When, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the US Supreme Court held that bans on same-sex marriage violate the Constitution, Christian conservative legal organizations (CCLOs) decried the ruling. Foreseeing an “assault against Christians,” Liberty Counsel president Mat Staver declared, “We are entering a cultural civil war.” Many would argue that a cultural war was already well underway; and yet, as this timely book makes clear, the stakes, the forces engaged, and the strategies employed have undergone profound changes in recent years. In Defending Faith, Daniel Bennett shows how the Christian legal movement (CLM) and its affiliated organizations arrived at this moment in time. He explains how CCLOs advocate for issues central to Christian conservatives, highlights the influence of religious liberty on the CLM’s broader agenda, and reveals how the Christian Right has become accustomed to the courts as a field of battle in today’s culture wars. On one level a book about how the Christian Right mobilized and organized an effective presence on an unavoidable front in battles over social policy, the courtroom, Defending Faith is also a case study of interest groups pursuing common goals while maintaining unique identities. As different as these proliferating groups might be, they are alike in increasingly construing their efforts as a defense of religious freedom against hostile forces throughout American society—and thus as benefitting society as a whole rather than limiting the rights of certain groups. The first holistic, wide-angle picture of the Christian legal movement in the United States, Bennett’s work tells the story of the growth of a powerful legal community and of the development of legal advocacy as a tool of social and political engagement.

Law is an institution that has evolved and flourished throughout its six-thousand-year history. Tracing this history in complex societies from the Ancient Middle East to the contemporary world, this book poses the following question: can international law become an effective instrument of social control among nations in the emerging world society?

To develop effective international law will require minimal standards of inclusiveness and mutual responsibility. International law must be limited in its scope and its powers. It must also meet the fundamental requirement of an effective legal system: a widespread belief in its justice and fairness. How has that kind of respect for the law come about in earlier societies, and how can it be fostered in the evolution of a world legal order?