Nathan B. Oman – författare

No American religion has had a more contentious and complex relationship with the law than Mormonism (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Living Oracles delves into the conflicts between Latter-day Saints and the legal system, their efforts to establish their own legal institutions, and how this new religious tradition has developed its unique approach to the law. Along the way it tells the story of Mormonism's place in the law of church and state, the legal battles over polygamy, and the rise and fall of the Mormon court system.Living Oracles maps out the structure of Mormon legal thought and provides an in-depth analysis of the concept of divine law in Latter-day Saint theology, the place of natural law in Latter-day Saint thought, the concept of legal obligation, and concepts of freedom and equality in the Latter-day Saint tradition, including Mormons' fraught relationship with race. Through sophisticated engagement with Mormon history and theology, Nathan B. Oman examines how the LDS Church navigated America's often-hostile legal regime and examines the history of Mormon approaches to specific areas of law, including property and contract, polygamy, divorce, and same sex-marriage. This work also traces the appearance of the U.S. Constitution in Mormon scripture and how the notion of a "divinely inspired constitution" has been utilized by Latter-day Saints throughout their history.

This collection considers the relationship between religion, state, and market. In so doing, it also illustrates that the market is a powerful site for the cultural work of secularizing religious conflict. Though expressed as a simile, with religious freedom functioning like market freedom, “free market religion” has achieved the status of general knowledge about the nature of religion as either good or bad. It legislates good religion as that which operates according to free market principles: it is private, with no formal relationship to government; and personal: a matter of belief and conscience. As naturalized elements of historically contingent and discursively maintained beliefs about religion, these criteria have ethical and regulatory force. Thus, in culture and law, the effect of the metaphor has become instrumental, not merely descriptive. This volume seeks to productively complicate and invite further analysis of this easy conflation of democracy, religion, and the market. It invites scholars from a variety of disciplines to consider more intentionally the extent to which markets are implicated and illuminate the place of religion in public life. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers and academics working in the areas of law and religion, ethics, and economics.

This collection considers the relationship between religion, state, and market. In so doing, it also illustrates that the market is a powerful site for the cultural work of secularizing religious conflict. Though expressed as a simile, with religious freedom functioning like market freedom, “free market religion” has achieved the status of general knowledge about the nature of religion as either good or bad. It legislates good religion as that which operates according to free market principles: it is private, with no formal relationship to government; and personal: a matter of belief and conscience. As naturalized elements of historically contingent and discursively maintained beliefs about religion, these criteria have ethical and regulatory force. Thus, in culture and law, the effect of the metaphor has become instrumental, not merely descriptive. This volume seeks to productively complicate and invite further analysis of this easy conflation of democracy, religion, and the market. It invites scholars from a variety of disciplines to consider more intentionally the extent to which markets are implicated and illuminate the place of religion in public life. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers and academics working in the areas of law and religion, ethics, and economics.