The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, Second Edition
The primary claims of the first edition of George Marsden’s book, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, remain as salient and persuasive as they were thirty years ago: First, Christian academics may—I will argue should—be doing their scholarship from a Christian point of view (more shortly on what that might mean in practice), and second, such scholarship is as appropriate in the secular academy as scholarship from the many other points of view from which scholars write. Christian scholars today need to hear again Marsden’s defense of faith-informed scholarship as some of the same arguments against such scholarship that were addressed by him in the early edition are still being made. Opponents continue to argue that religious arguments are irrational, nonempirical, inaccessible, or inappropriate in a liberal democracy. Current Christian scholars need to hear again Marsden’s responses to these claims.
Some things have changed, however. Marsden is correct that the academic marketplace has continued to move toward increasing diversity, in which “everyone has a minority viewpoint, shaped in part by their various identities” (133). As he acknowledges, this is both good and bad news for Christian scholars. It is good news in the sense that Christians may be less likely to seem “out of place as advocates of one minority perspective among many” (133). It is bad news because academic views on certain contested topics can invite intense criticism from both the right and the left (132). Christian academics may find themselves the targets of criticism from both secular and Christian colleagues, and even from their own worshipping communities (143). Moreover, with the ubiquity of social media, such criticism is both more likely and, unfortunately, less civil. (In my experience, people say things in emails, texts, and social media that they would never say in person.) Our public square—governmental, public, and academic—is often pervaded by incivility, unwillingness to listen to and understand opposing views, and vilification of those with whom one disagrees. It astonishes me how unlike Jesus are some critical responses by fellow believers (from both sides) on contested topics.
Unfortunately, American Christianity has gotten a bad name in the public square to the extent that it is associated with efforts to mobilize for political action to “bring the nation back toward its Christian roots” (137). Such efforts can take different forms, including appropriate advocacy—using secular or religious arguments—for policies that embody certain Christian values. But the most extreme endeavors by so-called “Christian Nationalists”—who are more political than religious—are unabashed in their advocacy for “institutionalizing” Christianity, i.e., creating an American theocracy.1 Many nonbelievers and many Christians, including self-identified evangelicals such as myself, are alarmed by the rhetoric and articulated aspirations of those who advocate for Christian America. The argument against such views is beyond the scope of this review but suffice it to say that I find it necessary and difficult to explain to colleagues that many, perhaps most, conservative Christians do not fall into this camp. The Christian Nationalism movement, which in its current form has arisen since Marsden wrote the first edition, places an extra burden on the discipline of Christian scholarship.
Some of the contemporary disputed issues that have caused the most public conflict—those involving race, sexuality, religious freedom, free speech, abortion, and, in recent days, the power of the executive branch of the federal government—have particular salience in the world of legal academia that I inhabit. The things we write about and teach in law schools are not simply views to discuss, but views that could be enacted into laws or affect judicial opinions that enhance or limit personal rights and liberties and set policy priorities. Legal scholars’ views on criminal justice reform influence criminal laws and procedures. Academic writings on same-sex marriage have been reflected in judicial opinions and enacted into law. Scholarly arguments about abortion can persuade courts to change course or lead to legislative action. Amicus briefs by legal scholars can have dramatic effects on how cases are decided by federal courts, including the Supreme Court.2 All of this makes Christian legal scholarship particularly important and powerful, but also more fraught.
So, what, exactly, is “Christian scholarship”? Professor Marsden identifies two categories: The first is secular scholarship that has been influenced by values and beliefs that come from Christian sources. For example, beliefs about the nature and eternal value of the world and human beings, God’s work in the world, and Christian eschatology. Nicholas Wolterstorff calls these background commitments “control beliefs” because “even if not directly expressed, they act as significant controls on what other beliefs and theories we are willing to entertain” (56). In such scholarship (and the teaching that goes with it), which I will call “faith-infused scholarship,” Christian perspectives are defended not by quoting Bible verses but by using secular arguments (54–55). For example, when I write about the regulation of the police, or qualified immunity in civil rights cases, or teach my students the limitations of the “law and economics” approach to tort law, I appeal to arguments that I embrace in part out of Christian understandings but that often capture secular values many of my students and colleagues share. When I explain to my students what I think it means to “think like a lawyer,” I use a framework outlined by founder of the International Justice Mission, Gary Haugen, to describe the work of justice from a Christian perspective.3 When I urge my students to think critically about the world they are creating by the cases they take and the arguments they make, I am teaching from a teleological perspective that is deeply Christian.
