WSU Law associate professor co-authors book on religion, Constitution

Wayne State University Law School Associate Professor Christopher C. Lund has co-authored a casebook, “Religion and the Constitution,” which examines the relationship between government and religion within the framework of the U.S. Constitution.

The book, in its fourth edition, was published by Wolters Kluwer as part of its Aspen Casebook series.

Co-authors with Lund are Michael McConnell, a professor at Stanford Law School and director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and Thomas Berg, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law and co-director of the Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy.

The book covers the traditional array of church-state topics, including the regulation of religious practice, the funding of religious institutions, the endorsement by government of religious messages, and the appropriateness of religion in politics. Among other updates, the fourth edition includes the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC and Holt v. Hobbs, as well as important contemporary lower-court cases, such as Elane Photography v. Willock and Spencer v. World Vision.

Lund joined Wayne Law in 2009 and teaches courses including Constitutional Law, Contracts, Evidence, Religious Liberty in the United States and Torts. He has been voted Professor of the Year five times.
His principal focus has been in the field of religious liberty. His work has been published in law reviews, such as the Northwestern University Law Review and the Virginia Law Review; peer-reviewed legal journals, such as the Journal of Law and Religion; and peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journals, such as History of Religions.

Lund previously was an assistant professor at Mississippi College Law School. Before teaching, he clerked for the Honorable Karen Nelson Moore on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, served as the Madison Fellow at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and practiced law at Dechert LLP in Philadelphia.

Lund earned his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law and his bachelor of arts from Rice University with majors in mathematics and psychology.