[flacaltenn]

Pete:

If the preacher holds your mortgage, you're bound by the contract if it's valid in civil law. If the preacher only holds your soul as collateral because you've promised to stop drinking, it's pretty much unenforceable. Likewise, if a Catholic cleric orders you to do 55 Hail Marys to repent, he can't get a court order to enforce that verdict. From the OTHER perspective of using civil law to intercede in religious law, -- As a female in the Orthodox Jewish congregation, you cannot put together a civil rights case that allows you to sit with the men in the synagogue..

Sharia seems to cover economic contractuals a lot more than the Babtist church does. Their economic agreements according to Sharia are NOT based on US civil law and therefore are alien to our court system.

A voodoo cleric that makes a doll in your image can be quite powerful in some cultures, so be careful out there.