I would speak more strongly than Marsden by saying that not only may Christian academics do this kind of scholarship—his primary argument in the first edition—but that they should be doing it: “Whatever” Christians do—including in their vocations—they are to do it “as working for the Lord, not for human masters” (Colossians 3:23, italics mine). While I cannot lay out a full theology of work in this review, a few key verses make the point: God has made us stewards to “work” and “take care of” the earth he created, (Genesis 2:15); he has called us “co-workers in God’s service” (1 Corinthians 3:9); “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10); and we are to “give [ourselves] fully to the work of the Lord because . . . [our] labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Christian scholars are called to a “faith-infused perspective” in setting goals and priorities for their scholarship, including what is important to study, what are the questions that should “organize [their] interpretations” of the subject matter, and which theories to choose or reject for further study (71).
This “faith-infused” Christian scholarship may not always be distinctive from the views and conclusions drawn in secular scholarship (78–79). But that should not be surprising because all ideas that are really “true” are true because they reflect the creation, fall, redemption, and consummation story that accurately describes reality in the world God created. Of course, it is important to emphasize, as Marsden does, that there is “no one Christian view on any subject” (80). But if Christian scholars make theologically-informed, plausible, and wise arguments—and this is an important if, because human reasoning is finite, often sinful, and sometimes arrogantly wrong—and approach their scholarship with humility (146), their academic work should reinforce values that arise out of the Christian story. Notably, those very values might be embraced by secular scholars who have no acquaintance with or interest in the story itself.
A second category of Christian scholarship makes Christian perspectives explicit (57). Christian legal scholarship of this ilk has found places to flourish in the mainstream legal academy. One example is Emory University Professor John Witte’s ongoing project on Christian Legal Studies.4 This project has published multiple volumes of essays by Christian legal scholars in two edited book series (the Christianity and Law Introductions series and a series on Great Christian Jurists in World History).5 The Christian Legal Studies project has also nurtured countless Christian legal scholars. The Nootbar Institute for Law, Religion and Ethics at Pepperdine University Law School has also had a key role in promoting Christian legal scholarship through a series of conferences inviting Christians from mostly secular law schools to present papers applying Christian theology to legal issues.6 Many of these articles were ultimately published in legal journals. Professor Robert Cochran, the then-director of the Nootbar Institute, co-edited one of the earliest collections of such writings, entitled Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought.7 He has also edited two other collections of essays by legal academics and theologians entitled Law and the Bible: Justice, Mercy and Legal Institutions8 and Agape, Justice and Law: How Might Christian Love Shape Law?,9 among other publications.10 In addition, both Notre Dame Law School and Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law have had a prominent role in promoting Christian legal scholarship and mentoring scholars. I have chosen to describe some of the earliest, and most high-volume, efforts to promote Christian legal scholarship but there is a long list of individual Christian legal scholars who contributed to the above publications and wrote their own books and articles. I apologize to my many wonderful colleagues for not having space to acknowledge their substantial contributions to this literature and for the projects and centers fostering Christian scholarship that I may not know about.11
Some may wonder about the value of this explicitly Christian legal scholarship, asking whether it is read exclusively by other Christian scholars and not by secular legal scholars. It is difficult to know if works of this type are siloed or not. Even if they are, though, such scholarship is worthwhile for the formative influence it has on other Christian scholars, especially younger scholars. Christian legal scholarship by colleagues further along in their vocational journey can serve as a model for how younger scholars’ subject matter choices, questions, interpretations, and theories might be shaped by their faith commitments. In addition, Christian legal scholars working in similar subject areas can learn from each other’s scholarship. There is value in these scholars finding community with one another, gathering in conferences to present and discuss their work, exchanging comments on one another’s drafts, and so forth. Such community promotes excellence in the scholarship (118–20). Moreover, for many Christian scholars it is essential because, while they may be experts in their disciplines, they may have little or no formal theological training. They need to develop and perfect the craft of applying their faith to the discipline of law. Most will not have received help in doing this from the churches they have attended because, unfortunately, many clergy do not teach on how to “think Christianly” about one’s vocation.
Sometimes well-formulated theological arguments by Christian legal scholars have changed the trajectory of specific areas of legal thinking or jurisprudence. For example, in early conversations about the modern federal income tax, Christians were influential in arguing for a progressive tax.12 Christian arguments were also instrumental in the development of human rights in the West, including international human rights. As John Witte and Frank Alexander frame it, “Christianity helped to cultivate the cardinal ideas of dignity, equality, liberty and democracy that ground the modern human rights paradigm.”13 In more recent times, lawyers such as New York University Professor Bryan Stevenson (founder of the Equal Justice Initiative), attorney and author Gary Haugen (founder of the International Justice Mission), and attorney and writer Victor Boutros (founder of the Human Trafficking Institute), to name just a few, have turned their scholarship into action, including advocating for changes in laws and policy.
