The fabric of life was torn in a way I could not comprehend on the summer afternoon in 1986 when I learned that Robert Cover had died. In the midst of the shock, I recalled the special presence he brought to us at Hamline during a week's residency in October 1985. There was something very special, and difficult to name, in his quiet manner and depth of commitment, as he worked with us in colloquia and classrooms. He invited dialogue in a way that brought students to speak out of their experience, not simply out of their heads. I had heard of Cover's special classroom manner, but the experience of it spoke to me in a way that words could not duplicate. I came to see his writings in a new light. My mind then turned to the provocative work Cover embarked on in his 1983 article entitled Nomos and Narrative. What would become of that? Where might it have led him— and us along with him? Silence was all I had to offer in response. And yet, a thought kept occurring to me: beyond the imaginative character and analytical brilliance of Nomos, something else of significant importance was emerging in that work and those that followed. Did others sense it, or was I simply projecting onto Cover's work my own yearning for some respite from what seemed to be the desperation in recent legal scholarship?

I chose to be one of the signers of the Williamsburg Charter because I hope that interest in the Charter will reinvigorate our public and private life in the United States. I hope that the Charter and the discussion it has provoked will set an example for nations grappling with the best way to balance religion and politics.

The First Amendment holds a special place in the history of United States and indeed in the history of the world. I love America because of what was created by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and George Mason and all of those clever, philosophical, tough-minded, slightly mischievous men.

They understood that America is a great experiment. They came out of a world in which changing governments meant changing one master for another — the kinds of governments that free, responsible individuals do not get very excited about. But what if, they thought, the very nature of government could change for the better. What if people could stop being subjects to masters and begin to govern themselves as neither servants nor masters. To do so, people would have to become better than they are. And so the founders of America challenged posterity with goals and standards that no society on earth had ever achieved or ever really dared to try.

Following the 2006 retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor and the confirmation of Samuel Alito to succeed her, Roman Catholics formed a majority on the United States Supreme Court for the first time in this institution's 210-year history. This Catholic majority was further strengthened by the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor in 2009. Perhaps even more remarkably, by the time of Elena Kagan's first case in October of 2010, not a single Protestant sat on the nation's highest judicial body.

By way of comparison, in 1960 the Court consisted of seven Protestants, one Catholic and one Jew; in 1985, eight Protestants and one Catholic sat on the Court. This phenomenon is further reflected in judicial appointments. Since 1985, only one Protestant has been appointed,4 Justice David Souter, compared to seven Catholics and three Jews. The prima facie reason for this transformation is simple: President Reagan began the Protestant erosion by appointing two Catholics; George H.W. Bush followed by appointing a Catholic; and Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama chose only Jewish and Catholic nominees. The deeper reasons, which are considerably more complex, are the focus of this article.

Suppose for a moment that you have been wrestling with the question of religious liberty in American history and contemporary life. You begin to see that it is a multi-layered concept, not easily captured in one attempt. Suppose further, then, that you could gather together in one place some of the people who have made a significant contribution to the discussion. Who would you invite to speak? How would they respond to each other? In light of what they said, how willing would you be to re-examine your own assumptions, your most cherished conclusions?

In a dream, anything can happen. The most unlikely people may find themselves in agreement, while longtime friends may find themselves at odds with one another. Our interlocutors might be acquainted with unfolding events beyond the boundaries of their historical careers, or they might confess that their knowledge is still limited to their own historical horizon …

This topic is more complicated than one might suspect from reading typical annotations and bible dictionary articles. There are some hundred or so relevant biblical texts, but they do not present an entirely coherent picture. To take these texts seriously requires leaving open a number of questions. Too often commentators and annotators have attempted to resolve such questions by making assertions grounded upon highly problematic evidence. This article does not consider texts pertaining exclusively to the “inheritance” of the land of promise by the various tribes of Israel such as Joshua 11:23; 13:1—19:51; and Ezekiel 47:13—48:29. Concern with preserving tribal inheritances is in the background of some texts that are considered; but here attention is limited to laws and traditions concerning transfer of property from persons in one generation to those of another, or, in a few instances, to other persons within the same generation in accordance with what, in modern legal terms, would be called the laws of intestate succession and bequest.

If Mr. Buzzard had offered his paper “The Evangelical Rediscovery of Law and Politics” as a sermon instead of a lecture, and had ended it with the traditional evangelical “altar call” which invites converts and those who want to reaffirm their faith to come forward, I would have arisen from my seat and gone halfway down the aisle. There is much in what he says which any Christian can, indeed, must affirm. The paper convinces me, or rather confirms my suspicion, that the neo-evangelical and the ecumenical believer have much in common and that they share more than both often think.

But note, I would only have gone halfway down the aisle. Ecumenical thinking would force me to pause and to invite the evangelical to enter into further discussion before full assent is given. And note also, that it is from an ecumenical perspective that I, at least, would want to join the discussion. That is, I would want to raise questions from the standpoint of the long tradition of transnational, catholic, reformed and orthodox thinking which has given rise to both Vatican II ecumenicity in Roman Catholicism and to the new conciliationism of the World Council of Churches.

My first reflex in the face of a good debate within a discipline other than my own is to try to find a way through the melee. One would like to stand so to speak outside the fray in order to adjudicate or mediate. In this case I cannot do that. The two players, Marshall and Pepper, seem to a layman to be playing on the same field, with some of the same landmarks on the skyline, but they seem to be playing by different rules, each team having brought along its own ball and its own referee. I see no way, and I am not sure there is a need, to stand between or above the two positions to adjudicate their difference.

I therefore must attempt to come at the conversation from two other perspectives, grateful to have been educated just a little by watching the expert jousting laid before us. I shall attempt, once as amateur historian of American culture, and once as simple “religious” citizen, to describe what seems to me to be at stake, giving attention especially to the gaps where the two papers — in what they agree about more than in their debate — leave this reader dangling.