Blog Purpose Statement

In his book, American Lawyers and Their Communities, Thomas Shaffer envisions a downtown street. On one side of the street is a house of worship; on the other is a courthouse. According to Shaffer, American law schools train lawyers to look at the religious congregation from the courthouse–that is to analyze the problems that the religious congregation creates for the law. Law schools ignore the possibility that there might be a view of the courthouse from the house of worship.

“Prophetic witness is discounted in law teaching. Our part of the academy, more than any other, has systematically discouraged and disapproved of invoking the religious tradition as important or even interesting. It ignores the community of the faithful so resolutely that even its students who have come to law school from the community of the faithful learn to look at the [religious congregation] from the courthouse, rather than at the courthouse from [the religious congregation].”

Shaffer encourages lawyers to “walk across the street and look at the courthouse from the church . . . .”

Of course, the view from the religious congregation might not always be prophetic. At times it may yield speech that does not so much challenge existing arrangements as it explains them and participates in the larger conversation about what should be done.

In the United States, of course, there are many churches and synagogues, and increasingly many Mosques and Temples and groups of folks who identify themselves as non-believers or as spiritual, but with no established religious community. All of these live at varying distances from the courthouse, with quite differing perspectives on it.

On this blog, contributors—mostly law professors–from a wide variety of backgrounds, walk across the street (or down the street or across the railroad tracks) and look at the courthouse from our faith communities and other view points. We do not pretend to write as neutral observers. Our topics will include the many areas where religious faith and moral values might influence law and lawyers. We write in the hope that this blog will generate conversations among those of various religious traditions and no religious tradition and that those conversations will yield mutual understanding.