Church, State & Marriage: Three Reformation Models (Witte, 2003)
Among the new discoveries of the past decade has been a whole series of sixteenth-century Protestant teachings on marriage that have had, and can have, an enduring influence on Western churches and states alike. It is now well understood that the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation was a watershed in the history of Western theology and the law of marriage—a moment and movement that gathered several streams of classical and Catholic legal ideas and institutions, remixed them and revised them in accordance with the new Protestant norms and forms of the day, and then redirected them in the governance and service of the Christian West.
Polygamy and Monogamy: Expert Legal Report (Witte, 2010)
Historical survey in response to questions on monogamy and polygamy
More Than a Mere Contract: Marriage as Contract and Covenant in Law and Theology (Witte, 2008)
On August 15, 1997, the State of Louisiana put in place the nation’s first modern covenant marriage law. The law creates a two-tiered system of marriage. Couples may choose a contract marriage, with minimal formalities of formation and attendant rights to no-fault divorce. Or couples may choose a covenant marriage, with more stringent formation and dissolution rules.
The Nature of Family, The Family of Nature: The Surprising Liberal Defense of the Traditional Family in the Enlightenment (Witte, 2015)
This Article shows that many Enlightenment liberals defended traditional family values and warned against the dangers of sexual libertinism and marital breakdown. While they rejected many traditional teachings in their construction of modern liberalism, Enlightenment liberals held firmly to classical and Christian teachings that exclusive and enduring monogamous marriages are the best way to ensure paternal certainty and joint parental investment in children who are born vulnerable and dependent on their parents’ mutual care.
The Foundations and Frontiers of Religious Liberty (Witte, 2007)
Introduction to symposium studying seven countries in the common law tradition
Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment (Witte, 2005)
Introduction to “Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment” (2nd edition)
Sex may be free, but children come with a cost we must accept (Witte, 2008)
Thirty-eight percent of all American children are now born out of wedlock, and it costs American taxpayers $112 billion per year. Those are the sobering numbers recently reported by the U.S. Bureau of the Census and by the Institute for American Values.
The Legal Challenges of Religious Polygamy (Witte, 2008)
A century and a half ago, Mormons made national headlines by claiming a First Amendment right to practice polygamy, despite criminal laws against it. In four cases from 1879 to 1890, the United States Supreme Court firmly rejected their claim, and threatened to dissolve the Mormon church if they persisted…These old cases are still the law of the land, and most Mormons renounced polygamy after 1890.
Christianity and Democracy in Global Context: Introduction (Witte, 1993)
A number of persistent patterns prevail in the encounters between Christianity and democracy in the past, and a number of common challenges face Christianity and democracy in cultures throughout the world.