"Evangelicals and Catholics Together on Law: The Lord of Heaven and Earth"

Well, it's been a long time coming -- about 8 years, I think, when Bob Cochran and I met in New York with Fr. Richard Neuhaus -- but "Evangelicals and Catholics Together on Law:  The Lord of Heaven and Earth" is now out.  You can get it, thanks to the Journal of Christian Legal Thought, here.  (It will also be published in Villanova's Journal of Catholic Social Thought).  The document is called “Evangelicals and Catholics Together on Law”, and it is signed by a dozen or so legal scholars from both faith groups.

Over the last eight years, many of us met at several meetings to get to know one another, learn about our histories, and draft this document.  We had some amazing collaborators.  We met for a weekend at Notre Dame with historians John McGreevy and George Marsden.  They traced our communities’ history of conflict (mostly) and collaboration (more recently) on the subject of law.  Then we met at Pepperdine with philosopher/theologians Bradley Lewis, Dallas Willard, Joan Lockwood O’Donovan, and Oliver O’Donovan.  They helped us think through both our overlapping and conflicting ideas about law.  Then we met for major drafting sessions at Villanova and New Orleans.  The major drafting oars went to (volunteers) Patrick Brennan and Bill Brewbaker.  The attached document is the product of their work, with input from the broad range of people who attended our meetings and commented on earlier drafts.  And, at law year's Lumen Christi / Christian Law Professors Fellowship meeting at the AALS, we had a really productive panel at which scholars from a variety of faith traditions reacted to, and thoughtfully criticized, the statement.

Please consider reading the statement and sharing it.  Future issues of the Journal will be publishing some responses to it.