Tonto National Forest by Janet Ward (CC BY 2.0). Among the Supreme Court’s most significant decisions on religious exercise this term was the decision not to act. The case—Apache Stronghold v. United States—was relisted 13 times before the Court issued a denial of certiorari indicating they would not hear the case. The conflict involved a…
Shah Faisal Mosque, Islamabad, Pakistan via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). The Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s legal system presents a distinctive pluralistic model, intertwining secular common law inherited from British colonial rule with Islamic jurisprudence, or fiqh, under a single constitutional framework. The 1973 Constitution declares Islam as the state religion and mandates that all…
AI image made by the author to demonstrate Aldous Huxley‘s writing. “Mysticism” – the experience of union with ultimate reality – is often described as a summum bonum of human religious experience, and a central feature of the psychedelic experience. Indeed, in describing psychedelic experiences, “mystical experience” is one of the most frequent terms…
United States Department of Defense Building (US-PD). The executive order of President Trump to turn the Department of Defense into the Department of War is profoundly ominous. Especially when combined with the president’s desire to eliminate the United States Institute of Peace, thereby discouraging a search for alternatives to war, and to portray the U.S. military as “ruthless,” as both he and…
Italian Chamber of Deputies in Palazzo Montecitorio, Rome, Italy by Palazzo del Quirinale (PD-ItalyGov) This paper summarizes and translates into English the article, Democrazia e religioni oltre il concordato e le intese: verso una declinazione partecipativa nei rapporti tra Stato e confessioni religiose?, published in the Italian Law & Religion Journal, Stato, Chiese e pluralismo…
Reading the Bible by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (US-PD). During the Protestant Reformation, the Herborn Academy was a Calvinist Reformed institution located in German territory, which was therefore Lutheran. It operated from 1584 until 1817. Herborn was the cradle of covenant theology, also known as federal theology. Due to its adherence to Calvinism, it was never officially…
Courtroom Bench Gavel by Patrick Feller (CC BY 2.0). A new memorandum from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), issued July 28, 2025, has put the spotlight on religious expression in federal workplaces. OPM Director Scott Kupor’s guidance explicitly affirms that federal employees “may seek to ‘persuade others of the correctness of their own…
View of the Vatican City Gardens by Patrik Kunec (CC BY-SA 4.0). My earlier column reviewed Washington’s recently passed Senate Bill 5375 that would have required Roman Catholic priests to violate their sacred duty to maintain the seal of confession by reporting those who committed the heinous act of child abuse to state authorities. Based…
Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City via Wikimedia Commons (CC0-01). Washington’s controversial Senate Bill 5375, “An ACT Relating to the duty of clergy to report child abuse and neglect,” scheduled to go into effect on July 27, 2025, removes the legal protection for Roman Catholic priests under the seal of confession when dealing with mandatory sexual…
ChatGPT Rendering of AI via Wikimedia Commons (PD). In the spring of 2024, the state of Louisiana faced a critical legal juncture. The newly elected Governor Jeff Landry had begun to speak of the need for a new Louisiana Constitution and to gesture toward the new constitution being drafted by the end of the regular…