Image: “Obergefell v. Hodges Decision Announced — June 26, 2015” by Matt Popovich. The conflict between gay rights and religious liberty is back (if it can be said to have left), this time in 303 Creative v. Elenis, a Supreme Court case which arrives under the guise of free speech. The religious claimant will almost…
Apocalypse: A Short History Apocalypse is, in a short definition, the history of the future leading up to the end of the world. While it is difficult to say precisely when apocalypse as a literary-religious genre first evolved, the form in which most encounter it today was developed during the second century B.C.E. Largely in…
On December 17, 2021, the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom issued a joint statement on behalf of the International Religious Freedom and Belief Alliance (IRFBA), condemning the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in several countries, and calling on governments worldwide, inter alia, to release prisoners, end torture, home raids, all forms of…
A virtual conference sponsored by Canopy Forum and the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory (CSLR) featuring scholars, experts and practitioners who will examine the many religious traditions of South Asia and their diverse publics. Participation by invitation only. View selected videos and browse all essays here. “The Loneliness of the Model…
Prayer is everywhere. Everyone is disputing prayer, even though the First Amendment states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Or maybe the problem lies in the wording of the amendment itself. Establishment or free exercise? The Supreme Court has set numerous establishment clause tests, and…
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated its willingness to intervene on critical questions of legal preparedness and response. Along the way, through two Presidential administrations and major shifts in the Court’s members, it has systematically reshaped core constitutional norms during the deadliest infectious disease crisis the nation has ever faced. Reinterpreting…
The newest edition of Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment is supplemented by a powerful new research tool: SCOTUSreligioncases.org. Building a free online database of First Amendment religion cases I first encountered Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment in 2006. Then in its second edition, John Witte’s book was a careful study of the history…
Religion and the American Constitutional Experimentby John Witte, Jr., Joel A. Nichols, and Richard W. Garnett Thomas Jefferson once described America’s new religious freedom guarantees as a “fair” and “novel experiment.” These guarantees, set out in the new state and federal constitutions of 1776 to 1791, defied the millennium-old assumptions inherited from Western Europe that…