Law and religion as interacting social systems

The West owes much of its culture to religions. European society has been shaped by two millennia of Christianity, as writers as ideologically and chronologically diverse as Hilaire Belloc’s Europe and the Faith (1920) and Tom Holland’s Dominion (2019) have cogently argued. So, bluntly, does its law, although this has not been given much prominence in legal scholarship.

Sandberg reviews the current state of the study of law and religion in the UK. After detailing the history, he sets out criticisms of the field today, arguing it has taken too legalistic an approach, focusing on litigation and legislation rather than studying the interaction of law and religion.

Drawing on the work of John Witte Jr, Sandberg argues that instead of focusing solely on the legal dimensions of religion, the field should seek an interdisciplinary approach engaging with the religious dimensions of law and law’s interaction with religious ideas and institutions. He compares the field to other legal sub-disciplines, particularly approaches through lenses of feminist, race and critical theories, and interdisciplinary fields of humanities and the law, concluding that law and religion could benefit from similar approaches.

Having diagnosed the problem, Sandberg proposes a solution, drawing on the sociological theories of Niklas Luhmann, of considering law and religion as self-contained but interacting social systems, which would enable a more critical look at both ‘law as religion’ and ‘religion as law’.

As an academic in the field, Sandberg may be better placed than most to identify the issues. However, his solution seems inadequate. One criticism he makes is that the field has become narrow, with a small number of scholars largely talking to each other through a few journals. It is unclear why the approaches he suggests will be any less insular than the legalistic approach he decries – none of the fields he cites as examples are immune from the kind of insularity he complains about.

Rethinking Law and Religion is, in all honesty, a strange beast. Partly biographical, partly an analysis of the state of the field, partly a vision of the future. His argument is not without merit, but his solution to the perceived problem is less than convincing. This volume is for specialists, rather than general readers.

James E Hurford is a solicitor at the Government Legal Department, London