Integrating Religion, Faith, and Morality in Traditional Law School Courses

We have found that integrating spiritual values and principles with traditional law school courses enriches both teacher and student, yielding a lawyering product that is priceless to society. This article focuses on three key areas. Section I, the most critical part of the article, consists of our organized presentation given at a Religiously Affiliated Law Schools symposium. In this section we demonstrate that there are at least nine viable techniques for integrating faith into legal education on a daily basis in traditional law school courses. The next two sections reflect the rich discussion that conferees shared in the wake of our presentation. Section II discusses the need for virtue and mission oriented legal education, demonstrating how the standards of academic freedom protect the freedom to pursue these teaching methods and positions. Section III discusses the combination of faith and reason, demonstrating that faith and reason are not only completely compatible, but mutually interdependent. We conclude that not only is integration of faith and learning legitimate, but that these virtues will positively affect people's lives when solidly sown into any plan of building leaders for a great civilization