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First of all, let me express my gratitude to Professor Witte for having taken the trouble to comment at some length on my book. What he has written has stimulated thought, even where it has not elicited repentance. He and I are old friends, who share in common much that is important. Since I hope…
The Innocence of Pontius Pilate by David Lloyd Dusenbury An overview by the author, with parts adapted from the book, published with the permission of Hurst and Oxford University Press. Ecce Homo: Pilate and Jesus in the History of Secularity In a beautiful volume of lectures and conversations, Julia Kristeva suggests that “the ‘genius of…
Religion clause jurisprudence is one of the more convoluted areas of constitutional law. The Supreme Court has articulated at least six different standards in recent years for determining whether a state has violated the First Amendment’s prohibition against “establishment of religion.” The Court’s approach to free exercise cases is not much clearer and no less…
In the summer of 2021, the French National Assembly and Senate passed the so-called “anti-separatism” bill, signed into law by Emanuel Macron, ostensibly to protect laïcité, the French secularist doctrine designed to ensure government neutrality toward religion. The new law increases scrutiny by the government of religious associations, bars homeschooling (except in some instances which…
What does it mean to call a law generally applicable? The question is timely because of a confluence between the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this summer in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia and ongoing litigation over COVID-19 prevention measures, especially vaccination mandates. In Fulton, the Court gestured toward two definitions of general applicability. The majority…
In the Fall of 2021, Dr. Philip L. Reynolds – a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Medieval Christianity, and Aquinas Professor of Historical Theology at Candler School of Theology – retired. For almost four decades, Reynolds has taught and published extensively in the…
This is Part II of Laura Ford’s essay on Social Identity Pietism and the First Amendment Balance. The First Amendment Balance & Social Peace In a careful historical study of American cultural and jurisprudential developments relating to First Amendment religious freedom, Philip Hamburger has persuasively argued that the U.S. effort to separate religion from politics…
Over the last three decades of work in the fields of law, religion, and human rights, I have been privileged to work with fellow scholars with a range of views on what is known in the United States as “religious freedom.” In my work with scholars outside the U.S., I have also been schooled in…
This is the final remnant of the Christianity of their ancestors, the last enduring bit of their inheritance: a social gospel, without the gospel. – Joseph Bottum, An Anxious Age (2014) The law commands and requires us to do certain things. The law is thus directed to our behavior and consists in making requirements. For God…
Law and Christianity in Latin America: The Work of Great Jurists edited by M.C. Mirow and Rafael Domingo This volume is part of a fifty-volume series on “Great Christian Jurists in World History, “presenting the interaction of law and Christianity through the biographies of 1000 legal figures of the past two millennia. Commissioned by the…