Comparative law and religion
Comparative law and religion
Comparative law and religion is a study area resulting from collaboration between the chairs of Canon Law and Systematic Theology at the Faculty of Catholic Theology, Bonn University. It aims to study the normative consequences of complex constellations of believing, belonging, and behaving and their interactions within, between, and across different religious and legal systems.
What do we talk about?
Comparative…
By nature, the field of law and religion involves a degree of comparison between a given religious worldview and a concrete system of law. However, this study area aims to go further by systematically engaging with—and evaluating similarities, differences, and interactions of—different systems and their subsets, including their impact on individuals, groups, and other social entities. Transgressing the religious/secular dichotomy and the boundaries of different traditions, this study area aims to account for the complex constellations of believing, belonging, and behaving created by members of contemporary societies.
…law…
While the notion of ‘law’ tends to refer to the state law, or, in more specific circumstances, a concrete set of rules guiding a given religious tradition, this study area takes a broader perspective. We agree with Leopold J. Pospíšil’s constatation that “every functioning subgroup of a society has its own legal system which is necessarily different in some respects from those of the other subgroups.” In this study area, we are interested in studying the resulting legal pluralism, including the interactions between various legal systems, examining how they are influenced by and, in turn, influence beliefs, relationships, and practices.
…and…
The conjunction ‘and’ in this context signifies the interdisciplinary nature of the study, emphasizing the intersection and mutual influence of law and religion. It highlights the collaborative aspect of the study area, combining legal analysis with comparative theological insights to consider both broader methodological questions and concrete, in-depth case study analyses.
…religion
This study area is interested in ‘religion’ in two different meanings.
On the one hand, it reflects on the notion of ‘religion’ as one of those difficult terms that evade definition. While an approach of ‘you know it when you see it’ can be one way of escaping this problem, this study area takes a critical perspective by arguing that the notion of ‘religion’ is normative itself. How it is applied is not neutral, but is often strategic, relating to existing power relations. In this way, this study area is interested in how the term is used and how it relates to the different legal systems and their interactions.
On the other hand, we are interested in the phenomena that hide under the term, i.e., complex systems of believing, belonging, and behaving. In this sense, religion operates both within large global traditions, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and their denominations, and outside of them, which includes the growing presence of the so-called ‘nones,’ who, while rejecting traditional affiliations, develop their own, personal worldviews.
For more information, please contact dr Ryszard Bobrowicz at: clnr@theol.eu