Between Law and Religion: Procedural Challenges to Religious Arbitration Awards

This Article explores the unique status of religious law as a hybrid concept that simultaneously retains the characteristics of both law and religion. To do so, the Article considers as a case study how courts should evaluate procedural challenges to religious arbitration awards. To respond to such challenges, courts must treat religious law as law when defining the contractually adopted religious procedural rules, but treat religious law as religion when reviewing precisely what the religious procedural rules require. On this account, constitutional and arbitration doctrine combine to insulate religious arbitration awards from judicial scrutiny even on procedural grounds, leaving courts to confirm religious arbitration awards without knowing whether the arbitrators complied with the contractually required procedural safeguards.

This outcome—emblematic of the Janus-faced nature of religious law—is good reason to reevaluate how U.S. law treats religious law, encouraging us to de-mystify religious law by seeing it more like law and less like religion.