If law is anything today, it is dispirited. It lacks life, vitality, enchantment, vision. Neither law nor its practitioners sing—or even hum. My students tell me that they know this but want to hope for more. This article tries to suggest something more, which is already present in America's state constitutions if we can dare turn to hear it. It is the voice of the spirit of the laws of the land. It sings of a vision, and this article is an attempt to tell enough of the story of that vision so that you, too, may hear “an echo of the infinite, a glimpse of its unfathomable process, a hint of the universal law.”

To listen for the spirit, we can best attend to (in addition to the language of law texts) language of the spirit, language in which humankind has lived in hopes of relating to Ultimate Reality for millennia. The spirit we hope to tap is not necessarily theistic, but there is some correspondence among ideas of spirit, consciousness and God. As with the best of such language, we must speak not only of belief but also of doubt and mystery beyond necessary reason.

Set: Four wooden high-backed chairs arranged two to each side of a simple oak desk upon which sits a water canister, ashtray, copies of The Hidden God (by Lucien Goldman, Thody Translation 1964), Economic Analysis of Law (by Richard Posner, 3d. Ed. 1986), The Plague (by Albert Camus), Les Lettres Provinciales (by Blaise Pascal), and several volumes of the Supreme Court Reporter.

Scene One: Mr. Allen enters first, carrying a sheaf of photocopied papers, and sits behind the desk. Next enter Mr. Posner, Mr. Pascal, Mr. Holmes, and Mr. Kelman all carrying similar papers. Holmes and Posner take seats to Allen's right; Kelman and Pascal seat themselves to Allen's left.

Mr. Allen: Gentlemen, I would like to thank you for coming. I know that Mr. Pascal has had an especially difficult trip. I myself just flew in from the coast, and boy are my arms tired (polite chuckles from Posner and Kelman).

Those who have made an equally sedulous study of 1) American constitutional law and 2) religion—particularly New Testament theology—are immediately struck by the many similarities inherent in both the process and polemics of textual interpretation between them. The observation and description of these similarities have been the subjects of a relatively small yet proliferous corpus of comparisons and investigations, predominantly in law journals and monographs. Most constitutional legal scholars, not formally trained in and therefore unfamiliar with the arcana of theological hermeneutics and exegesis, earnestly join the jurisprudential debate over the “intent of the framers” and the creation by certain justices of the U.S. Supreme Court of new constitutional fundamental rights via substantive due process and/or the penumbra doctrine, without ever realizing the striking parallels in the debate between theologians about the original meaning and applicability of the New Testament canon to modern moral and religious problems.

In the past several decades there has been a growing movement within the Jewish community to improve the self-image and status of women in Halachah (Jewish law). There is no doubt that this movement was largely affected by the women's liberation movement that has been taking place since the beginning of this century. Despite the assertion of many rabbis and scholars that the role of women in traditional Judaism has been noticeably superior to that of other contemporary civilizations, critics frequently point to the many religious activities from which women continue to be excluded. In the past, women were not accepted as witnesses in a trial; did not inherit equally with their male siblings; were not required or expected to perform the daily religious duties assigned to men; and had to sit separately from the males in the congregation. Only recently have Jewish women been ordained as rabbis and relied on as cantors; allowed to serve on congregational boards as presidents of congregations; granted equal access to study, and allowed to perform all mitzvot; counted in a minyan, the quorum needed for a public worship service, and called to the pulpit for aliyot during the Torah service; and able to ignore the formal requirement of providing a get, the bill of divorce, although it can still be requested.

This is a study of women's rights in Islamic societies, a relatively insignificant subject to the people who live in those societies. The Muslim population of the world is in excess of one billion and approximately one-half of this number, or five hundred million, are female. Geographically, Islam is practiced in all of Arabia, most parts of the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Africa, parts of Spain, and Portugal.

