For the writer on law and religion, the “religious test” question is a gift that keeps on giving. Over two centuries after we enshrined the rule against religious tests as a “Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States” — and, arguably, decades if not more after the Religious Test Clause had…
It has been ten presidential election cycles since Ronald Reagan defeated the nation’s most religiously devout president, Jimmy Carter, a feat he accomplished with the overwhelming support of conservative Christian voters. The preceding year (1979) had witnessed the rise of the “Moral Majority” and the Religious Right, and Reagan’s election apparently cemented the relationship between…
A virtual conference organized in partnership with Brigham Young University Law School, Emory University Law School, Notre Dame Law School, St. John’s University School of Law, and the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. View the full video and browse all essays here. Section A. Constitutional Law (Jane Wise, moderator) “The Coronavirus, the Compelling…
A virtual conference organized in partnership with Brigham Young University Law School, Emory University Law School, Notre Dame Law School, St. John’s University School of Law, and the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. View the full video and browse all essays here. Section D. Religious Organizations (Mark Movsesian, moderator) “The Impact of Coronavirus…
A virtual conference organized in partnership with Brigham Young University Law School, Emory University Law School, Notre Dame Law School, St. John’s University School of Law, and the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. View the full video and browse all essays here. Section C. Legal and Religious Practice(s) (Michael Moreland, moderator) “Law, Religion,…
A virtual conference organized in partnership with Brigham Young University Law School, Emory University Law School, Notre Dame Law School, St. John’s University School of Law, and the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. View the full video and browse all essays here. Section E. Theological Implications/Reflections (Stephanie Barclay, moderator) “Political Theology and Church…
A virtual conference organized in partnership with Brigham Young University Law School, Emory University Law School, Notre Dame Law School, St. John’s University School of Law, and the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. View the full video and browse all essays here. Section C. Legal and Religious Practice(s) (Michael Moreland, moderator) “When the…
Political Beauty On June 27, 2015, ten days after a white supremacist shot and killed nine African Americans at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina, Bree Newsome Bass began pulling herself up a thirty-foot tall flag pole at the South Carolina State Capitol. With the police barking at her, she detached…
The American Constitution drew on diverse intellectual traditions. Among the influences constitutional scholars and political theorists have identified and studied are English common law and British constitutionalism, Enlightenment liberalism in manifold forms, and various experiments in and expressions of republicanism. Another important, yet often overlooked, influence is a biblical tradition, both Hebraic and Christian. The…
This essay was originally published on June 16, 2020 in Cato Unbound: A Journal of Debate The Liberty Bell is one of the most prominent symbols of American freedom. It is inscribed with the words “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all inhabitants thereof,” which are taken from Leviticus 25:10. In Did America Have…