The Spirit of the Law: Religious Voices and the Constitution in Modern America

The Spirit of the Law “explores the tension between the spirit filled and the law-bound in American society” (p. x). Gordon uses the well-known term the “spirit of the law” not in its usual sense of a law's presumed purpose, but to refer to those “spirit-filled” religious believers whose interactions with the law are occasioned by the commands of their faith. Acting not on legal doctrines, but on “popular constitutionalism,” they are confident that the constitution should protect their religiously inspired acts and are willing to go to court to prove it. In doing so, these religious actors have shaped the interpretation of the written constitution, and those interpretations have, in turn, shaped the American religious landscape. This book tells stories familiar to most scholars of religion clause jurisprudence. Gordon summarizes important Supreme Court cases, doctrines, and opinions, while making religious actors the focus of her story. The narratives include many of the significant religious advocacy groups of the twentieth century, including (among others) the Jehovah's Witnesses, the prison ministries of the Nation of Islam, the Concerned Women of America, Protestants and Others United for Separation of Church and State, and the Religious Coalition for Marriage. The historical context gained from telling these stories “from the ground up” is the major contribution of the book; while it does not break any new ground, it does provide some interesting and fruitful perspectives. For example, in retelling the story of the early Jehovah's Witness litigation from the perspective of the Jehovah's Witness movement itself, the book makes clear that the Witnesses approached their groundbreaking legal battles more as a form of evangelizing than as serious attempts to influence a government they considered beyond redemption. She also shows the influence of Jehovah's Witnesses on the strategies of the Nation of Islam. Her chapter on the Religious Coalition for Marriage is the only one devoted to a progressive religious movement that aimed to “reclaim the faith-based debate … from the radical right” (p. 205).