Image from Pixabay —Part II— Part I of this article surveyed the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates’ tax plans and situated proposals for raising revenue and reducing the wealth gap in broader tax policy concerns. The proposals are revisiting two questions dormant since the early 1980s: (1) how should tax policy balance the dual concerns of…
Image from Pixabay —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,…
“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…
“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…
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…
Photo by stokpic on Pixabay (CCO) 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…
Red and black abstract photo/ Tobias Aeppli / Pexels Autonomy and dignity are standard grounds for arguments supporting the legalization of assisted suicide. The prima facie case is excellent: forbidding suicide limits human autonomy, and compelling people to live against their will diminishes their self-determination and therefore their dignity. Counter-arguments often rest on assertions about…
Cover image: “Baptistry” by patentboy is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 . What is the position of an individual who, having transitioned from one gender to another, seeks baptism within the Church of England? The sacramental nature of baptism is described in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and the requirements associated with the baptism itself in the Canons of the Church…
Director Vlada Knowlton sat down with the Emory University community to talk about her recent film The Most Dangerous Year. You can watch the trailer for the film above and explore video excerpts from the Q&A below. Gender is a matter of perennial concern in legal and religious spheres, and its implications are often profound: a…
Photo by stevepb on Pixabay (CCO) For Dr. Will Cooke, an evangelical Christian physician in rural Indiana, the Sermon on the Mount motivates him to care for his poor and often addicted patients, and to raise his voice to advocate for better access to treatment and medicines. “Just praying for the sick or yielding the responsibility…