Welcome to the Center for Law and Religion (CLR) at St. John’s
School of Law.
These are exciting times for people who study law and religion. As
two of the most important institutions in society, law and religion
have always been linked. Law traditionally has looked to religion
for fundamental concepts like justice and equality, and religion
often has made law central to believers’ daily lives. For
centuries, constitutional government has tried to accommodate
religion in a system of ordered liberty, maintaining the separation
of church and state while respecting the deepest commitments of
many citizens.
While the nexus between law and religion is familiar to law
students and lawyers, the relationship is raising new, and urgent,
issues today. Despite the confident predictions of the last
century, religion does not appear to be in terminal, global
decline. On the contrary, religious commitments remain vitally
important for millions of people everywhere. And, as a result of
globalization, people of different faiths, and no faith, are
encountering each other more and more frequently, not only in
settings like intergovernmental organizations and human-rights
tribunals, but in local communities as well – in schools, city
halls, courthouses and neighborhoods throughout the world.
Thus, it is now essential for law students and lawyers – and
citizens generally – to understand more about the complicated ways
in which law and religion can relate to one another. To that end,
we have established CLR, with three broad goals:
- To examine the role of law in the relationship between religion
and the state
- To explore the concept of law in different religious
traditions
- To promote St. John’s
Vincentian mission by encouraging an open dialogue on law and
religion in the local, national and international communities
CLR sponsors academic programs in the United States and abroad.
In the past few years, we have hosted conferences on
laïcité in Paris and public religious symbols in Rome, as
well as the 2010 Religious Legal Theory conference in New York. We
sponsor community events on religious freedom at home and around
the world. We coordinate St. John's law and religion curriculum,
including a colloquium in law and religion that gives students an
opportunity to study cutting-edge issues with the most prominent
thinkers in the field. And we host CLR Forum, a frequently updated web
resource on scholarship, cases, and law and religion news from
across the globe.
This website offers information about CLR's
programs,
curriculum and
faculty. The content is regularly updated, so please visit
often. Feel free to
contact us with any questions or suggestions. We would love to
hear from you and look forward to your participation.
Sincerely,
Mark L. Movsesian