Historical examples of Christian scholarly influence on public policy are myriad. We also must acknowledge, though, that some Christian legal scholars have sometimes been on the wrong side of history, for example, when they argued for the constitutionality of segregation. But such deficiencies are not unique to faith-informed scholars. Secular legal theorists have also done harm through some of their arguments.
Finally, I agree with Marsden that Christian scholarship operates within a framework of Christian theology which includes important “points of doctrine,” including creation, incarnation, the work of the Holy Spirit, and “the human condition” (96–117). While I concur that these are some of the most important Christian doctrines, I think simply listing them as independent ideas has missed the teleological nature of Christian theology. The story of God’s work in the world is a progression: from God’s creation of the world and human beings in his image, all of which he called “good”; through the fall, which resulted in the “human condition” of sinful, broken human beings and a broken world; to redemption/incarnation when the Kingdom of God broke into human history in the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, leaving the Holy Spirit to continue his work. But the story doesn’t end with the work of the Holy Spirit. It ends with a restored and healed earth and healed human beings, what scripture calls “a new heaven and a new earth” when “God’s dwelling place [will be] among the people,” and when “he will wipe every tear from their eyes” and “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:1, 3–4). The story is not complete without the consummation, the end that is the destiny of all human history. Coming to appreciate the Christian doctrine of consummation has transformed the way I think about everything I do, including my vocation as a Christian legal scholar. As N. T. Wright puts it:
What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are—strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself—accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. . . . The resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit mean that we are called to bring real and effective signs of God’s renewed creation to birth even in the midst of the present age. . . . The work that we do in the present, then, gains its full significance from the eventual design in which it is meant to belong.14
Footnotes
- See, for example, Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Canon, 2022).
- I applaud many of my secular colleagues who have turned their scholarship into legal action that protects human dignity, pursues justice, and contributes to human flourishing.
- See generally Gary A. Haugen, Good News About Injustice: A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World, 10th anniversary ed. (InterVarsity, 2009).
- “Law and Christianity,” Center for the Study of Law and Religion, accessed March 16, 2025, http://cslr.law.emory.edu/scholarship/research-focus-areas/law-and-christianity.html.
- A list of publications in the two series can be found at “Christianity and Law Introductions,” Center for the Study of Law and Religion, accessed March 16, 2025, https://cslr.law.emory.edu/scholarship/research-focus-areas/Publications_Christianity-and-Law-Introductions.pdf; and “Great Christian Jurists in World History,” Center for the Study of Law and Religion, accessed March 16, 2025, http://cslr.law.emory.edu/scholarship/research-focus-areas/Publications_Great-Christian-Jurists-Series.pdf.
- “Nootbaar Institute for Law, Religion, and Ethics,” Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, accessed March 16, 2025, https://law.pepperdine.edu/nootbaar-institute/. Through these conferences, Robert Cochran, then-director of the Nootbar Institute and author of multiple articles and edited volumes of Christian legal scholarship, mentored young scholars trying their hand at Christian legal scholarship.
- Michael W. McConnell, Robert F. Cochran, and Angela C. Carmella, eds., Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought (Yale University Press, 2001).
- Robert F. Cochran and David VanDrunen, eds., Law and the Bible: Justice, Mercy and Legal Institutions (InterVarsity, 2013).
- Robert F. Cochran and Zachary R. Calo, eds., Agape, Justice, and Law: How Might Christian Love Shape Law? (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
- For a list of publications by Cochran, see “Robert F. Cochran, Jr. Biography,” Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, accessed March 16, 2025, https://law.pepperdine.edu/faculty-research/robert-cochran/.
- A list of Christian legal scholars provided to me by University of Georgia Professor Nathan Chapman when he was president of the Christian Society of Legal Scholars has 63 names on it.
- Ajay K. Mehrotra, “ ‘Render Unto Caesar . . .’: Religion/Ethics, Expertise, and the Historical Underpinnings of the Modern Tax System,” Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 40, no. 2 (2009): 321–367.
- John Witte, Jr. and Frank S. Alexander, eds., Christianity and Human Rights: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2010), xi.
- N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (HarperOne, 2008), 208, 209, 211, italics original.
Outstanding analysis. Thank you. The best day of my academic life was the day I stopped worrying about how my work might impact tenure or some future appointment — and instead committed it all to the Lord.