Why does the church have law schools?

The title I was given for this talk during the Marquette Conference of March, 1994, was "the mission of the religiously affiliated law school." The title raises the possibility that the church has a law school in order to carry out a mission. The church does not get its mission from the state or the civil community. The only workable meaning of the title I was given is that each of our law schools has a mission from God.

If the assignment of mission comes from the civil community or the state, the title will not work. Not for a believer. The deepest memory of Judaism and of the church is that the mission of the People of God is a mission given by God: In the case of the Jews to be priests to all nations; and, in the case of Christians, to tell all nations about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. I therefore suppose that a church has a law school because the church wants to do something for God that it can only do by having a law school.