Law and Religion Down Under

Did you know that in the Preamble to the Australian Constitution, the colonies are agreeing to federate while “humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God”?  What exactly does that mean, and should it affect our understanding of the Constitution more generally? Dr Alex Deagon, a Senior Lecturer at QUT who has written on the issue, helps provide some answers.

More about Dr Alex Deagon can be found on his QUT Staff Profile.

You can read Alex's writings on the Preamble in the ICLRS Blog series on the topic and in his contribution to the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion.

Questions or Comments?  E-mail me at [email protected]

Theme Music: "Sunbeams in the Stained Glass" Oleksandr Viktorovych Lukyanenko, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The mainstream liberal understanding of religious liberty focuses on protecting individual autonomy and conscience.  But in his new book, Dr Joel Harrison argues for an “ecclesiological” account of religious liberty that focuses on religious associations and orienting notions of the public good toward forming communities of fraternity, solidarity, and charity.  This episode features an interview with the author about the present state, and a potential future, of religious liberty in the west.

Correction: I accidentally gave my guest a promotion during my introduction, and although it’s surely well-deserved, I apparently lack the authority to do so.  Dr Harrison is currently a Senior Lecturer, not an Associate Professor. 

You can find more about Joel and his work on his University of Sydney Staff Page.

More information about Post-Liberal Religious Liberty: Forming Communities of Charity can be found here on the Cambridge University Press website.

The two podcasts I mentioned in my closing are St. John’s Law School Center for Law and Religion’s Legal Spirits and Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion’s Interactions.

Theme Music: "Sunbeams in the Stained Glass" Oleksandr Viktorovych Lukyanenko, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"Williams I": Williams v Commonwealth of Australia, [2012] HCA 23 (available at: http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/2012/23.html).

"Williams II": Williams v Commonwealth of Australia, [2014] HCA 23 (available at: http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/2014/23.html).

Jeremy Patrick, 'Religion, Secularism, and the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program' (2014) 33(1) University of Queensland Law Journal 187-219 (available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2344599).

Theme Music: "Sunbeams in the Stained Glass" Oleksandr Viktorovych Lukyanenko, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons