Witte Jr. named Distinguished Alumnus, capping recent accolades
John Witte Jr., Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, McDonald Distinguished Professor of Religion, and Faculty Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, has recently received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma mater Calvin University. The most recent issue of their alumni magazine describes Witte as “an acclaimed professor and award-winning legal historian, who is advancing global conversations on law, religion, and family and exploring how legal frameworks uphold the common good.” To their reporters, Witte explained: “Religion and law are among the universal solvents of human living. They’re fundamental to our existence as persons and peoples. The need to study them responsibly is critical.”
This honor is among several Witte has received over the past year.
Induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Last fall, Witte was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his work in law and religion. Founded in 1780, the AAAS “honors excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together ‘to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.’ ”
Induction into the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation
Witte was also inducted into the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation (Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislación) in Spain for his work in legal history. Founded in 1730, and based in Madrid, the Academy is comprised of leading international jurists tasked to create and promote legal scholarship and to recommend and deliberate reforms of Spanish law.
Witte was honored to receive a Festschrift, Faith in Law, Law in Faith: Reflecting and Building on the Work of John Witte, Jr., published by Brill-Nijhoff. Edited by Emory colleagues, Rafael Domingo, Gary S. Hauk and Timothy P. Jackson, the book contains contributions by 30 of the brightest lights in the interdisciplinary field of law and religion, who joined to celebrate, evaluate, and extend his pioneering work over the last 40 years.
Emory Law hosted a presentation of this Festschrift in August 2024, featuring tributes by Emory colleagues, Dean Richard Freer, Professor Michael Broyde, and Dr. Gary Hauk. The International Consortium of Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS) also hosted a separate presentation of the volume in October 2024 at its triennial conference at the University of Notre Dame, featuring a tribute by Professor Richard Helmholz of the University of Chicago.
Creation by the International Consortium of Law and Religion Studies of the Triennial John Witte Jr. Book Prize for the Best Book in Law and Religion’
ICLARS has established a new triennial John Witte Jr. Prize for the best book published by an ICLARS member on law and religion issues. The inaugural award-winning book was by Professor Juan G. Navarro Floria, of the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Buenos Aires, Argentina for his title Nuevas dimensiones de la objeción de conciencia, published by Ábaco.
The Christian Legal Society, a national society of judges, lawyers, and law students, has established two new forums in Witte’s honor, hosted by Emory Law School alumnus Anton Sorkin, SJD ‘21.
The Witte Lectureship in Law and Religion offers annual lectures by leading scholars and respondents, alternating between Washington, DC and Los Angeles. The 2025 lecturer was Kristiana Arriaga, former US Commissioner for International Religious Freedom, with a response from Jamie Grosshans, Justice on the Florida Supreme Court. Forthcoming in this series in January 2026 is a lecture by Maria Doerfler of Yale University.
The annual Witte Workshop on Vocation and Law brings together young attorneys to deepen their understanding of their faith and the legal vocation and to help cultivate a truly human legal culture that discerns and responds to the needs of society. The inaugural workshop took place in Alexandria, Virginia in August, 2025 with opening presentations by Professors Robert Cochran (Virginia), Jeffrey Ventrella (Trinity), and Witte.
A specialist in legal history, human rights, religious freedom, family law, and law and religion, he has published 325 articles, 19 journal symposia, and 45 books.
His major books include: Law and Protestantism (Cambridge, 2002); The Reformation of Rights (Cambridge, 2007); Christianity and Law (Cambridge, 2008); The Sins of the Fathers (Cambridge, 2009); Christianity and Human Rights (Cambridge, 2010); Religion and Human Rights (Oxford, 2012); From Sacrament to Contract, 2d ed. (Westminster John Knox, 2012); No Establishment of Religion (Oxford, 2012); The Western Case for Monogamy over Polygamy (Cambridge, 2015); Christianity and Family Law (Cambridge, 2017); Church, State, and Family (Cambridge, 2019); The Blessings of Liberty (Cambridge, 2021); Faith, Freedom, and Family (Mohr Siebeck, 2021); Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment, 5th ed. (Oxford, 2022); In Defense of the Marital Family (Brill, 2023); Table Talk (Brill, 2024); and The Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Law (Oxford, 2024).
Some of Witte's writings have appeared in fifteen languages, and he has delivered more than 425 public lectures throughout the world. Recent lectures include the Franke Lectures at Yale, the Pennington Lectures at Heidelberg, the Jefferson Lectures at Berkeley, the Beatty Lectures at McGill, the Cunningham Lectures at Edinburgh, the McDonald Lectures at Oxford, the True Lectures at Notre Dame, and the Gifford Lectures at Aberdeen.
With $27 million of funding raised from the Pew, Ford, Lilly, Luce, and McDonald foundations, and other benefactors, Witte has directed 20 major international projects on democracy, human rights, and religious liberty; on marriage, family, and children; and on law and Christianity – collectively yielding nearly 400 new volumes and journal symposia. He is editor of Emory Studies in Law and Religion (Eerdmans) and Cambridge Studies in Law and Christianity (Cambridge), and he coedits the Journal of Law and Religion, Brill Research Perspectives on Law and Religion, the Spanish Colección Raíces del Derecho (Aranzadi), and the Chinese Law, Religion and Culture Series (Bouden House). Witte has won dozens of awards and prizes for his teaching and research.
On the horizon, Witte joins CSLR Executive Director Whittney Barth as co-editors of a new Cambridge Elements in Law and Religion Series. Cambridge has already embarked on several such Elements Series on different themes, and this new series will feature up to 50 short volumes of some 30,000 to 40,000 words on diverse topics in law and religion.