Overall, the book`s strengths far outweigh the weaknesses. Christianity and the Laws of Conscience: An introduction is a welcome addition to the Law and Christianity series and a good starting point for anyone interested in the development of Christian thought about conscience and the legal and constitutional protection that U.S. law provides to Christian consciences through concepts such as the free exercise of religion and freedom of expression. While the book does not end the debate among Christians about the COVID-19 vaccine, it will help Christians understand why they are leading the debate. The editors and authors of Cambridge University Press` Christianity and the Laws of Conscience (2021) will explore the Christian theological, legal, constitutional, historical, and philosophical meanings of consciousness in their multidisciplinary work. Jeff Hammond, co-editor and author of the chapter, will discuss his beginnings in the Protestant theology of conscience. The co-editor and author of the chapter, Helen Alvare, will contrast the demands of the Christian conscience with the emerging rights to sexual expression. The author of the chapter, Nathan Chapman, will compare the concepts of religious freedom found in the First Amendment of the Constitution with those of conscience. The session deals with a number of historical periods, important conceptual ideas in the development of consciousness and the contemporary application of these theories. This captivating collection of beautifully written essays offers the reader a wide range of topics related to Christian understanding of consciousness.

The authors reflect the interdisciplinarity of the book`s theme, with a balanced mix of scholars in Biblical Studies, Theology, Political Science, Philosophy, History, and Law. The essays, which take place more or less chronologically, reflect the historical development and theological diversity of Christianity, representing Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Evangelicals, and Mormons. Since each chapter is self-sufficient, the entire book can be read chronologically to learn the scope and scope of Christian thought through consciousness, or individual chapters can be consulted to learn more about a piece of Christian thought at a particular time or figure, or in a particular tradition, or to understand, how the law protected or not claims of conscience in the United States from colonial times to the present day. The independence of each chapter is both a strength and a weakness. An advantage is the opportunity to get to know a subject from different perspectives based on the different disciplines of the authors. For example, the first two chapters focus on how the idea of consciousness is presented in the Bible. In «Consciousness in the New Testament,» Wendell Willis, a New Testament scholar, associates the Greek word suneidesis, often translated as consciousness, with the idea of self-knowledge, noting that the idea is not developed in the New Testament. In contrast, David VanDrunen, a theologian, finds in «Consciousness and Natural Law in Scripture» a stronger and more familiar understanding of consciousness in the Old and New Testaments, based on its relationship to natural law. While these contrasts are a delight, the downside to the structure of the book is that some concepts are simply repeated without enough new ideas, such as Augustine`s views on conscience and sin, Aquinas` understanding of syndesis, and the issues surrounding an awakener of conscience against military service. The twenty-one chapters of the book are divided into three parts.

The first part explores the broad themes that underlie a Christian understanding of consciousness, with an emphasis on the Bible and theology in chapters that examine how consciousness is presented in the New Testament and the relationship between consciousness and natural law in the Old and New Testaments. While the chapters in this section confirm the existence of the individual`s consciousness, a surprising discovery at a time when claims of religious consciousness are endemic is the subordinate role of consciousness in the Bible. The second part gives a historical overview of how Christian ideas about consciousness evolved through the thoughts and theories of important figures, beginning with the early Church and Augustine, and then in the early eighteenth century through chapters on Thomas Aquinas, the Reformers, Peter Bayle, Roger Williams and Jonathan Edwards. During this period, when the importance of the Christian Church was replaced by the centrality of the individual, thinking about conscience shifted from managing its subjective and unreliable nature because of sin to how to protect the individual voice from society`s conscience. This section also examines how the Roman Catholic Church, the Reformed tradition, and evangelical Protestantism, as well as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints each struggled with the idea of an individual conscience in the context of their biblical understandings, theologies, and institutions. Given the different strengths of their institutions, it is not surprising that the Roman Catholic and Mormon traditions emphasize the communal aspects of conscience and respect for the hierarchy of the Church, while the Protestant traditions place more emphasis on the relationship between consciousness and individual sanctification and the action of the Spirit.