What is the proper role of religion in public life? To what extent should religious belief shape our political discourse? How should religious leaders approach politics? How should political leaders approach religion?

This two-week course will introduce students to the perennial and contemporary political, philosophical, and moral issues that bear on the topic of religion and politics. For the first week students will consider the ways in which religion and politics intersect in a liberal democracy. In the second week, led by legal scholar Adam J. White, students will examine the interactions of law and religion in America, tracing Supreme Court jurisprudence and the role of the government in limiting or protecting religious freedom through history.

Image: Alexander Rider & Hugh Bridport, Camp-Meeting, c.1830 courtesy Library Company of Philadelphia 

Adam White on religious freedom in America

This two-week course will take place in Washington, DC. It is a full-time commitment for Monday–Friday, with required sessions in the morning, afternoon, and some evenings.

Faculty

Adam J. White

Adam J. White is a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and an Assistant Professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he also directs the Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.

Adam J. White

Adam J. White is a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and an Assistant Professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he also directs the Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. He writes widely on the administrative state, the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and regulatory policy, with special focus on energy policy and financial regulation.

He is a Contributing Editor with National Affairs, The New Atlantis, and City Journal, and a contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation‘s blog, “Notice and Comment.” He was recently appointed to the Administrative Conference of the United States, a federal advisory board focused on improving federal agencies’ practices. He also serves on the leadership council of the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law Section; on the executive committee of the Federalist Society’s Administrative Law Practice Group; and on the board of directors of LandCAN, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting conservation on working lands.

Prior to joining AEI, he was a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.  In addition to his research and writing, he practiced law with Boyden Gray & Associates, writing briefs on constitutional and regulatory issues in the Supreme Court and various other federal courts. (He continues to be “of counsel” to the firm in three pending cases involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Communications Commission.) Previously, he was a Senior Associate with Baker Botts, working on various constitutional and regulatory matters, including energy infrastructure regulation.

He received his J.D. (cum laude) from Harvard Law School, and his B.B.A. (economics) from the University of Iowa College of Business. He clerked for Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session

READINGS:

 

QUESTIONS:

  1. According to Locke, why is the care of souls not the business of civil society?
  2. In what does the act of tolerating consist? Is it only a negative “action”?
  3. What is Locke’s argument against theocracy?
  4. What goes into Locke’s distinction between practical and speculative articles of faith?
  5. According to Madison, why is the exercise of religion a natural right? What is the relationship between the religious person’s right and duties?
  6. What are Madison’s principled or deductive arguments against religious tests? What are his empirical or inductive arguments against them? Why does he use both?

READINGS:

 

QUESTIONS:

  1.  Livy describes fear of the gods as “a principle of the greatest efficacy with the multitude, in that rude and ignorant age.” How did Numa use that principle for political ends? What political functions did religious rituals serve under Numa?
  2. Why was Numa unconcerned with the dangers of theocracy? Should he have been concerned?
  3. In this chapter, Rousseau argues that theological and civil intolerance are the same. What is his argument for this claim? Is it effective?
  4. According to Rousseau, what are the three kinds of religion and how do they fit (or not fit) with civil society?
  5. Why does Rousseau claim that religious and civil obligations are necessarily incompatible? Is he correct?

READINGS:

 

QUESTIONS:

  1. How—both in practice and in theory—does the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom combine in early New England? Where the combination falters, is there a solution that does not require diluting either spirit?
  2. How does the separation of church and state contribute to the co-reign of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom? How does it contribute to the individual benefit of each?
  3. What is the utility of religion? What is its special utility among democratic peoples?
  4. What did Tocqueville mean by “pantheism,” and why did he think democratic citizens were likely to find it attractive?

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Ryan P. Hanley

Ryan Patrick Hanley is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. His research in the history of political philosophy focuses on the Enlightenment. He is the author of Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life and Love’s Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity.

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James W. Ceaser

James W. Ceaser is Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1976, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.  He has written several books on American politics and political thought, including Presidential Selection and Liberal Democracy and Political Science.

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Richard M. Reinsch II

Richard M. Reinsch II is the founding editor of Liberty Fund’s online journal Law and Liberty and the host of LibertyLawTalk. He writes frequently for such publications as National Affairs, Modern Age, National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, and The University Bookman, among other publications.

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Robert C. Bartlett

Robert C. Bartlett is the Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Studies at Boston College. His principal area of research is classical political philosophy, with particular attention to the thinkers of ancient Hellas, including Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. He is the co-translator of a new edition of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.