Webinar God in Secular Constitutions held on 7 Dec 2020 to learn more about religion and secular constitutionalism with focus on the Australian, German, Polish, and Russian constitutions.
Speakers: Brett G. Scharffs, Justin Collings, Nicholas Aroney, Mikhail Antonov, Piotr Szymaniec.
Moderated by Dmytro Vovk.
Brett G. Scharffs is the Rex E. Lee Chair, Professor of Law, and the Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University. BSBA, MA Georgetown University, B.Phil Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), JD Yale Law School
The blog/webinar model represents a new and important method for doing meaningful work. We can listen and learn from each other, even when we cannot be physically together, and it allows us to post the work quickly and get it into the marketplace of ideas. This is important with the world we live in, and the rapidly changing situation with COVID. I’d like to thank all of our scholars, thanks to those of you who are joining us to listen, and thanks to those who are speaking. We will be focusing today on secular constitutionalism in Poland, Russia, Germany, and Australia.
Dr. Alex Deagon is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the Queensland University of Technology
The preamble of the Australian Constitution states that the people of the six self-governing colonies agree to federate into a Commonwealth while ‘humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God.’ While the post in this series by Nicholas Aroney discusses some of the history behind and legal implications of this recognition of God in the preamble, my post will focus on the symbolic significance of recognizing God in the preamble of a liberal, democratic constitution [1].