Christianity and Constitutionalism

by Aroney, Nicholas; Leigh, Ian

• ISBN13: 9780197587256
• ISBN10: 0197587259
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2022-09-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The first volume of its kind, Christianity and Constitutionalism explores the contribution of Christianity to constitutional law and constitutionalism as viewed from the perspectives of history, law, and theology. The authors examine a wide range of key figures, including Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Moses, Martin Luther, and Roger Williams, offering innovative and thoughtful analyses of the relationship between religious thought and constitutional law. Part I features contributions from historians and is focused on the historical influence of Christianity on constitutionalism, recounting how the relationship between the Christian faith and fundamental ideas about law, justice, and government has evolved from era to era. Part II offers the analyses of constitutional lawyers, focusing on the normative implications of Christianity for particular themes or topics in constitutional law. The chapters in this section orbit around several central doctrines and principles of this field--including sovereignty, the rule of law, democracy, the separation of powers, human rights, conscience, and federalism--evaluating them from a range of Christian perspectives. 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.

Author Biography

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 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'.

Table 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 & 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