The Lawyer's Calling by
Defines the crisis of the legal profession as a spiritual one rather than an ethical one, and urges lawyers to rethink their careers in terms of a vocation in the context of legal practice.
Can a Good Christian Be a Good Lawyer? by
Law professors Thomas E. Baker and Timothy W. Floyd asked some of their legal colleagues to respond to this provocative question: "Can a good Christian be a good lawyer?" Here are twenty-one highly personal narratives that answer the question of how each writer tries, sometimes but not always successfully, to be both a good Christian and a good lawyer. How does a lawyer called to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ reconcile his or her faith with the secular calling to the legal profession? The editors did not set out to provide some kind of final resolution or unified consensus. Instead, they have compiled a remarkable collection of reflections by lawyers, judges, and academics who represent many different branches of Christianity. The reader is likely to find many role models to emulate and the inspiration to continue to fight the good fight in these accounts grounded in legal and Christian thought. Reading about these real-life ethical dilemmas, conflicting loyalties, and personal difficulties offers the reassurance that others have shared their ongoing struggle to rhyme their career with their faith. Although every lawyer will find Can a Good Christian Be a Good Lawyer? especially meaningful, these essays speak to all persons of faith who strive to practice their beliefs in their work.
Redeeming Law by
Being a Christian lawyer is possible, but not easy.Law professor Michael Schutt believes that although there are significant obstacles, Christians belong in the legal profession and should regard it as a sacred calling. The Christian God is, after all, a God concerned with justice, both divine and human. However, the pathway beginning with law school and leading to the daily demands of practice doesn't provide much guidance for pursuing law as a Christian calling. Schutt offers this book as a vital resource for reconceiving the theoretical foundations of law and gives practical guidance for maintaining integrity within a challenging profession. A hopeful and practical book for law students and those serving in the legal profession.
Law and the Bible by
The Bible is full of law.Yet too often, Christians either pick and choose verses out of context to bolster existing positions, or assume that any moral judgment the Bible expresses should become the law of the land. Law and the Bible asks: What inspired light does the Bible shed on Christians' participation in contemporary legal systems? It concludes that more often than not the Bible overturns our faulty assumptions and skewed commitments rather than bolsters them. In the process, God gives us greater insight into what all of life, including law, should be.Each chapter is cowritten by a legal professional and a theologian, and focuses on a key aspect of the biblical witness concerning civil or positive law--that is, law that human societies create to order their communities, implementing and enforcing it through civil government. A foundational text for legal professionals, law and prelaw students, and all who want to think in a faithfully Christian way about law and their relationship to it.
Christianity and Law by
What impact has Christianity had on the law from its beginnings to the present day? This introduction explores the main legal teachings of Western Christianity, set out in the texts and traditions of scripture and theology, philosophy and jurisprudence. It takes up the weightier matters of the law that Christianity has profoundly shaped - justice and mercy, rule and equity, discipline and love - as well as more technical topics of canon law, natural law, and state law. Some of these legal creations were wholly original to Christianity. Others were converted from Jewish and classical traditions. Still others were reformed by Renaissance humanists and Enlightenment philosophers. But whether original or reformed, these Christian teachings on law, politics and society have made and can continue to make fundamental contributions to modern law in the West and beyond.
God's Joust, God's Justice by
There are three things that people will die for -- their faith, their freedom, and their family. This volume focuses on all three, including the interactions among them, in the Western tradition and today. Retrieving and reconstructing a wealth of material from the earliest Hebrew and Greek texts of the West to the latest machinations of the Supreme Court, John Witte explores the legal and theological foundations of authority and liberty, equality and dignity, rights and duties, marriage and family, crime and punishment, and similar topics. God's Joust, God's Justice is a lucid scholarly introduction to the burgeoning field of law and religion and a learned historical inquiry into the weightier matters of the law.
The New Jim Crow by
In a bold and innovative argument, a rising legal star shows readers how the mass incarceration of a disproportionate number of black men amounts to a devastating system of racial control. This is a terrifying reality that exists in the UK as much as in the US. Despite the triumphant dismantling of the Jim Crow laws, the system that once forced African-Americans into a segregated second-class citizenship still haunts and the criminal justice system still unfairly targets black men and deprives an entire segment of the population of their basic rights.
Good News about Injustice by
World Vision and the International Justice Mission have cooperated with InterVarsity Press to develop outstanding resources to accompany Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen. This study guide and video are ideally suited for use by small groups, adult education classes, mission committees and college courses to enhance understanding of God's response to situations of injustice and ways God is calling Christians to respond.
