section looks at developments under Pope Francis. It closes by considering the way the church's teaching shifted over the course of its history—penance and the forgiveness of sins; anti-Semitism; and the sin against natural-law of taking interest on a loan (usury). It proposes that we might witness the church undergo a similar shift on same-sex relations.

Romans 13:1–7 has been the most important text in scripture for Christian reflection on political authority, yet what it does not say has left Christian social ethicists and political/legal theorists with many lingering questions, especially about the proper response to unjust magistrates. To what resources should Christian thinkers look to illumine the gaps left by the Pauline silence, and just how absolute or relative did Paul intend his remarks in Romans 13:1–7 to be? This article presents a twofold thesis in response to this twofold question. First, it argues that the Noahic covenant, Genesis 8:21–9:17, is an important, although overlooked, background resource for interpreting Romans 13:1–7. Second, this article illustrates the practical benefit of reading Romans 13 in light of the Noahic covenant by offering a new argument for why Christians should not interpret Paul's unqualified command to submit to civil authorities as absolutely forbidding resistance to unjust magistrates. Paul's words about magistrates in Romans 13 have not superseded the obligation to pursue justice that God gave to the human community as a whole in the Noahic covenant. Thus the primal obligation resting in the people implicitly qualifies Paul's instructions.

Is belief a prerequisite of interpretation? Can we interpret a document if we do not believe that it has something to say to us, if we do not anticipate that we can learn from the text? Jaroslav Pelikan's assessment of the similarities and differences in constitutional and Biblical hermeneutics does not raise this question expressly, but his eloquent description of how the faithful struggle to remain true to their guiding texts inexorably leads one to question the role of belief. In this essay, I first acknowledge the unavoidable significance of belief in the elaboration of a textual tradition. Then, I argue that rhetorical and hermeneutical principles clarify the distinction between a faithful interpretation rooted in belief and the inauthentic manipulation of a text for strategic goals.

Belief fosters commitment to the text, which legitimizes and authenticates an interpreter's efforts. We readily distinguish the constitutive exegetical rhetoric that girds social life from the “mere” rhetoric employed by sophistic interpreters, characterizing the former as a vital and productive development of a tradition and the latter as a corruption of the tradition. Pelikan claims that his goal is to formulate a general methodology of faithful interpretation, but his reflections confirm that there can be no neat methodological distinction between a legitimate reading rooted in belief on one hand, and a strategic manipulation of a text designed to undermine the cause for belief on the other. Making this distinction requires a judgment that can be rhetorically defended but never methodologically justified; the faithful may prove themselves only in the “dangerous maybe” of debate and persuasion. As Gene Garver has argued, Aristotle's great advance was to show that rhetoric is an art of character and not just a matter of logic. I would add that there can be no methodology of interpretation because there can be no methodology for developing one's character.

Rabbinical courts in Israel serve as official courts of the state, and state law provides that a Jewish couple can obtain a divorce only in these courts, and only strictly according to Jewish law. By contrast, in the Western world, especially the United States, which has the largest concentration of Jews outside of Israel, the Jewish halakha is not a matter of state law, and rabbinical courts have no official status. This article examines critically the common argument that for a Jew committed to the halakha, and in particular for a Jewish woman who wants to divorce her husband, a state-sponsored halakhic system is preferable to a voluntary one. This argument is considered in light of the main tool that has been proven to help American Jewish women who wish to obtain a halakhic divorce from husbands refusing to grant it: the prenuptial agreement. Many Jewish couples in the United States sign such an agreement, but only a few couples in Israel do so, primarily because of the opposition of the rabbinical courts in Israel to these agreements. The article examines the causes of this resistance, and offers reasons for the distinction that exists between the United States and Israel. It turns out that social and legal reality affect halakhic considerations, to the point where rabbis claim that what the halakha allows in the United States it prohibits in Israel. The last part of the article uses examples from the past to examine the possibility that social change in Israel will affect the rulings of rabbinical courts on this issue.

In Indonesia, law reform is one of the important mandates of the national reform agenda, including the restructuring of various legal and political institutions at all levels of government, the regulatory implementation of the 1945 Constitution at the village level, and the ideological renewal necessary to make these changes real in Indonesian society. The policy direction of the People's Consultative Council (MPR) has changed from domination by the central authority toward freedom, autonomy and local government empowerment. Laws that were once imposed from the top now reflect power-sharing with local governments. In particular, the government has granted special (and virtually unlimited) autonomy to the province of Nangroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD, also known as Aceh). This article will explore how that autonomy has been influenced by a more robust adoption of Shari'ah law in Aceh.

When the New Order rule fell on May 21, 1998, Indonesia moved from a centralized power to democratization, a process of legal development “from, by and for the people” through a decentralized system. The promulgation of Law 22 (1998) providing for local autonomy (which was amended in 2004 by Law 32) and Law 25 on the respective financial authority of the central and local governments is concrete evidence that decentralization is real in Indonesia.

