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Twenty-five leading scholars offer thoughtful reflection on the implications for law and religion in the United States of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the economic and racial justice crises, from our current perspectives approximately six months into the crisis.
Georgia State Capitol, Atlanta, Georgia. Source: DXR, Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0. Currently, all eyes are on Georgia as the state prepares for the runoff elections on January 5th, which will determine which party has control of the Senate. While the battles between Jon Ossoff and David Perdue and Raphael G. Warnock and Kelly Loeffler are…
On October 3, 2020, the vigil of the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis issued his third papal encyclical. The title, Fratelli tutti — literally meaning “all brothers” — comes from an admonition of St. Francis of Assisi (ca. 1181–1226) to his Franciscan brothers and sisters to follow a way of life marked…
We the People … in order … to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Because neither the People nor their leaders are angels, the Constitution reflects a Calvinist theological perspective and embodies “obsessive distrust of government — all government…
The modern history of humanity is driven by several contradictions, one of them being the conflict between universalism and particularism. In a nutshell, numerous universalist frameworks are grounded on the idea that norms and values relate equally to all humans, to all living creatures, or — even more widely — to all forms of being.…
Render Unto Caesar: Law, Religion, and Tax No area of law is more central to the interplay of religion and law than taxation. In his book The City of God, the theologian and philosopher St. Augustine famously questioned the difference between an empire and a band of robbers. Any faith traditions trying to answer Augustine’s…
Pope Francis’s recent encyclical is the second of his major writings inspired directly by his papal namesake, St. Francis of Assisi. In Laudato si’, published in 2015, Pope Francis lifted up the saint’s invocation of praise for God’s presence in creation, which the pontiff memorably dubbed “our common home.” Now, in Fratelli tutti, the pope’s…
The post-9/11 world was marked by an urgent need to theorize about the relationship between religion and violence, but at the same time, it sparked a growing interest in the role of religion in peacebuilding. Much of what has been written on this subject in recent years is based on Scott R. Appleby’s work The…
In his previous encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis claims that the contours of biblical teaching “suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor, and with earth itself” (para. 66). It may be observed that these three overlapping relationships are also the subjects of Francis’ encyclicals…
As understanding the finer points of Roman Catholic ethical doctrine can be a feat in and of itself, it is difficult to blame anyone beyond or even within the worldwide community of Catholic believers if they are somewhat mystified regarding the content and status of those documents that emanate from the Vatican and address moral…
By the 6th century CE, Christianity was a religion of empire that produced significant codices of imperial law, many of which regulated Jewish practice. Even so, however, Christian polemics against Jewish “legalism” and the perceived burden of the Mosaic-Pharisaic law were commonplace. According to foundational Christian writings, Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection had…