‘Faith’ Not Compatible With Law School
Good – now by way of relief from the water-muddying of Ruse, let us turn to David Rudenstine, Dean of Cardozo Law School. At last, someone says it!
In a provocative address last week…the dean of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law warned of a “collision course with democratic order and social unity” as politically outspoken religious leaders wield increasing influence over the nation’s public policy. Dean David Rudenstine…further suggested that U.S. jurisprudence and legal education were “very much on the defensive,” in part because strict secularism as a legal paradigm is seen by the faithful — including some at Christian law schools — as an insufficient context for policy issues such as abortion rights, homosexual marriage, stem-cell research and Darwin’s theory of evolution. Mr. Rudenstine said that America’s law schools have a social responsibility, especially at a time of religious fundamentalism, to foster reasoned debate over the facts and science of such controversial matters.
Thank you. Reasoned debate over the facts and science. Precisely.
“Faith challenges the underpinnings of legal education,” Mr. Rudenstine declared. “Faith is a willingness to accept belief in things for which we have no evidence, or which runs counter to evidence we have.” He added, “Faith does not tolerate opposing views, does not acknowledge inconvenient facts. Law schools stand in fundamental opposition to this.”
Bingo! That’s exactly it – and that’s what you’re not allowed to say. ‘Faith’ is not a virtue, ‘faith’ is not the right basis for discussion of public issues, in fact it’s exactly the wrong basis for discussion of public issues, for exactly that reason – because it’s a willingness to accept belief in things for which we have no evidence, or which runs counter to evidence we have. And it doesn’t tolerate opposing views and it doesn’t acknowledge inconvenient facts. But how often do people come right out and say that? In public, I mean. Not damn well often enough.
Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, was quick to associate himself with Mr. Rudenstine’s thesis…”No one expects politicians and policy-makers to divorce themselves entirely from the roots of their belief system, but in the United States, our laws have to be based on secular justifications.”
Just so. You can derive your moral views from any belief system you like, but when it comes to making actual laws, you have to give secular justifications, not religious ones. You have to come up with something more (and better) than ‘God said so.’ For one thing, ‘God’ said a lot of things, and some of them are quite disgusting.
Regent Law Dean Jeffrey A. Brauch countered, “I don’t think you can understand the historic development of law in this country if you don’t understand the role that religion has played, the role that faith and the church has played.” Much of the U.S. legal system, he said, comes from British common law, which “has a theological basis. Why is it we believe a king or a government ruler is obliged to some higher authority? It’s because there was a belief that there was a God and a higher law,” he said.
We don’t. We don’t, we don’t, we don’t.
Mr. Brauch said he believes in a “reasonable faith” as opposed to a “blind faith,” and that Regent and other religious law schools simply add spiritual dimension to academic pursuit. “Let’s say we’re talking about family law,” said Mr. Brauch. “Somebody in the class has a strong belief that a family with both a mother and father in a heterosexual marriage is better for children. I would hope that our students wouldn’t merely say, ‘That’s what I believe because it’s what I’ve always been taught,’ but that they’d look at a tremendous amount of empirical research that would show that, and then ask what that could mean for public policy.”
Well exactly, you fool! That’s what we’re saying! [takes deep breath] Look, if you look at empirical research and then ask what it could mean for public policy – that’s all we’re talking about. You’ll notice you forgot to mention your pal God there. This is our point. You don’t need it. It doesn’t add anything. You need the research and the analysis of the research and what it will mean, you don’t need God.
But of course he thinks he does. It’s sad, isn’t it – he sees the basic point, and yet he can’t take it in. Too stuck in that ‘spiritual dimension.’
But let’s hope more people will start doing a Rudenstine, and pointing out the problem with ‘faith.’
“Much of the U.S. legal system, [Brauch] said, comes from British common law, which ‘has a theological basis. Why is it we believe a king or a government ruler is obliged to some higher authority? It’s because there was a belief that there was a God and a higher law,’ he said.”
Of all the outright lies of the religious right wingnuts in the U.S., this one is among the most insidious and repugnant. This claims is part and parcel of the “this is and has always been a Christian nation” bullshit these people advance through sheer repetition, in lieu of any shred of reason or evidence – or even vague plausibility.
While British common law has a complex history, there is no intellectually honest way to read that history that permits one to believe that the authority of its laws flow – even in a very indirect fashion – from the divine right of kings. Rather the opposite is the case: It is, after all, British COMMON law.
