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In the burgeoning literature on law and religion, scholarly
attention has tended to focus on broad questions concerning the
scope of religious freedom, the nature of toleration and the
meaning of secularism. An under-examined issue is how religion
figures in the decisions, actions and experiences of those charged
with performing public duties. This point of contact between
religion and public authority has generated a range of legal and
political controversies around issues such as the wearing of
religious symbols by public officials, prayer at municipal
government meetings, religious education and conscientious
objection by public servants. Authored by scholars from a variety
of disciplines, the chapters in this volume provide insight into
these and other issues. Yet the volume also provides an entry point
into a deeper examination of the concepts that are often used to
organise and manage religious diversity, notably state neutrality.
By examining the exercise of public authority by individuals who
are religiously committed - or who, in the discharge of their
public responsibilities, must account for those who are - this
volume exposes the assumptions about legal and political life that
underlie the concept of state neutrality and reveals its limits as
a governing ideal.
In the burgeoning literature on law and religion, scholarly
attention has tended to focus on broad questions concerning the
scope of religious freedom, the nature of toleration and the
meaning of secularism. An under-examined issue is how religion
figures in the decisions, actions and experiences of those charged
with performing public duties. This point of contact between
religion and public authority has generated a range of legal and
political controversies around issues such as the wearing of
religious symbols by public officials, prayer at municipal
government meetings, religious education and conscientious
objection by public servants. Authored by scholars from a variety
of disciplines, the chapters in this volume provide insight into
these and other issues. Yet the volume also provides an entry point
into a deeper examination of the concepts that are often used to
organise and manage religious diversity, notably state neutrality.
By examining the exercise of public authority by individuals who
are religiously committed - or who, in the discharge of their
public responsibilities, must account for those who are - this
volume exposes the assumptions about legal and political life that
underlie the concept of state neutrality and reveals its limits as
a governing ideal.
Prevailing stories about law and religion place great faith in the
capacity of legal multiculturalism, rights-based toleration, and
conceptions of the secular to manage issues raised by religious
difference. Yet the relationship between law and religion
consistently proves more fraught than such accounts suggest. In
Law's Religion, Benjamin L. Berger knocks law from its perch above
culture, arguing that liberal constitutionalism is an aspect of,
not an answer to, the challenges of cultural pluralism. Berger
urges an approach to the study of law and religion that focuses on
the experience of law as a potent cultural force. Based on a close
reading of Canadian jurisprudence, but relevant to all liberal
legal orders, this book explores the nature and limits of legal
tolerance and shows how constitutional law's understanding of
religion shapes religious freedom. Rather than calling for legal
reform, Law's Religion invites us to rethink the ethics, virtues,
and practices of adjudication in matters of religious difference.
The essays in this volume reflect the exciting new directions in
which legal history in the settler colonies of the British Empire
has developed. The contributors show how local life and culture in
selected settlements influenced, and was influenced by, the
ideology of the rule of law that accompanied the British colonial
project. Exploring themes of legal translation, local
understandings, judicial biography, and "law at the boundaries,"
they examine the legal cultures of dominions in Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand to provide a contextual and comparative account of
the "incomplete implementation of the British constitution" in
these colonies.
The essays in this volume reflect the exciting new directions in
which legal history in the settler colonies of the British Empire
has developed. The contributors show how local life and culture in
selected settlements influenced, and was influenced by, the
ideology of the rule of law that accompanied the British colonial
project. Exploring themes of legal translation, local
understandings, judicial biography, and "law at the boundaries,"
they examine the legal cultures of dominions in Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand to provide a contextual and comparative account of
the "incomplete implementation of the British constitution" in
these colonies.
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