The fourth McDonald Distinguished Scholar Lectures on Christian Scholarship will be held at April 3 and 4 at Candler School of Theology. "The Reformation and Law: 500th Anniversary Perspectives" will be a scholarly celebration of the contributions of the Protestant Reformation to the transformation of theology, art, music, liturgy, church life, politics, economics, and the law. The celebration will include a Bach organ concert by Timothy Albrecht and Presentation of Reformation archives by Pat Graham.

As human rights and democratic revolutions sweep across the Arab world, four new CSLR books offer important lessons about the role of religion in establishing and stabilizing democratic rule, particularly during the violent upheavals of the last 30 years.

CSLR Director John Witte, Jr. will deliver the prestigious Jefferson Memorial Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, April 21.

CSLR Director John Witte, Jr. has embarked on a Pacific Rim summer lecture tour to highlight contentious issues of law and religion.

CSLR Director John Witte, Jr. will discuss the Biblical foundations of covenant marriage and use these foundations to propose new ideas for today¿s context, July 21 at St. Marks College in North Adelaide, Australia. This new martial theory balances traditional ideals of responsible marriage and parenthood with new constitutional norms of sexual liberty and domestic autonomy.

A newly released second edition of CSLR Director John Witte, Jr.¿s ground-breaking book on Western marriage offers hope for restoring family life in America.

A new book edited by CSLR Director John Witte, Jr. and CSLR Senior Fellow M. Christian Green explores how the intersecting roles of religion and human rights can build a more effective human rights culture in the world.

John Witte, Jr., Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, McDonald Distinguished Professor, and director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, will receive the James W.C. Pennington Award in June from the Heidelberg Center for American Studies and the Department of Theology at the University of Heidelberg. The award honors a former slave who escaped his abusive master and became the first African American to attend Yale University. He became a writer, minister, theologian, abolitionist, and international symbol of freedom.

John Witte, Jr., Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, will spend the fall of 2015 at the Library of Congress as the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the North.

CSLR has established a new series on law and Christianity, edited by internationally known scholar, John Witte, Jr.

The father of the field of law and religion, Harold Berman wrote 25 books, hundreds of articles, and one forgotten unpublished manuscript. Upon his death in 2007 at the age of 88, Berman's literary executor, colleague and former student John Witte, Jr. CSLR Director, discovered a long-lost draft of a book resting at the bottom of a metal filing cabinet. That book, which Berman had spoken with Witte about in 1982, contained the germs of Berman's scholarship and ideas which have shaped a generation of legal and religious minds.

This spring, CSLR faculty report a number of major national and international lectures, newly published and forthcoming books, and high academic honors, including the election of Senior Fellow Jean Porter (Notre Dame) to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Religion and Human Rights: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2012) by CSLR Director John Witte, Jr. and Senior Fellow M. Christian Green has been named an Outstanding Academic Book of 2012 by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. Choice is the premier source for reviews of academic books, electronic media, and Internet resources of interest to those in higher education.

CSLR Director John Witte, Jr.'s article in the November issue of Christianity Today, "Shari'ah's Uphill Climb Does Muslim law have a place in the American landscape?," is available for downloading.

Emory University law professor John Witte, Jr. has been named the Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History at the John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress. Appointed by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, Witte is serving during the summer and fall of 2012.

CSLR scholars are fanning out across the country and around the globe this summer to engage the national and world communities in discussions of urban decline, religious liberty, conditional and religious marriages, global justice, and numerous other topics of law and religion.

On November 2, 2010, Oklahoma voters approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would prevent state courts from considering or using Muslim Shari`a law.

CSLR senior fellows continued their formidable global lecture schedule during the 2010-2011 academic year to increase understanding among students, religious leaders, and policymakers of the complex issues surrounding religious liberty, international human rights, marriage and family law, bioethics, and neighborhood stabilization policies.