Copyright (c) 2008 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/hunter_abell Recent documents in Hunter M Abell en-us Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:16:37 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/hunter_abell/1 http://works.bepress.com/hunter_abell/1 Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:52:44 PDT The role of clergy in American politics grows more hotly debated with each passing election cycle. This submission examines the competing loyalties a politically active member of the clergy experiences as he or she attempts to simultaneously serve their faith and the body politic. In doing so, it reviews the practice of clergy disqualification which prohibited clergy from serving in a representative body. It examines the rich and intriguing history the practice enjoyed in both the United States and United Kingdom and offers the theory that the use of clergy disqualification in both countries arose out of each country's unique, opposing church/state paradigm. This submission is primarily a legal history paper with a word length of approximately 16,000 words. I hope that it will provide substantial new light on the historic role of clergy in politics as well as more fully inform the rich and varied scholarship of American and English church/state relationships. Hunter M. Abell Constitutional Law Legal History Politics Religion