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A groundbreaking new collection,
Christianity and Constitutionalism offers a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives on the relationship between Christian thought, history, and practice, and constitutional law and its related fields.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Contributors
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 INTRODUCTION: Christianity and Constitutionalism
- Nicholas Aroney and Ian Leigh
- Part I: The Historical Influence of Christianity
- 2 OLD TESTAMENT: Torah and Constitutionalism
- Jonathan Burnside
- 3 NEW TESTAMENT: "But our constitution is in heaven": New Testament sketches on the people of God between divine law and earthly rulers
- Dorothea H. Bertschmann
- 4 ANTIQUITY: Constantine and Constitutionalism
- Peter Leithart
- 5 PATRISTIC ERA: Augustine's Constitutionalism: Citizenship, Common Good, and Consent
- Mary Keys and Colleen Mitchell
- 6 MIDDLE AGES: Canon Law Constitutionalism?
- Richard Helmholz
- 7 REFORMATION: The Protestant Reformation of Constitutionalism
- John Witte Jr.
- 8 MODERNITY: Understanding Law and Constitutionalism in Modernity: The Critical Contribution of English Reformation Public Theology
- Joan Lockwood O'Donovan
- Part II: Christian Perspectives on Constitutionalism
- 9 SOVEREIGNTY: Dual, Plural and One
- Joel Harrison
- 10 RULE OF LAW: The Sacred Roots and Secular Shoots of the Supreme Law
- Li-ann Thio
- 11 DEMOCRACY: Self-Government and the Kingdom of Heaven
- Richard Ekins
- 12 SEPARATION OF POWERS: Biblical Foundations of the Separation of Powers and the Catalytical Judicial Role
- Carlos Bernal
- 13 RIGHTS: Christian Constitutional Rights?
- Julian Rivers
- 14 FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE: Freedom of Conscience Assessing the Christian Contribution
- Ian Leigh
- 15 FEDERALISM: A Legal, Political and Religious Archaeology
- Nicholas Aroney
- PART III: Christian Theology and Constitutionalism
- 16 REVELATION: Scripture and Covenant
- David VanDrunen
- 17 TRINITY: Against Leviathan: The Implications of Trinitarian Theology for Constitutionalism
- David McIlroy
- 18 JUSTICE: Justice the Constitution and the Purpose of the Political Community
- Jonathan Chaplin
- 19 CHRISTOLOGY: Christology and Constitutionalism
- Tracey Rowland
- 20 NATURAL LAW: Natural Law and Natural Right Revisited
- John Milbank
- 21 SUBSIDIARITY: Origins and Contemporary Aspects
- Iain T. Benson
- 22 ESCHATOLOGY: The Greater Operation of Liberty
- Douglas Farrow
About the author
Nicholas Aroney is Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Queensland and Affiliated Faculty of the Centre for Law and Religion at Emory University. He has a law degree from the University of Queensland, a PhD from Monash University and has held visiting positions at Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Edinburgh, Sydney, Emory and Tilburg universities. He is the author of over 150 articles, book chapters and books on constitutional law, comparative federalism, law and religion, and religious freedom, including The Constitution of a Federal Commonwealth: The Making and Meaning of the Australian Constitution (2009), Shari'a in the West (OUP, 2010) and The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia: History, Principle and Interpretation (2015). In 2010 he also received of a prestigious four-year Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council to study comparative federalism. In 2017-18 he was appointed to the Australian Prime Minister's Expert Panel on Religious Freedom
which submitted its report in May 2018.
Ian Leigh is Emeritus Professor of Law at Durham University. He has held visiting positions at Osgoode Hall Law School and the universities of Otago, Florida, Virginia and Melbourne. He is author of around 100 articles, book chapters and books on public law and human rights including In From the Cold: National Security and Parliamentary Democracy (OUP, 1994), with Laurence Lustgarten, Law Politics and Local Democracy (OUP, 2000), Making Rights Real: the Human Rights Act in its First Decade (2008) with Roger Masterman, and Religious Freedom in the Liberal State (2nd ed, OUP, 2013), with Rex Ahdar. He is currently a British Academy Wolfson Research Professor working on a funded study 'Freedom of Conscience: Emerging Challenges and Future Prospects'.
Summary
Christianity and Constitutionalism offers innovative and thoughtful analyses of the relationship between religious thought and constitutional law. Part I features contributions from historians, recounting how the relationship between the Christian faith and fundamental ideas about law, justice, and government has evolved from era to era. Part II provides analyses from constitutional lawyers on the normative implications of Christianity for particular themes in constitutional law, including sovereignty, the rule of law, democracy, the separation of powers, human rights, conscience, and federalism. Part III rounds out the study with theologians focused on particular Christian doctrines, exploring their constructive and sometimes critical implications for constitutionalism. As a whole, Christianity and Constitutionalism breaks new ground by offering wide-ranging, interdisciplinary contributions to the study of the relationship between the Christian religion and constitutional law.
Additional text
This substantial volume makes a significant contribution to mapping a topic that ranges over the disciplines of history, jurisprudence and theology.
