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 this volume about the politics of American religion, Shakman Hurd and Sullivan ask readers to consider the differences between “domestic versions of religion and religious freedom” as opposed to “those offered for export” (1). The emphasis on disestablishment and free exercise at home, they write, stands in stark contrast to American projects abroad, where…
In this brisk little book, Joshua Mauldin responds to the contemporary crisis of democracy by taking up three related topics: theological criticisms of modernity and democracy, such as those made by Alasdair MacIntyre, Bradley Gregory, and Stanley Hauerwas; the political theologies of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and broadly Hegelian defenses of modernity and democracy,…
This essay was originally read at Columbia University’s IRCPL event on March 17, 2021. In the American Examples project at the University of Alabama, the idea of American religion itself has been up for debate. During a recent discussion, Michael J. Altman, a principal investigator on the project, recounted a question from the previous year’s cohort,…
Introduction The coronavirus pandemic has robbed us all of something. My brother works for the state of Texas, and he still hasn’t returned to his office, having been away for more than a year. My elderly parents caught the virus early this year. Even after recovering, they have limited their trips outside the home. Thus…
From his very first line, Joshua Mauldin establishes immediately what is at stake in his new thought-provoking volume Barth, Bonhoeffer, & Modern Politics: “Modern democracy is in crisis.” The modern liberal democratic project does seem to teeter perpetually on a knife’s edge. Critics and prognosticators routinely predict its demise. While there has been no shortage…
Beloved author J.R.R. Tolkien survived the First World War’s trenches, confronted the intellectual challenges and questions of modernity, and then wrote his epic works of high fantasy, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, during the horrors of the Second World War. After the perils and high heroic deeds of their quest to destroy…
It’s no secret that tensions exist in the ways that the government of the United States treats “religion” in different contexts. In the domestic sphere, private corporations can, as of 2014, essentially opt out of obeying the laws they deem incompatible with their “sincerely held religious beliefs.” Yet in terms of foreign policy, the same…
Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were theological titans of the twentieth century who naturally wrote mostly about the interpretation of Christian doctrines. That they remain relevant to social ethics and political theology cannot be assumed; such a claim must be defended. Both theologians might seem to be prime candidates for the verdict that too much…
Every now and then, social media resurfaces a meme I’ve come to think of as the “American Jesus” post. A screenshot from a conversation on Facebook, the post reads: “The Bible was written entirely by the greatest American who ever lived: JESUS,” followed by an apparently nonplussed observer asking, “This a joke or [what]?” Although…