“The Potential Religious Context of The Fourth Amendment” Peter Wosnik James Madison first introduced the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to Congress in 1789. Since that time, the Fourth Amendment has become a bedrock in criminal procedure in American constitutional law. Thousands of state and federal cases have been decided interpreting and applying it…
Religion and US Empire: Critical New Historiesedited by Tisa Wenger and Sylvester Johnson “Ordinary Affects of U.S. Empire”, A review by Candace Lukasik “American imperialist culture has seeped into Egyptian blood.” – Kirollos We sat on the back patio, eating watermelon in the heat of the sun on a chilly March day in 2021. Kirollos…
Picture by Jez Timms on Unsplash. Meatless Fridays were once one of the most visible markers of Catholic identity. For most of the American faithful, they are now observed only in the special liturgical season of Lent. US bishops should impose it as a weekly matter once again. The pastoral hopes that caused them to…
Southern Baptist Church by Warren LeMay (CC0 1.0) In May of 2022, the news broke that the US Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) had released an independent report investigating the SBC’s handling of sexual harassment and assault by clergy and other employees of SBC-affiliated churches. The report described an institution that prioritized avoiding liability, was callous…
This article is part of our “Kennedy, Carson, and Dobbs: Law and Religion in Pressing Supreme Court Cases” series. If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. In its Carson v. Makin decision, the Supreme Court held that the State of Maine violated the Free Exercise rights of parents who wished…
This article is part of our “Kennedy, Carson, and Dobbs: Law and Religion in Pressing Supreme Court Cases” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. 2021-2022 was a blockbuster Supreme Court term for opponents of church-state separation. In the course of a few short months, the Court stripped women of…
Religious Diversity’s Benefit for DemocracyRobert Wuthnow The following is a modified except from Robert Wuthnow’s Why Religion Is Good for American Democracy (2021), out now from Princeton University Press. Religious advocacy is not the answer to the political challenges confronting the United States at this critical juncture in its history, any more than religious conviction…
Natural Rights and the First Amendment Religion ClausesVincent Phillip Muñoz The following is a modified excerpt from Vincent Phillip Muñoz’s 2022 book Religious Liberty and the American Founding: Natural Rights and the Original Meanings of the First Amendment Religion Clauses, available now from University of Chicago Press. It is now no more that toleration is…
body of water under cloudy sky during sunset by Storiès on Unsplash. Conflict and Religion Is religion a conflict dimension in today’s Ethiopia? Does it have an impact on the ongoing armed confrontations in the country? Some observers think so, but I disagree. Ethiopia, the second-most populated country in Africa, with approximately 112 million people,…
silhouette of trees covered by fog by Paul Pastourmatzis on Unsplash. The United States Constitution, drafted in 1787, is a remarkable document. It is the oldest written and operating constitution in the world. There have been twenty-seven amendments to this text since its inception, from the original Bill of Rights, inclusive of the first ten…