Law and Revolution, I by
The roots of modern Western legal institutions and concepts go back nine centuries to the Papal Revolution, when the Western church established its political and legal unity and its independence from emperors, kings, and feudal lords. Out of this upheaval came the Western idea of integrated legal systems consciously developed over generations and centuries. Harold J. Berman describes the main features of these systems of law, including the canon law of the church, the royal law of the major kingdoms, the urban law of the newly emerging cities, feudal law, manorial law, and mercantile law. In the coexistence and competition of these systems he finds an important source of the Western belief in the supremacy of law. Written simply and dramatically, carrying a wealth of detail for the scholar but also a fascinating story for the layman, the book grapples with wide-ranging questions of our heritage and our future. One of its main themes is the interaction between the Western belief in legal evolution and the periodic outbreak of apocalyptic revolutionary upheavals. Berman challenges conventional nationalist approaches to legal history, which have neglected the common foundations of all Western legal systems. He also questions conventional social theory, which has paid insufficient attention to the origin of modern Western legal systems and has therefore misjudged the nature of the crisis of the legal tradition in the twentieth century.
The Impact of the Protestant Reformations on the Western Legal Tradition by
Harold Berman's masterwork narrates the interaction of evolution and revolution in the development of Western law. This new volume explores two successive transformations of the Western legal tradition under the impact of the sixteenth-century German Reformation and the seventeenth-century English Revolution, with particular emphasis on Lutheran and Calvinist influences. Berman examines the far-reaching consequences of these apocalyptic political and social upheavals on the systems of legal philosophy, legal science, criminal law, civil and economic law, and social law in Germany and England and throughout Europe as a whole. Berman challenges both conventional approaches to legal history, which have neglected the religious foundations of Western legal systems, and standard social theory, which has paid insufficient attention to the communitarian dimensions of early modern economic law, including corporation law and social welfare. Clearly written and cogently argued, this long-awaited, magisterial work is a major contribution to an understanding of the relationship of law to Western belief systems.
Just Mercy : a Story of Justice and Redemption by
"Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn't commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship--and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer's coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice"--Amazon.com.
Redeeming Law by
Being a Christian lawyer is possible, but not easy.Law professor Michael Schutt believes that although there are significant obstacles, Christians belong in the legal profession and should regard it as a sacred calling. The Christian God is, after all, a God concerned with justice, both divine and human. However, the pathway beginning with law school and leading to the daily demands of practice doesn't provide much guidance for pursuing law as a Christian calling. Schutt offers this book as a vital resource for reconceiving the theoretical foundations of law and gives practical guidance for maintaining integrity within a challenging profession. A hopeful and practical book for law students and those serving in the legal profession.
Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought by
This book explores for the first time the broad range of ways in which Christian thought intersects with American legal theory. Eminent legal scholars--including Stephen Carter, Thomas Shaffer, Elizabeth Mensch, Gerard Bradley, and Marci Hamilton--describe how various Christian traditions, including the Catholic, Calvinist, Anabaptist, and Lutheran traditions, understand law and justice, society and the state, and human nature and human striving. The book reveals not only the diversity among Christian legal thinkers but also the richness of the Christian tradition as a source for intellectual and ethical approaches to legal inquiry. The contributors bring various perspectives to the subject. Some engage the prominent schools of legal thought: liberalism, legal realism, critical legal studies, feminism, critical race theory, and law and economics. Others address substantive areas, including environmental, criminal, contract, torts, and family law, as well as professional responsibility. Together the essays introduce a new school of legal thought that will make a signal contribution to contemporary discussions of law.
God, Justice And Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible by
What is the real meaning of 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'? Where did the idea for the 'Jubilee 2000' and 'Drop the Debt' campaigns come from? And what, really, are the 'Ten Commandments'? In God, Justice, and Society, Jonathan Burnside looks at aspects of law and legality in theBible, from the patriarchal narratives in the Hebrew Bible through to the trials of Jesus in the New Testament. He explores the nature of biblical law, legal thinking, and legal institutions by setting the biblical texts in their literary, social, and theological context.Burnside questions the biblical texts from the perspective of an academic lawyer and criminologist and asks what the biblical materials contribute to our understanding about the nature and character of law. He examines much of biblical law and narrative that has formed the basis of Westerncivilization, while at the same time exploring differences between biblical law and modern legal concepts and legal assumptions. The resulting book is a cross-disciplinary analysis which recognizes the integration of law and theology.God, Justice and Society presents biblical law as an integration of instructional genres in the Bible which together express a vision of a society ultimately accountable to God. Burnside seeks to understand both the application of law and legal theory to the Bible and the extent to which biblicallaw contributes important insights into legal dilemmas in today's world.A holistic teaching website to support this book, containing downloadable resources, is available at www.seekjustice.co.uk.