Law and Religion

"An outstanding collection of materials examining various facets of a truly complicated issue, the proper relationship between religion (and persons with strong religious views) and the wider polity. Even well-read scholars will benefit from reading the volume, though I suspect that the primary beneficiaries of the book will be students whose own intellectual energies will certainly be stimulated by confrontation with the various essays. There is, currently, no book that brings together so many provocative thinkers in a way designed to illuminate the issues presented by the interaction of law and religion, and I would relish using it in a course or seminar on the topic. -Sanford Levinson,University of Texas Law School, co-editor, Constitutional Stupidities/Constitutional Tragedies (NYU Press, 1998) "What is religious freedom and what does it mean to protect it? Does it include the freedom, right, or responsibility, to influence politics with religious arguments? Or, does it include the right to a 'public square' where political arguments are free of religious influences? Does it include the right to live in a subculture that honors a way of life sometimes dramatically at odds with the constitutional or legal demands of the larger secular culture? Or, must such a right give way to constitutional or legal norms that conflict with such commitments? These quite basic moral questions about the role of faith-based belief and practice in a pluralistic democratic society have taken on increased urgency over the half century, as the Supreme Court has sought to construct a constitutional structure that will protect not only the religious and political freedoms of multiple communities defined by religious devotion, but also the integrity of a widely shared secular civic vision, and the rights and freedoms of religious skeptics as well. The essays collected by Stephen Feldman in this volume constitute the best current thinking by prominent first amendment scholars on what the Court is doing, and what the Court should be doing, in this troubled but fundamental area of law."-Robin West,Georgetown University Law Center