The weekend dilemma....

The crew at Boston College is hard at work planning the 2008 RALS conference, which BC will host next Spring. One issue being discussed is that we may avoid having the conference over a weekend, and rather have it Thursday-Friday or Monday-Tuesday. Two primary considerations are that we allow people the family time they count on over the weekend, and that Jewish participants be able to be home on the Sabbath.

New Schools and innovation

On another blog, I recently suggested an AALS panel on new law schools, in which folks from those new schools could talk about their identities and innovations. Because so many of the newer law schools have a religious identity, I hope that faith issues would be part of the discussion.

Is this a good idea?

Recommended Reading

The Connecticut Law Review has just published John Breen and Michael Scaperlanda's article, Never Get Out'a The Boat: Stenberg v. Carhart and the Future of American Law (39 Conn. L. Rev. 1). In it, the authors critique the Supreme Court's decision in the 2000 Stenberg case on partial-birth abortion in the context of the cases currently pending before the Court. Interestingly, they do so by using the film Apocalypse Now as a framing tool, lending more depth to their concluding question: "Thus, the Court and the people it serves must decide: Do we turn our backs on civilization and head further into the bush, embracing the illusion of freedom in the barbarous license of state-sanctioned killing?"

Please forward me the news...

If you have an event upcoming, especially a conference, please email me at Mark_W_Osler@baylor.edu. I hate it when I get one of those folded cards announcing a great conference... three days before it is scheduled to begin.

What about our fellow travelers in secular institutions?

Yesterday I was in Washington for the arguments in Claiborne and Rita, two sentencing cases before the Supreme Court. Waiting for the session to begin, I fell into conversation with a professor from the University of Virginia Law School. He struck me as a scholar who integrates his faith with his thinking about the law, despite working within a secular institution (UVA).

It would seem that our group has something to offer such fellow-travelers, many of whom might welcome an open discussion of faith issues in a law school context.

The Sacred and The Secular

One of the challenges of teaching law in a religiously-affiliated school is the inherent tension in providing faith-grounded professional training for a thoroughly secular profession. The courtroom contains a flag, but no cross, star, or crescent, and in nearly all contexts within the practice of law faith issues lie hidden.

Thus, we face a troubling challenge. On the one hand, we can err by conforming to the norm and de-contenting our curriculums of the very mention of faith. On the other, we may err by rooting our practices in an overt faith which will then be banned once our students enter the practice of law.

What we struggle to create is something between these two; competence as a professional within a vocation, consistent with and driven by faith. How do we get there?

If you're in L.A., and free on Friday...

Dean Kevin Worthen of BYU tipped me off to this conference sponsored by the J. Rueben Clark Society on Friday and Saturday (February 16 & 17) at Pepperdine. It sounds like a great opportunity-- which apparently others have noticed, since 500 participants have already signed up.