Proposals for participation in a blog conference on Law, Religion, and Coronavirus in the United States: A Six-Month Assessment, are being accepted until August 31st, 2020. An online webinar open to the public will be held on Friday October 2, 2020, at 11:00 a.m. EDT where brief 3-5 minute summaries of blog posts of approximately…
In defense of his direct-action campaign and breaking of Jim Crow laws, Martin Luther King, Jr. cited Saint Thomas Aquinas’s proposition that “an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.” In the same way that King and his fellow fighters in the black freedom struggle faced segregation…
COVID-19 presents colleges with precisely the kind of problem that those of us in the liberal arts claim that we are preparing people to address in responsible ways. The pandemic confronts us with what academics call an unstructured problem: one that has many layers and for which there is no easy answer. Ethicists, of all…
I live in Los Angeles, California, near what seems to me to be one of the most dangerous intersections in South LA, Vermont and Gage. On any given day, the intersection looks like any other intersection in the city. But to live in this area is to know, there are underlying factors that make this…
Great Christian Jurists in English History edited by Mark Hill QC and Richard H. Helmholz This volume is part of a fifty-volume series on “Great Christian Jurists in World History”, presenting the interaction of law and Christianity through the biographies of 1000 legal figures of the past two millennia. Commissioned by the Center for the…
In an interview with Krista Tippet’s theology podcast On Being, prominent civil rights activist and public theologian Ruby Sales considers the role of Black Christianity and Black folk religion in her community organizing. Despite being reared in the Black Baptist tradition, Sales explains that she “lost her religion” during her first protest. When God failed…
The Supreme Court delivered a precedent-setting decision on June 30, 2020, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. The facts and holding of this case have already been addressed in the Canopy Forum, so I will only summarize them here. Then, following a brief discussion of the Court’s distinction between religious status and use, I will…
Many Americans gleam over Uncle Sam’s “wall of separation” between church and state. That this wall should be thick and tall perhaps became even more evident after President Trump posed weeks ago with a Bible minutes after having the National Guard use tear gas to expel peaceful protestors for his photo-op. Reverends and representatives alike…
“Have We Gone Too Far By Tearing Down Religious Monuments?” Adrienne Phillips Religious statues and monuments are prominent cultural, historical, and ecclesiastical focal points around the world. People travel thousands of miles to view them, express their religious devotions, or just admire the beauty. Lately, there has been a surging movement to take down statues…
Great Christian Jurists in French History edited by Olivier Descamps and Rafael Domingo This volume is part of a fifty-volume series on “Great Christian Jurists in World History, “presenting the interaction of law and Christianity through the biographies of 1000 legal figures of the past two millennia. Commissioned by the Center for the Study of…