God in the Irish Constitution

Dr. David Kenny is Assistant Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin

Upon first reading, God, and some of his consistent personages, plays a striking and prominent role in the Irish Constitution. But like many things, the meaning and effect of this is not as clear and as obvious as one might think, and the real story of the God in the Irish Constitution is more complicated than one might initially assume.

A Godly Preamble

In their first week of law school, I have my Constitutional Law students read the Irish Constitution and ask for their impressions. For almost all of them, it is their first time reading the text in full. Every year, multiple students note the religiosity of the text as the most striking feature. Before even that most common invocation of popular power “We, the people,” our Constitution’s Preamble begins with a very different invocation:

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God in Secular Constitutions

Dmytro Vovk, Director of the Center for the Rule of Law and Religion Studies at Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University and co-editor of Talk About: Law and Religion

Carl Schmitt points out in Political Theology that “all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.” Likewise, many doctrines and concepts of modern constitutionalism have theological roots and have been developed in the dialogue with religious tradition. Religion has never fully disappeared from texts of secular constitutions—it lingers in symbolic references to God, religious formulas in presidential oaths, constitutional agreements with churches of majorities, and so on.

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Church Closures, Religious Freedom, and the Coronavirus Pandemic: Assessing the Christian Legal Movement’s Response

Andrew Lewis is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati

 

 

 

 

Daniel Bennett is Associate Professor of Political Science at John Brown University and Assistant Director at the Center for Faith and Flourishing

 

 

 

 

 

During the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, many state and local governments enacted restrictions on large gatherings in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Restaurants were closed, concerts and sporting events canceled, store capacities limited, and Sunday worship services halted. It was a sudden and seismic shift in the American way of life.

Religious Americans generally complied with orders pertaining to worship services, but many also expressed concerns about such regulation of religious life. Across several national surveys, white evangelicals were more likely than others to support churches defying government restrictions. Moreover, there were clear partisan gaps coinciding with support or opposition to these restrictions. Additionally, one study linked defiant attitudes to whether states had either no restrictions or strong restrictions, and another study connected defiance to trust in Fox News. In general, the politics of COVID restrictions on churches reflect the growing polarization of religious freedom, one that is poised to play a major role in future—and, in many ways, current—culture wars.

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