The resurgence of interest in religion in recent years has caught many academics by surprise. Sociologists, for instance, continue to grapple with the fact that the secularisation thesis has not turned out to be entirely correct, while experts in religious studies stand agog at the increase in public and political interest in their field. These changes have also been felt in law schools. Increasingly, religion is something that cannot be ignored by academic lawyers. The steady growth of a corpus of law affecting religion has resulted in religion being relevant in discrimination law, family law, criminal law and human rights classes, to name just a few. Moreover, recent years have witnessed the advent of a new breed: academics for whom law and religion is their main research area.

In May 2008, under the initiative of the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff, these academics formed the Law and Religion Scholars Network (LARSN). Following a successful meeting at Cardiff in May 2008,Footnote ¹ the group organised a survey investigating the extent to which law and religion is currently taught in UK Law Schools, developed a Law and Religion mailbase and started a Law and Religion Publications List. The group's membership doubled in size in under a year. In May 2009, LARSN had around a hundred members, over fifty of whom attended the second LARSN event at Cardiff Law School on Tuesday 5 May 2009.

The second LARSN meeting took the form of an academic conference with a business meeting at the end of the day. Over twenty academic papers were presented. The Islamic Law of War, the accommodation of the Ten Commandments in English law and the effect of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 upon alternative spiritualities were among the topics discussed. Particular panels explored developments in discrimination law, the interaction between religion and education law and the ideas expressed in the Archbishop of Canterbury's lecture on sharia law. These papers gave an excellent snapshot of the variety, breadth, depth and quality of law and religion research currently being conducted by scholars at varied stages in their academic careers. Discussions following papers, continued over refreshments and lunch, underscored this and the extent to which LARSN members could learn from one another.

The day concluded with a meeting, chaired by Russell Sandberg, that assessed the progress of LARSN in its first year and planned for the future of the Network. The next LARSN event is the first LARSN doctoral students conference, which will have taken place on 30 June 2009 at Oxford Brookes University, organised by Peter Edge and Javad Gohari. Other plans for the next year include the development of the LARSN website to include a new LARSN links page and details of members' research interests; and a further conference will be held at Cardiff in May 2010, which will include the third meeting of the Network and a special meeting of those who teach or who are interested in teaching law and religion.Footnote ² The opening years of the twenty-first century have seen religious issues dominating the public agenda. The successes of LARSN to date and its future plans suggest that scholars of law and religion are more than ready to address the challenges ahead.