More importantly, the fact that Britich common law forms some of the foundation for the content and form of our legal system, that has no bearing on where the AUTHORITY of law comes from. The first three words of Constitution cite the ONLY source of authority for our government and our laws: “We the People…” Anyone who says otherwise is a bold-faced liar, period.
How delightful it is to be self-righteously stuck-up, especially when you are right!
The Christian belief system allows certain things to be right (or wrong) whatever the law says. It demands that despite that disagreement, you are subject to the law. Conflict between moral and legal duty is in its foundation.
As for the Common Law, it is founded in practical matters, the outcomes in local courts. It flows back before Christ got the upper hand in Britain. Statute law has plenty of religiously motivated laws, eg in late 17th century a fine of five shillings in the State of Massachusetts if you fail to attend Church while domiciled within five miles of one.
After almost 2000 years of various efforts to combine the practicalities of law and government with religious practice, I think we can say that the trend of rationality is a winner in that it produced God’s gift to Humanity, the UUUUUnited States plus modern science, less dead babies, enough to eat and female emancipation.
Hasn’t cured self-righteous castigation of people with whom we disagree, I think?
Yep. Brian Leiter had a link to something John Adams wrote that would refute the lie – but I couldn’t find it on the site linked – which is a ‘what Congress is doing’ site, so updated very often, so links apparently go out of date very fast. So I haven’t linked to it.
RE:
But let’s hope more people will start doing a Rudenstine, and pointing out the problem with ‘faith.’
there is sam harris’ book _the end of faith_ in which he states bluntly that faith poses the most serious threat to human survival.
RE: adams and US founding fathers
not an academic/historian site, but it has something you might be looking for:
http://www.postfun.com/worbois.html
some tidbits:
Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 states:
“The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded
on the Christian religion.”
James Madison:
“What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical
establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been
upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they
been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who
wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy
convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and
perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy.”
Ah – thanks, Louis. That was it – the Treaty of Tripoli quotation. I’m tempted to get a sweatshirt with that inscribed on it.
As far as the supposed Christian basis of English common law, Thomas Jefferson pointed out the truth of the matter (I don’t recall the exact text – I think a letter of Jefferson’s): the roots of common law extend back before Christianity was introduced to the kingdom. In the the phrase of Blackstone, common law is the unwritten law extending back “to time immemorial” and to “time out of mind.” Surely that was before the kingdom was christianized. Dean Rudenstine did a courageous thing is speaking the truth. Law is the last bastion of reason in public life – witness that every judge, even conservative ones, followed the evidence and not faith in the Schiavo case. We cannot afford to allow law to succumb to the religious disaster that has destroyed the political process.
“Law is the last bastion of reason in public life”
One sure as hell hopes so, at least! This religious law school move is…alarming, but then so are a lot of things.
It strikes me that “has a theological basis” has wriggle room enclosed that “is based on god/religion” doesn’t – in that one could turn round and claim ‘well it’s not mainly based on religion but one of its bases was theological, that is there was some religion left in the room while they were making it and some of it probably fell in at some point’. I would expect them to turn round and say if challenged ‘ok so it didn’t directly originate from Gods law but no-one can deny that the formation of Common law was informed by the religion of the day.’ Back, back, backing around in a little circle.
Yeah, I had the same thought – but then Brauch immediately gets rid of the wiggle room with the next sentence. But then he yanks back the wiggle room and then some, with the stuff about ‘reasonable faith’ as opposed to ‘blind faith’ and hoping people look at research. He’s doing a lot of backing and circling. And being incoherent as a result.
food for thought re: law as last bastion.
a tenured u.c. berkeley law professor is one of the most vocal proponents of ID: phil johnson. he uses his rhetorical skills instead of scientific knowledge to confuse the scientifically ignorant public.
having read aristophane’s parody of making the weaker argument the winning one, it appears to me that law is no safe haven against the “faithful.”
By “last bastion” I did not mean that law is invulnerable to irrationality. Some lawyers do engage in sophistry, obviously. Still, the practice of law (unlike politics, especially today) cannot avoid dealing with evidence and argument. Those are the tools of law, and they force one at least to distinguish between what one would like to think is true and what the evidence will support. In addition, law gives a keen sense of degrees of evidence, thus avoiding the routine sophistical sliding from the inability to prove not-X into the claim that X.