Liberty “Foundations of Law” reading list

The required reading list for the course “Foundations of Law” (LAW 501) at the Liberty University Law School has been making the rounds lately [link, link]. The law school is in summer session now, and the course isn’t being taught over the summer; the required reading list for the 2011 term is not yet available, and a quick browse at the Liberty Barnes & Noble store [link] was inconclusive, but the Internet Wayback Machine cached copy [link] has the following list:

Foundations of Law I (Law 501) –Professors Lindevaldsen & Dunbar
Required Texts:
Rousas Rushdoony, This Independent Republic (Ross House Books) ISBN: 1879998246

Frederic Bastiat, The Law (Foundation for Economic Freedom) ISBN: 9781572462144

Greg L. Bahnsen, By This Standard: The Authority of God’s Law Today (American Vision) ISBN: 0915815842

CS Lewis, Mere Christianity (Zondervan Publishing House) any edition is acceptable

Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto (Crossway Publishers) any edition is acceptable

David Barton, Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion (Paperback) (5th ed., 2008 WallBuilders) ISBN: 9781932225631

I’m completely at a loss here; I have no idea what is a typical reading list for an introductory first-year law class, nor what a Foundations of Law course is supposed to do, exactly. But I’m disturbed to see that there are exactly zero lawyers among these authors.

And of course there’s the presence of  Barton and Rushdoony, both Reconstructionists, and Bahnsen, an Orthodox Presbyterian (but for different reasons). Regarding the former I have to say I don’t remember these guys being cited with approval when I was a student there twenty-hmm years ago; regarding the latter, I suppose the accusations that Liberty is Arminian pure and simple may be a bit overstated.

Regardless, I’d be tempted to take this list as Exhibit A in the case that Liberty has drifted to the right, politically speaking, since its Moral Majority days. Go figure.