Introduction; Chapter 34 in its context; “And you would be introducing an element of variability into your words;” The physician analogy; Damage from applying the same law unvaryingly; Maimonides' silence on equity; Law and law to be applied; The responsum on listening to music; Equity in the responsa; Conclusion.

There is a metaphorical reciprocity between theology and law. In brief, and in sum, let me begin in this way in grateful acknowledgment of Professor Ball's probing and provocative, fascinating, and instructive analysis, which sets out from the other pole of this reciprocity. At times, his search for an alternative to the dominant metaphor for law leaves the reader in some bewilderment and tempted to take cover in that salutary squib, offered from time to time by The New Yorker under the caption: “Block that metaphor!” As though anticipating that rude and facile exit from the search, Professor Ball is careful to provide an awesome and safer harbor in the paradigmatic law of the sea. This paradigm conceals both the alternative sought for and the unexpectedly promising expectation that—as things penultimate express and make room for things ultimate—the exciting prospect is that the lion and the calf do lie down together. “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water;… and there will be no more sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9; Revelation 7:17, 21:1). Even Woody Allen will be able to join the calf and the lion in the exchange of sleepless nights for waking and sleeping amidst the peace which passes all understanding (Philemon 4:7).

Oliver O'Donovan is mistaken to think that subjective rights are irredeemably bound up with Hobbesian individualism, but correct to criticize their abstraction from deliberation about a wider range of moral considerations. As Grotius's thinking shows, the existence of a natural, moral right against physical harm depends on the contingent presence or absence of morally significant circumstances. There is, however, an important distinction between natural moral rights outside a particular, effective legal system and positive rights granted by such a system. Positive rights are less contingent and more stable, because society thinks it prudent to bear the social costs of that stability. Take, for example, the positive right against torture. This is not based simply on the intrinsic evil of what is done to the tortured. It is based partly on the intrinsic evil of the sadistic motive of the torturer. However, this motive obtains only in some cases, not others. Let us distinguish the latter as cases of “aggressive interrogation.” There might be instances of such interrogation that are conscientious and morally justified, all considerations of social cost and risk apart. There is, therefore, no natural moral right against it. Nonetheless, its general legal prohibition under a positive right against torture is justified by the prudential judgment that any possible momentary advantages to national security are outweighed by the high risk of social and institutional corruption and its political costs. That said, extraordinary circumstances might still justify—morally—the rare violation of the positive, legal right.

It is said that John Henry Newman was the “father of the Second Vatican Council” because of his work on doctrinal development and the claims of human conscience. Of the sixteen documents produced by the council, Dignitatis Humanae (“Declaration on Religious Liberty”) was recognized from the outset as a development of doctrine. Importantly, it was the second shortest of all the council's documents. Yet, for the past fifty years there has been lively debate about whether the development is consistent with previous church teachings and whether it is coherent on its own terms. This essay does not attempt to resolve all of the disputed issues regarding either consistency or coherence of the doctrine. Rather, I show, first, how and why Dignitatis Humanae was written in such a manner as to be surprisingly silent about its own place in the history of human rights as well as church teachings about church-state relations. Second, I attempt to interpret the silences in order to better situate ongoing debate about Dignitatis Humanae.

Professor Derrick Bell's story, The Space Traders, posits that extraterrestrial beings arrive in the United States to propose a Trade: they will provide the means to enable the country to pay its debts, protect its environment, and ensure its energy supply, all in exchange for only one thing—to take all African Americans back to the aliens' home star. The story then recounts a frenzied sixteen days of politics, protests, and legal maneuvering, resulting in the forced deportation to an unknown fate of twenty million black men, women, and children: “Heads bowed, arms now linked by slender chains, black people left the New World as their forebears had arrived.”

This Article will consider several issues suggested by Bell's story. If one assumes that some readers would approve and others would disapprove of how the African Americans were treated, what might one say about the differing views? Are they simply different in the same way that one person might vacation in San Francisco while another person chooses New York City? Or is it possible to say that one view is wrong? And if one view is said to be wrong, is the meaning that the view actually is wrong or merely that it is wrong in the opinion of the person speaking? And even if every single person agrees as to whether or not the Trade should have been made, does this show that the consensus view is actually right? Are there any circumstances under which one could conclude that what was done was right or wrong in an absolute sense?

James Luther Adams was famous for his pioneering work in religion and public life, religion and society. His interests embraced economics, public policy, contemporary culture, civil liberties, and church law. His wide-ranging mind at times compellingly focused on issues in civil law as well. I say “compellingly” advisedly, for Adams was essentially a Protestant theologian who had a central concern with the work and influence of Luther, so it was natural and inevitable that his interest would flow from theology of law to the wider subject of law and religion.

Adams' study of an issue was often characterized by certain intellectual qualities. He tried to include almost all aspects of the question; he was not satisfied, as courts at times are, with seeing only a single set of facts and answering a question that is limited only to the facts before him. He could see other sets of facts, and asked, what about them? This approach naturally forced him to look for an organizing principle, an all-embracing concept or set of concepts. First, then, he tried to be comprehensive in his examination; and secondly, he tried to be principled in his analysis and thinking.