“Beyond Litigation: The ADR Advantage in a Digital, Islamic World” by Jo Chitlik

Image by Alessandro Biascioli. Licensed and provided by author from from stock.adobe.com. Modern conflict has evolved. It is faster, louder, more public, and more persistent than in prior eras. A disagreement that once remained between the parties involved can now become a screenshot, a group-chat thread, a social-media post, or even fodder for the court…

“Law, Religion, and Attention: Protecting the Dignity of Worship Online” by Ramazan Özgü

A computer at the Science Museum by Robert Brook (CC BY 1.0). Imagine a member of a congregation who wakes on Sunday morning too ill to attend church. She is particularly reluctant to miss the sermon. Fortunately, a local service is being broadcast live on television. She follows it from the opening hymn to the…

“The Free Exercise Cat is Out of the Bag: Can History and Tradition Lure It Back In?” by Whittney Barth

Senate Revisions to House Proposed Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, National Archives (US-PD) On October 15, Canopy Forum, hosted by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, will be organizing an online book symposium regarding Donald L. Drakeman’s upcoming book, to be published November 2026, titled The Free Exercise Clause and the Rights of Conscience (Harvard University Press,…

“Law and Religion in Revolutionary Pennsylvania” by Aaron J. Walayat

Crowds outside of Independence Hall in Pennsylvania by Ferdinand Richardt (US-PD-Art) The thirteen colonies,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, “that simultaneously threw off the yoke of England at the end of the last century had, as I have already said, the same religion, the same language, the same mores, nearly the same laws; they struggled against…

“Drakeman’s Faint-hearted Originalism” by Andrew Koppelman

Senate Revisions to House Proposed Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, National Archives (US-PD) On October 15, Canopy Forum, hosted by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, will be organizing an online book symposium regarding Donald L. Drakeman’s upcoming book, to be published November 2026, titled The Free Exercise Clause and the Rights of Conscience (Harvard University Press,…

The Free Exercise Clause and the Rights of Conscience, Review by John Witte, Jr.

Senate Revisions to House Proposed Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, National Archives (US-PD) On October 15, Canopy Forum, hosted by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, will be organizing an online book symposium regarding Donald L. Drakeman’s upcoming book, to be published November 2026, titled The Free Exercise Clause and the Rights of Conscience (Harvard…

“Scandal as a Concept in Anglican Canon Law” by Samuel L. Bray

Chapel dedication at Porter-Gaud School. Courtesy of Porter-Gaud School, used with permission. Recently, a private school in Charleston, South Carolina, dedicated its new chapel. The school has long had an Anglican/Episcopal connection, and its board of directors includes both the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and the bishop of the Anglican Diocese…

“De-Mystifying the Sino-Vatican Agreement: What Post-Vatican II  Agreements Reveal About Law, Papal Diplomacy, and China” by Thomas Ching Wei Tu (凃京威)

The St. Ignatius Cathedral in Shanghai in Shanghai, China (National Cathedral Church of China) by 钉钉 (CC-BY-SA4.0) In September 2018, the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China signed a historic,  but largely secret Provisional Agreement on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China. Provisional treaties made by the Holy See are signed, but…

“What distinguishes humans from AI robots? An Islamic perspective” by Mariam al-Attar

ChatGPT Rendering of AI via Wikimedia Commons (US-PD). In recent decades, philosophers have intensely debated the meaning of personhood and what it means to be human. Some have sought to blur the lines between human beings and non-human animals, while others challenge the distinction between humans and machines. The rise of “enhanced humans” and AI…

“Going Dutch with the American Founders” by John Witte, Jr.

Last page of the Union of Utrecht, 1579, Nationaal Archief (US-PD) This article is part of a forthcoming series on the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning volume on The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967), Harvard historian Bernard Bailyn pointed to five major sources that helped drive the American revolutionaries…