Photo of Ukrainian Flag from Pixabay Religious freedom is ominously shrinking in Ukraine. Unlike Moscow, post-Soviet Kiev used to tolerate the various rival Eastern Orthodox Christian jurisdictions. But Kiev is now blatantly persecuting the UOC (Ukrainian Orthodox Church), favoring the OCU (Orthodox Church of Ukraine). Ukraine’s parliament has passed the first reading of a bill…
“My Body, Their Baby: A Progressive Christian Vision for Surrogacy”Grace Y. Kao Nearly four decades after the In re Baby M case stimulated widespread debate in the United States, the legal and religious debates over surrogacy continue. Surrogacy laws in the U.S. vary widely by state, and Pope Francis recently made international headlines by calling…
The Oxford Handbook of Christianity and LawJohn Witte, Jr. and Rafael Domingo This text is excerpted in part from the front matter of the Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Law, edited by John Witte, Jr. and Rafael Domingo (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023) and is used herein with permission. This hefty new volume, over…
Picture of a dome at the Cathedral of Peter and Paul, Petergof, Russia. Taken by Author. Expressing the position of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) regarding the conflict in Ukraine, the media predominantly concentrates on the stance articulated by Patriarch Kirill, a longtime ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin. In his capacity as the head…
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…
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…
Picture titled “Church, Religion, Freedom” from Pixabay (License). 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. I n a democratic multi-religious society, regulating religious freedom is a tricky issue. However, examining the issue from the perspective of a European…
Saint Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia by Peter H. on Pixabay. Many Christians celebrate the Supreme Court’s decision in 303 Creative, LLC v. Elenis as a bulwark against coercion. In 303 Creative, the Supreme Court held that a Christian web designer has a First Amendment free speech right to refuse service to couples seeking…