The Interactions podcast, a podcast about the interactions between law and religion, is produced by the CSLR and distributed by Canopy Forum. New episodes now available.
This symposium explores the complex and multifaceted nature of religious discrimination. Read new essays by various experts here.
Our three latest series include essays on Transnational Christian Nationalism, IVF and ART, and a collaboration with the journal, Derecho en Sociedad. Explore our latest series by scholars around the globe.
Table Talks on Law and ReligionJohn Witte, Jr. This is an excerpt from John Witte, Jr.’s open access book, Table Talk: Short Reflections on the Weightier Matters of Law and Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2023). “Table talks” have long been a familiar genre of writing for jurists, theologians, politicians, and novelists. In this little volume, leading…
Panorama of “Religious Liberty” Statue in Philadelphia by Andrey Bobrovsky (CC BY 3.0 Deed). Since its founding, the United States has had a unique national commitment to religious liberty, most notably exemplified in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Ratified in 1791, it serves as the primary basis for the nation’s legal recognition of religious…
View of the Lys river in the centre of Ghent, Belgium by Joaquim Alves Gaspar (CC BY-SA 3.0 Deed). In July 2023, the government of the Netherlands abruptly collapsed amid a heated disagreement over migration. At the core of this debate was an attempt to limit the right of child refugees from war zones to…
Home of Carl Schmitt in Plettenberg-Pasel (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0). Editorial Note: Page numbers in the text refer to the prior publication linked in the text. There is, apparently, a new surge of interest among scholars of religion and law in the theory of sovereignty proposed by the twentieth-century German legal philosopher, Carl Schmitt…
Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C by King of Hearts (CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed). As the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the December 10, 2023 International Human Rights Day, a group of scholars have submitted the following reflections on religious freedom and comparative law. The twentieth century…
“Facade and fountain of the United States Supreme Court Building” by Sunira Moses (CC BY-SA 3.0 Deed). This article is part of our “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act at Thirty” series. If you’d like to explore other articles in this series, click here. Few Supreme Court opinions in recent generations have produced such swift and near-universal condemnation…
Religious Accommodation and its LimitsFarrah Raza On what grounds should religious accommodation claims be limited? When do religious claims harm the autonomy of others? This book proposes an original model of religious accommodation which can be applied in secular liberal democracies where religious diversity has been a hotly contested issue. Addressing the complex question of…
Human Rights and Orthodox Christianity: Learning from our DifferencesJohn Witte, Jr. This essay was originally published on November 3, 2023 as a chapter in The Legal Thought of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, edited by Norman Doe and Dimitrios Nikiforos. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide, has thought profoundly about the…
Photo titled “Ghosts, Spooky” from Pixabay (License). As anyone with cable or streaming television in the United States knows, it’s a scary world out there! Talking to dead people, hunting the forests for bigfoots, searching the skies for UFOs—it’s a big paranormal world that’s become big programming and entertainment. Maybe it’s because I recently stayed…
Liverpool Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool, UK by Michael D. Beckwith (CC0 1.0 Deed). Over the last two decades, the world-wide Anglican Communion, one of the largest denominational gatherings of Christians in the world, often appears in secular news related to the intensity of its internal conflicts. These debates often center around questions which have roiled…