M. Christian Green is a scholar, teacher, researcher, writer, and editor working in the fields of law, religion, ethics, human rights, and global affairs. She holds degrees from Georgetown University in history and government, Emory University in law and theology, and the University of Chicago in religious ethics. Her research interests include law and religion, human rights, religious freedom, religion and world affairs, and global ethics.
Research & Teaching: Green has been a researcher at the Religion, Culture, and Family Project at the University of Chicago, the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics in Chicago, and the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. At the CSLR she directed research on Africa and Europe for the “Law, Religion, and Human Rights” project and was the principal investigator and blog and website editor for the project on “Sharia, Family, and Democracy: Religious Norms and Family Law in Pluralistic Democratic States.” During the 2010-2011 academic year, she was a visiting research fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, conducting research on “Religion, Rights, and Recognition of Identity.” She has taught at DePaul University, Harvard Divinity School, and the Candler School of Theology.
Current Projects: Green is currently a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, where she is managing editor at the CSLR’s Canopy Forum digital journal and special content editor and a general co-editor at the Journal of Law and Religion. Green is also editor and publications manager for the African Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ACLARS) and served from 2016-2018 as academic consultant and social media editor for the Commonwealth Initiative on Freedom of Religion or Belief (CIFoRB).
Green is an active volunteer for the League of Women Voters of Louisiana, where she was elected Vice President for the 2021-2023 term, also chairing the Voting Rights Committee. She received the LWV of Louisiana’s 2020 Advocacy Award for work on voting rights in Louisiana in the 2020 election season. Green was also the recipient of the League of Women Voters of Lafayette‘s Thetis Cusimano Award in 2021 for work on redistricting and fair maps and led the Louisiana team that was honored as “Redistricting Champions” in the People Powered Fair Maps initiative by the League of Women Voters of the United States at its 2022 National Convention. On March 5, 2023, Green was elected President of the LWV of Louisiana at the 2023 State Convention on the theme of “EnviroCivics: Climate, Communities, and Democracy.” On March 23, 2025, Green was re-elected as president at the 2025 State Convention on the theme of “Serving Democracy: The Value of Nonpartisan Civil Service.”
Recent Publications:
“The Ethical Spirit of AI Constitutionalism,” Canopy Forum/Center for the Study of Law and Religion, June 27, 2025.
“Religion and State in Russia: Introduction,” Journal of Law and Religion 39:3 (FirstView publication June 9, 2025)
Law, Religion and Leadership in Africa, executive editor to Fortune Sibanda, Ezra Chitando, Elias G. Konyana, and Bernard Pindukai Humbe (Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, May 18, 2025). Read the introduction.
Law, Religion and Reconciliation in Africa, edited with Jean-Baptiste Sourou and Célestin Gnonzion† (Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, May 20, 2024).
“‘Go and Do Likewise’: Law, Christianity, and Good Samaritanism,” in Rafael Domingo Osle and Gary S. Hauk, eds. Faith in Law, Law in Faith: Essays in Honor of John Witte, Jr. (Leiden: Brill, April 4, 2024), 165-183.
“Housing Rights, Citizen Rights, and Human Dignity: The Case of Voting While Unhoused,” Canopy Forum/ Center for the Study of Law and Religion, March 20, 2024.
With Massimiliano Montini. “Christianity, Law, and the Ecological Crisis,” in The Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Law, eds. John Witte, Jr. and Rafael Domingo Osle (New York: Oxford University Press, December 8, 2023), 649-663.
African Conceptions of Human Dignity, edited with Brett G. Scharffs and Simeon O. Ilesanmi (Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, December 10, 2023).
“Ghosts of Law and Religion: The Paranormal Fascination and the Bounds of Knowledge and Experience,” Canopy Forum/Center for the Study of Law and Religion, November 10, 2023.
“From Crisis to Kairos: The ‘Green Patriarch’ and Environmental Law,” in The Legal Thought of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, ed. Norman Doe (London: Routledge, November 3, 2023), 107-117.
“Plessy, Prince and Me: Law, Religion, and the Quest for Racial Justice,” Canopy Forum/Center for the Study of Law and Religion, February 22, 2023.
Coming Soon:
With Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, Faith Kabata, and Molly Manyonganise. “Political doctrines on law and religion in Africa,” Routledge Handbook of Law and Religion, Second Edition, Christiana Cianitto and Rossella Bottoni, eds. (London/New York: Routledge, forthcoming).
M. Christian Green 