The Supreme Court and Religion in American Life, Vol. 1
The Odyssey of the Religion Clauses
Chapter One
THE KINGDOM OF THIS WORLD
ONE OF THE INHERENT PARADOXES of religion is that most faiths enjoin a spirit of unworldliness, urging believers to look beyond earthly possessions in their search for ultimate reality, while at the same time all religions exist in the temporal order and can only manifest themselves through material realities. Hence organized religions have usually been quick to secure their property rights, justifying this on the grounds that material assets are necessary in order to witness the reality of the spiritual.
Most civil cases in the American judicial system involve disputes over property, and courts have perhaps been most comfortable when adjudicating issues that can be quantified in terms of wealth. It has been the Supreme Court's consistent policy, almost always followed, to ignore what could be called ideological issues in dealing with internal church disputes and to content itself with applying ecclesiastical rules in the ways such rules were apparently intended. Property cases, while perhaps not the most interestin ... read full excerpt from The Supreme Court and Religion in American Life, Vol. 1: The Odyssey of the Religion Clauses ebook
