Religious traditions in the United States are characterized by ongoing tension between assimilation to the broader culture, as typified by mainline Protestant churches, and defiant rejection of cultural incursions, as witnessed by more sectarian movements such as Mormonism and Hassidism. However, legal theorist and Catholic theologian Cathleen Kaveny contends there is a third possibility-a culture of engagement-that accommodates and respects tradition. It also recognizes the need to interact with culture to remain relevant and to offer critiques of social, political, legal, and economic practices. Kaveny suggests that rather than avoid the crisscross of the religious and secular spheres of life, we should use this conflict as an opportunity to come together and to encounter, challenge, contribute to, and correct one another. Focusing on five broad areas of interest-Law as a Teacher, Religious Liberty and Its Limits, Conversations about Culture, Conversations about Belief, and Cases and Controversies-Kaveny demonstrates how thoughtful and purposeful engagement can contribute to rich, constructive, and difficult discussions between moral and cultural traditions. This provocative collection of Kaveny's articles from Commonweal magazine, substantially revised and updated from their initial publication, provides astonishing insight into a range of hot-button issues like abortion, assisted suicide, government-sponsored torture, contraception, the Ashley Treatment, capital punishment, and the role of religious faith in a pluralistic society. At turns masterful and inspirational, A Culture of Engagement is a welcome reminder of what can be gained when a diversity of experiences and beliefs is brought to bear on American public life.
Introduction: Life in the Crisscross Part One: Law as a Teacher1. Rules Are Not Enough: Why Judges Need Empathy 2. Teacher or Remedy: What Is the Law for? 3. Letter versus Spirit: Why the Constitution Needs Interpreting 4. Remember the Mormons: Thinking about the Nature of Marriage 5. Regulating Abortion: What Did the Roberts Court Do? 6. Caught in the Gap: What Hostility to Health-Care Reform Has Wrought 7. "Peaceful and Private": Montana's Supreme Court Rules on Assisted Suicide 8. More Than a Refuge: Why Immigration Officials Should Steer Clear of Churches 9. Justice or Vengeance: Is the Death Penalty Cruel and Unusual? 10. Undue Process: The Evisceration of Habeas Corpus 11. Bad Evidence: Not only Is Torture Immoral, It Doesn't Work 12. Perverted Logic: Behind the Bush Administration's "Torture Memo" 13. Regret Is Not Enough: Why the President Should Read Paul Ramsey Part Two: Religious Liberty and Its Limits14. The Right to Refuse: How Broad Should Conscience Protections Be? 15. The Bishops and Religious Liberty: Are Catholics Becoming a Sect? 16. Is the Government "Defining Religion"?: The Bishops' Case against the Mandate 17. Defining Exemptions Does Not Equal Defining Religion: A Category Mistake 18. An Evolving Accommodation: Religious Minorities and the Common Good 19. Employment Division v. Smith: The Eye of the Storm 20. Smith, RFRA, and the Bishops' Claims: Neutral Laws of General Applicability? 21. The Key Supreme Court Case for the Mandate: U.S. v. Lee 22. Reading the Tea Leaves: Why the Supreme Court Is Unlikely to Block the Contraception Mandate 23. A Minefield: The Troubling Implications of the Hobby Lobby Decision Part Three: Conversations about Culture24. Watch Your Mouth: Sage Advice from St. James 25. Model Atheist: Jeffrey Stout and the Culture Wars 26. Bishops and Politics: Lessons from Australia 27. Moving beyond the Culture Wars: Why a Bioethics Council Needs Diversity 28. A Flawed Analogy: Prochoice Politicians and the Third Reich 29. Sick Minds: What Can We Do to Prevent Another Tucson? 30. Crime or Tragedy? Murder and Suicide at Villanova 31. Dignity and the End of Life: How Not to Talk about Assisted Suicide 32. The Right Questions: Catholic Colleges and Pop Culture 33. Either/Or? Catholicism Is More Complex Part Four: Conversations about Belief 34. Family Feuds: What's Keeping Catholics Apart? 35. The Martyrdom of John Roberts: Catholic Squabbling, Then and Now 36. No Academic Question: Should the CTSA Seek "Conservative" Views? 37. The "New" Feminism? John Paul II and the 1912 Encyclopedia 38. Catholic Kosher: Is the Ban on Contraception Just an Identity Marker? 39. The Big Chill: Humanae Vitae Dissenters Need to Find a Voice 40. How about NOT Firing Her? Moral Norms and Catholic School Teachers 41. Truth or Consequences: In Ireland, Straying Far from the Mental Reservation 42. Unspeakable Sins: Why We Need to Talk about Them 43. A Darkening: Why a Church Scandal Does More Harm Than the New Atheism44. The Long Goodbye: Why Some Devout Catholics Are Leaving the Church45. That '70s Church: What It Got Right Part Five: Cases and Controversies46. The Consistent Ethic: An Ethic of "Life," Not "Purity"47. Contraception, Again: Where Can We Find Compromise?48. When Does Life Begin? Two Prolife Philosophers Disagree49. Why Prolife? It's about People, Not Abstractions 50. The ACLU Takes on the Bishops: Tragedy Leads to a Misguided Lawsuit51. Co-Opted by Evil? Abortion and Amnesty International52. Boycotts in a Pluralistic Society: How and Where Do We Draw Moral Lines?53. Forever Young: The Trouble with the "Ashley Treatment"54. Risk and Responsibility: Why Insurance Is the Wrong Way to Think about Health Care 55. A Horrific Crime: But Is Execution the Answer? 56. Could the Church Have Gotten It Wrong? Let's Look at the Facts Conclusion: Tradition and Transformation Suggestions for Further Reading About the AuthorIndex
