Review: Christians Look at the Law

Third Quarter 2002

Three law professors have coordinated the efforts of more than two dozen of their colleagues to produce Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought (Yale University Press, 2001). Michael McConnell at the University of Utah, Robert Cochran Jr. at Pepperdine University, and Angela Carmella at Seton Hall University are the editors. Among the contributors are Stephen Carter, David Caudill, John Witte Jr., Phillip Johnson, Elizabeth Mensch, Marci Hamilton, Gerard Bradley, Thomas Shaffer, and David Smolin.

The book is unusual in American publishing. American law has its roots in the Western Christian tradition, as Harold J. Berman, author of the Foreword, has demonstrated in an earlier work. Thus, the need for a book of essays on the law by Christians was perhaps not seen as necessary before now. The fact is, however, that Christianity was not the only influence on the western legal tradition, which has become increasingly fragmented over the last century and a half under the impact of pragmatism, positivism, Marxism, and postmodernism.

One might imagine, then, that the compound force of all these secularist influences would drive Christians both backward and forward to a common Christian understanding of law. But Christians themselves have been radically influenced by the splintering and diversification of legal traditions and schools of thought. Consequently, as the editors explain, they have gathered "authors who write from a wide variety of Christian traditions [reflecting] the diversity of attitudes, doctrines, and approaches found within the broader Christian community." Thus, one will not find in this volume an integrated Christian philosophy of law but rather a variety of perspectives on liberalism, legal realism, critical legal studies, critical race theory, feminism, law and economics, marriage law, contracts, criminal justice, and more, as well as essays on different Christian traditions such as Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Anabaptism, and Calvinism.

Who will want to read this book? Berman's words in the Foreword are of help here: "This is a book that should be read in what were once called 'perspective courses' in law schools -- courses in jurisprudence, legal history, comparative law, legal method, and related subjects. Also, its chapters on specific branches of the law...should be assigned in courses on those subjects. Above all, it should be read by both law teachers and legal practitioners—especially by those who have seen no relationship between Christianity and law and those for whom Christianity has been a taboo subject in the classroom." Berman also urges scholars and practitioners in fields of history, philosophy, and political science to read the book.

It is impossible to introduce all that is in this 518-page volume. A few quotadons from a few of the essays may, however, whet the potential reader's appetite for it.

Angela Carmella on a Catholic view of law: "A Catholic analysis and critique of the civil or positive law of a society (that is, all law promulgated by judicial, executive and legislative branches of government at all levels) starts from the premise that there is a natural law written on the human heart that is intelligible through reason, and knowable without revelation, against which all civil law is measured."

Marie Fallinger and Patrick Keifert on Lutherans and the use of the law: "Lutherans stand against every attempt to define the civil law as salvation or soulless, as paramount or irrelevant, for they see the preserving hand of God moving imperceptibly in the human debate about the law for the neighbor's welfare. For Lutherans, law is bound authority, creative restraint, suspicious passion for life. It is not an 'either' to the 'or' of the gospel, but makes its own home in the works of God."

John Copeland Nagle on environmental law: "Which Christian teachings should be written into public law? Because that question admits of no clear answer generally, there can be no confident conclusions about the relation between Christian environmental teaching and federal environmental statutes. Yet that question lies at the heart of any effort to craft an approach to environmental law that is faithful to Christian teaching."

Robert Cochran Jr. on tort law: "Clergy who engage in sexual exploitation of children or adult counselees should be subject to liability for the damage that they cause. In these cases, liability helps to protect individuals and reinforces the norms of both the religious community and the broader community. In such cases, courts have rightly stated that clergy may be held individually liable on battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and breach of fiduciary relations theories."

—Editor