As part of trying to make sense of the year that just happened - teaching, writing, occasionally sleeping – I am starting here with some thoughts on my Law and Religion module. It was my first time teaching it, and like most firsts, it was equal parts thrilling, awkward, enlightening, and vaguely chaotic. But something happened when things clicked, and students cared; therefore, before it all blurs into next year’s to-do list, I wanted to write a little of it down. I called the first unit “Law, Religion and the Backstory” because it sounded like something a person might actually want to read (or click, these days) on. The idea was that each unit would be “Law, Religion and…” something - “Law, Religion and Rights,” “Law, Religion and the Courts,” “Law, Religion and the Infinite Bureaucratic Machine” - but it turns out the backstory is complicated, and possibly cursed. I was trying to be clever, or at least less boring than “History of Law and Religion,” which feels like a one-way ticket...