Bob Cochran, "Agape, Justice, and Law" -- Cambridge University Press

August 9, 2017 | By Kylie Larkin -- Professor Robert F. Cochran, Jr. has published "Agape, Justice, and Law: How Might Christian Love Shape Law?" with Cambridge University Press.  Professor Cochran co-edited the book and authored the first chapter, titled "Jesus, Agape, and Law."

Via Cambridge University Press:

In a provocative essay, philosopher Jeffrie Murphy asks: ''what would law be like if we organized it around the value of Christian love, and if we thought about and criticized law in terms of that value?'' This book brings together leading scholars from a variety of disciplines to address that question. Scholars have given surprisingly little attention to assessing how the central Christian ethical category of love - agape - might impact the way we understand law. This book aims to fill that gap by investigating the relationship between agape and law in Scripture, theology, and jurisprudence, as well as applying these insights to contemporary debates in criminal law, tort law, elder law, immigration law, corporate law, intellectual property, and international relations. At a time when the discourse between Christian and other world views is more likely to be filled with hate than love, the implications of agape for law are crucial.

"This magnificent collection of essays arrives precisely when it is most needed—at a time when a nation held together primarily by law is severely fractured along economic, racial, gender, and cultural lines, at a time when empathy and hospitality of neighbor toward neighbor are profoundly lacking." -- Angela Carmella, Professor of Law, Seton Hall University School of Law and co-editor of Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought (Yale University Press)

"This volume refracts the light of agape through the prism of scholarship, enriching with color an understanding of law that is often all too grey. It will provoke lawyers to pursue their true vocation of building a relational society where our knowledge of love and justice is central to what it means to be human." -- Jonathan Burnside, Professor of Biblical Law, Law School, University of Bristol, UK, and author of God, Justice and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible (Oxford University Press)

"An important and exciting advance in the critical and constructive analysis of law in the United States from a Christian theological perspective."
-- H. Jefferson Powell, Professor of Law, Duke University and author of The Moral Tradition of American Constitutionalism: A Theological Interpretation (Duke University Press)

"The contributors are some of the best thinkers in contemporary law, theology, and philosophy, and their essays will inspire new approaches in readers across a range of disciplines." -- Robin W. Lovin, Cary Maguire University Professor of Ethics Emeritus, Southern Methodist University and author of Christian Realism and the New Realities (Cambridge University Press)

"An excellent collection of essays on an issue as important as any humanity is facing today." -- Miroslav Volf, Professor of Theology, Yale Divinity School and author of Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World (Yale University Press)