Locke: The Slave Trader and the British Slave TradeGeorge Walters-Sleyon This essay is an adapted excerpt from the fourth chapter of George Walters-Sleyon’s book, The Rush for Black Diamonds, Volume One: From John Locke to Thomas Jefferson—The Transatlantic Slave Trade to Chattel Slavery in the UK and the US (Cascade Books, 2024). Used by permission of Wipf…
Basilica of Saint Peter by Carlo Armanni from Pixabay. Pope Francis envisions human fraternity in his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti. This essay explores how “fraternal pluralism” guides the Church’s respect for personal conscience. This teaching reflects aspects of earlier Church history and the Vatican II document Dignitatis Humanae, and it can be illustrated by examining…
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…
Image: “Abbey, Church, Interiors” 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. It hardly seems imaginable today, but the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which restored strict scrutiny and made it easier for citizens to receive religious…
Buildings of Worship as Cultural Heritage in Italy – New Scenarios for the Management and Reuse of Catholic Churches Between Canon Law and State LawDavide Dimodugno Excerpted and translated from Gli edifici di culto come beni culturali in Italia. Nuovi scenari per la gestione e il riuso delle chiese cattoliche tra diritto canonico e diritto statale…
“Artificial Intelligence” from Pixabay (License) This essay is the third installment of a three-part series by the author on Jewish law and AI. This third and final installment is a compilation of general resources on law and AI at the time of this writing in June 2023. Read the first and second installments in this…
“Artificial Intelligence” from Pixabay (License) This essay is the second installment of a three-part series by the author on this topic. Read the first and third installments in this series. I suspect that this field of AI reasoning is a mix between the ability of the engine to process and the available data it has…
“Artificial Intelligence” from Pixabay (License) This essay is the first installment of a three-part series by the author on this topic. Read the second and third installments in this series. In a forthcoming article, “May a Kohen in a Same Sex Relationship Duchen,” I analyze whether a man in a same-sex relationship may engage in…
Religion and Identity in an Age of IndividualizationTed A. Smith Excerpted from The End of Theological Education by Ted A. Smith (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company). Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Individualized Religion Social theorists have sometimes described modernity as relegating religion to the private sphere. A range of legal and cultural disestablishments did unhook religion…
Heraclitus, ‘the weeping philosopher’, by Johannes Moreelse (PD-US). The human inclination to search for timeless and transcendent truths, and transform them into laws that promote justice, is deeply rooted in our collective consciousness. It also lies at the heart of classical natural law theory, which has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy and Christian theology.…