Of God, country, and humor

It’s not often that a reader stumbles on a funny book by a constitutional law professor and divinity school graduate. (In fact, it’s improbable. Religion and the law are serious matters in American life, generally overseen by austere men in black, the color that most emphasizes gravitas.)
But author Jay Wexler has managed the unlikely with ‘‘Holy Hullaballoos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars.’’ Wexler, a onetime Supreme Court clerk who now teaches at Boston University, had an intriguing idea. What if he took a sabbatical year and traveled around America, visiting places that have played key roles in important Supreme Court decisions on religion, gauging the issues and their impact first hand?
On his resulting odyssey, Wexler (above) spent time with a Santeria religious sect in Florida, an ultra-Othodox Jewish community in New York, an Amish community in Wisconsin, and a Muslim school in Cleveland, all of them involved in significant court rulings on the church-state divide. Viewing their religious practices and issues up close, Wexler humorously but candidly discusses how their cases fit into American law, and often draws his own conclusions on where the boundaries likely should be. In so doing, he effectively combines the legal and the everyday, bringing high concepts down to ground level, which is, after all, where people spend their lives.
These are serious matters, but Wexler does like to have fun. At one point, he visits a Buddhist temple in Cleveland, where his legs freeze up in the lotus position, and his prayers become personal and pointed. Legs throbbing, he ‘‘silently implored the smiling Buddahs to deliver me serenity and relief.’’ At another, he travels to the U.S. Senate, desperately trying to reach the viewing chamber before the session begins. That’s because the whole point for Wexler is to hear the chaplain’s opening blessing. Hardly anyone ever shows up for that perfunctory moment, and soon he’s alone, and lost. A tiny directional sign points toward a painting, ‘‘like one of the traffic signs we have in Boston that seem deliberately intended to confuse visitors.’’
Wexler will discuss his travels, religion, and the law — likely with an overlay of jokes — Wednesday, June 17, at 7 p.m. at Brookline Booksmith in Coolidge Corner.