Welcome to the Rutgers Journal of Law & Religion

The Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion was founded in 1999 and is committed to increasing legal scholarship focusing on the intersection of these two dynamic aspects of the human tradition – law and religion.  As a print and online journal, our publication is globally accessible to numerous individuals and an active contributor to the growing conversation about law and religion among scholars, professionals and the general public.
 

Features from our Current Issue

In Can Compassionate Practice Also Be Good Legal Practice?: Answers From the Lives of Buddhist Lawyers, Deborah J. Cantrell offers a snapshot of an alternative method of legal practice—Buddhist lawyering—that eschews the ordinarily adversarial nature of practice for a more compassionate and mindful approach.

In The Bible As a Law Book? Thomas Aquinas on the Juridical Uses of Scripture, William S. Brewbaker III uses Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Law to analyze the role of Scripture in legislating and judging.

In The Economics of Section 170: A Case for the Charitable Deduction of Parochial School Tuition, Meir Katz calls for a re-examination of our long-held assumption that parochial school tuition is not deductible under the Internal Revenue Code in light of the intangible religious benefits those schools provide children and their communities.

In The Coming Demise of the Crucifix, Steven Goldberg cautions advocates for the use of a crucifix as a war memorial on public land that prevailing in court is a pyrrhic victory since religious symbols often lose their sacred meaning when used for secular purposes.

In Immigration Law vs. Religious Freedom: Using the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to Challenge Restrictive Immigration Laws and Practices, Scott D. Pollock argues that the RFRA statute has been underutilized in the immigration context and charts its potential reach in challenging immigration policies that prevent religious organizations from employing foreign nationals.