—Part I— Many Christian theologians of the past two thousand years would likely have supported a wealth tax, but not for the reasons given by the current Democratic presidential candidates. Using the tax system to redistribute resources from the wealthy to the poor has been a matter of controversy in American history, but it has…
Image by Robert Jones from Pixabay This essay continues our series of pieces exploring the relationship between Natural Law and Human Rights in light of the State Department’s recently convened Commission on Unalienable Rights. In this brief essay, I propose that the natural law and social justice traditions can together form a powerful partnership that champions anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic causes.…
“Sacred Stone Camp” by Tony Webster / Flickr / CC BY 2.0 The Standing Rock demonstrations, which began in early 2016 and lasted almost a year, have been aptly characterized as the largest Native American activist movement in modern history. More than 300 tribes and scores of water protectors gathered to protest against the construction…
“Dashboard Jesus” by Joseph Novak / Flickr / CC BY 2.0 Police are looking for drug runners near the Mexican border. They see a truck with a crucifix hanging from the rearview mirror. Can they factor this in as a reason to stop the truck? Surprisingly, most federal courts have held yes, albeit as a…
Cover Image: Mouth of the Klamath River on the Pacific Ocean, Del Norte County, California / Wikimedia. This essay continues our series of pieces exploring the relationship between Natural Law and Human Rights in light of the State Department’s recently convened Commission on Unalienable Rights. The Trump Administration’s new Commission on Unalienable Rights, recently convened…
“Arms-Fold” by Dorset Photographic is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 On September 12, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted habeas corpus relief to William Barnes, who had been previously sentenced to death in North Carolina. The basis for the court’s ruling was the fact that during deliberations at trial, a juror relied on…
Miquel Barceló’s ceiling at the UN headquarters in Geneva. United States Mission Geneva / CC BY-ND 2.0 This essay continues our series of pieces exploring the relationship between Natural Law and Human Rights in light of the State Department’s recently convened Commission on Unalienable Rights. The Commission on Unalienable Rights has already generated significant criticism,…
This essay is the first in a series of pieces exploring the relationship between Natural Law and Human Rights in light of the State Department’s recently convened Commission on Unalienable Rights. Attempts by the United States State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights to identify a subset of proper “unalienable rights” within the broader category of…
Daughters of Charity holy card. 1896. University of Dayton Libraries / Wikimedia Commons. My mother spent 25 years working for a Catholic hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. When she was hired in 1984, Catholic faith was a requirement for management, and nuns roamed the halls. For every five years of service, she received a new metal…
This fall I taught a graduate seminar on the history of religion in the United States. I have long been committed to transparency as the centerpiece of my pedagogy, which means that I take students behind the scenes of the historical profession and show them how the ideas they encounter in neatly-packaged articles and books…