Agape, Justice, and Law: How Might Christian Love Shape Law?

Description

In a provocative essay, philosopher Jeffrie G. Murphy asks: 'what would law be like if we organized it around the value of Christian love, and if we thought about and criticized law in terms of that value?'. This book brings together leading scholars from a variety of disciplines to address that question. Scholars have given surprisingly little attention to assessing how the central Christian ethical category of love - agape - might impact the way we understand law. This book aims to fill that gap by investigating the relationship between agape and law in Scripture, theology, and jurisprudence, as well as applying these insights to contemporary debates in criminal law, tort law, elder law, immigration law, corporate law, intellectual property, and international relations. At a time when the discourse between Christian and other world views is more likely to be filled with hate than love, the implications of agape for law are crucial.

Robert F. Cochran, Jr is Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Pepperdine University, California and Director of the Herbert and Elinor Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics. He is the author or co-author of ten books and over sixty articles. Zachary R. Calo is Professor of Law at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar, and Research Scholar in Law and Religion at Valparaiso University, Indiana.

'Taken together, the essays in Agape, Justice, and Law are searching analyses of the relation of agape and justice as well as prophetic critiques of contemporary American law with its often questionable assumptions about duties, rights, punishment, property, and the collective good. In seeking to envision a more excellent way for the law, the volume enriches discussion about what a more humane, just, and viable legal order might be.' Bradley Shingleton, Reading Religion 'As such, agape 'offers a vision ... of interest to those from other traditions ... both because they are likely to have analogous sources of value and because agape presents an inherently attractive foundation for law'.' Paul T. Babie, Journal of Church and State 'Cochran and Calo should be commended for marshalling an impressive roster of authors and chapters. This volume stands on its own and will make a valuable contribution to the literature of the interdisciplinary interaction of Christianity and law. Its chapters must be dealt with by any scholar who seeks to further develop a comprehensive legal theory upon the rock of Christianity.' Jeffrey B. Hammond, Comparative Legal History