Giving the Law a Religious Perspective By ADAM LIPTAK

The class in civil procedure, at the new Liberty School of Law here, began with a prayer.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul,” said Prof. Jeffrey C. Tuomala, quoting Psalm 19. “The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.”

But decisions of the United States Supreme Court, Professor Tuomala went on, are not always trustworthy. “Something that is contrary to the law of nature,” he said, “cannot be law.”

The school, part of Liberty University, whose chancellor is the Rev. Jerry Falwell, is for now a makeshift affair in a vast industrial building that used to be a cellular phone factory. Its students compensate for the surroundings by dressing well – many of the men wore jackets and ties – and by showing attentive enthusiasm, even for a heavy dose of civil procedure at 8 a.m.

The school, which says its mission is to train “ministers of justice,” is part of a movement around the nation that means to bring a religious perspective to the law and a moral component to legal practice.

“People are realizing that some of the biggest issues of the day are being decided in the courts – the 2000 presidential election, the question of what is marriage, abortion, stem-cell research, cloning,” said Jeffrey A. Brauch, the dean of Regent Law School, which was founded in 1986 in Virginia Beach by Pat Robertson, the television evangelist. “And maybe there are eternal principles of justice that will tell us how to approach these questions.” …

[W]here mainstream law professors tend to ask questions about judges’ fidelity to precedent and the Constitution, Liberty professors often analyze decisions in terms of biblical principles.

“If our graduates wind up in the government,” Dr. Falwell said, “they’ll be social and political conservatives. If they wind up as judges, they’ll be presiding under the Bible.”

Many of the dozen students who chatted with a reporter over two days at the school, representing a fifth of the school’s first and only class, said they were drawn to its emphasis on fundamental and enduring truths.

“We study the law that’s written on the heart, the things that no one can deny,” Brian Fraser said.