To update what Craig wrote in 2010:
Times and Seasons is happy to welcome as a guest blogger Steve Smith, who teaches and writes mainly about religious freedom, constitutional law, and jurisprudence. His most recent book is Pagans and Christians in the City (Eerdmans, 2018). Steve graduated from BYU in 1976 before studying law at Yale, and he has taught at various law schools including Notre Dame, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan (as a visiting professor), Virginia (as a visitor), and the University of San Diego, where he is currently employed. Steve’s wife Merina also attended BYU, and they have five children.
Somehow we have convinced Steve to share some more of his thoughts with us. Welcome, Steve.
Welcome (back)!
Fun to see what you have to write. Enjoying your book, who are your influences? So far (40 pages in), the book feels a bit like a Ross Douthat Huston Smith mashup in a good way.
Thanks, RL, for the nice words about the book. I’m flattered by a comparison to either Douthat or Huston Smith.
What are my influences? That’s hard to say, because the book covers so much ground and different authors are important to different sections. The two figures who appear throughout and are meant to be sort of contrasting representative figures are Augustine and Gibbon. But you can probably also tell that I have a weakness for grand, sweeping (probably oversimplified) schemes that attempt to explain a lot of history. As a BYU undergrad, my favorite authors were Pitirim Sorokin– probably no one reads him anymore– and Toynbee. Later Alasdair MacIntyre. As I say, it’s a weakness I can’t seem to shake.