Based on the available literature one may conclude that the Muslims are not particularly interested in this topic. The information that is available is relatively one-sided, expressing the male point of view and his perception of what women's rights ought to be. One reason for this lack of interest is that women, the principal characters, generally lack the formal education necessary for the understanding of their own rights and privileges. Throughout history, there have been very few people willing to advocate this cause. As stated by Dr. Fyzee, a Muslim scholar, the unfortunate position of the women is due to the fact that women, being illiterate, are ignorant of their rights; and men, being callous, choose to remain ignorant.

This paper shows that the laws of ancient Israel found in the Old Testament significantly restricted economic transactions and limited the possibility of economic growth. The paper begins by examining the production function in light of Hebraic teaching, demonstrating that theological principles can be translated into economic regulations. The paper then describes the various laws regarding land, labor, capital, and technology and analyzes the probable economic effects of such laws during approximately the fourth century B.C.

Scientists are sometimes tempted to use data collected by Nazi researchers in the infamous death camps. Recently, scientists interested in hypothermia have attempted to use data from extensive studies on the effects of cold that took place in 1942 at the Dachau concentration camp. About 300 persons, mostly Jews, were placed in near-freezing water for varied periods of time, and then warmed by different techniques. About one third of the victims died. Should scientists use this data on what happens to people when they get cold, and how they can be warmed? Some German and Canadian scientists already have. By contrast, the United States Environmental Protection Agency recently refused to republish Nazi data on the toxic gas phosgene.

Ethicists have not found common ground for agreement on the question of using morally tainted data. Philosopher Arthur L. Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota, argues that the Nazi data can be used so long as the purpose is an important one, and the data is presented with a clear moral denunciation of how it was obtained. The moral repugnance of the data source might be overruled, suggests Caplan, by the possibility of saving lives. On the other hand, Jay Katz of Yale University Law School disagrees with Caplan's position. The data, argues Katz, should be condemned to oblivion and never used by science, although the descriptions of the experiments can be republished as a reminder of the Nazi horror.

The structures of our thinking and ethics are deeply influenced by our social, economic and political environment. One of my concerns as a poor graduate student was how my theology and ethics would be affected by a Ph.D. and a comfortable job as a professor. After teaching graduate students about social ethics for several years I became alarmed at my own insularity from the experience of people at the bottom rungs of our society. In 1986 I began weekly visits to San Quentin Prison.

Entering the maximum security “holes” of the prison, I was amazed and appalled. Strong men, mostly minorities, are locked in small cages with very little privacy, minimal community, loneliness without silence and regimentation without security. They can touch opposite walls and the ceiling of their cells from a standing position; I saw cells with peeling paint where people may stay 23 or more hours per day for years on end. I heard that up to 1,000 of them are likely never again to see the outside world.

The U. S. Forest Service has proposed oil and gas development for wildlands adjacent to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Glacier National Park, and the Bob Marshall wilderness. In response, traditional Blackfeet tribesmen have argued that these Badger-Two Medicine wildlands are sacred and essential to their traditional religion. In this essay, I document the Blackfeet Tradition and explore the religious significance of these wildlands. Investigating several myths germane to the Badger-Two Medicine wildlands, I conclude that the area is sacred and essential to traditional Blackfeet religion.

In cautioning the planners of cities, Plato declared that particular locations possess ecological and spiritual qualities which markedly affect human character development. This ancient observation contains an essential wisdom for contemporary land use planners, as they consider an area in northwestern Montana along the eastern slopes of the continental divide, just southeast of Glacier National Park, an area known as the Badger-Two Medicine. In 1855, these wildlands were retained in reservation status via a treaty between the United States and the Blackfeet Indians. An agreement was subsequently reached between the parties ceding the Badger-Two Medicine wild-lands to the United States. In this agreement, the Blackfeet reserved rights “to go upon” these lands, to hunt and fish thereon, and to harvest timber therein for personal and domestic use. The Badger-Two Medicine later became a unit within the Lewis and Clark National Forest.