Photo by Xavier Coiffic on Unsplash. Religion clause jurisprudence is one of the more convoluted areas of constitutional law. The Supreme Court has articulated at least six different standards in recent years for determining whether a state has violated the First Amendment’s prohibition against “establishment of religion.” The Court’s approach to free exercise cases is…
Photo by Janko Ferlic on Unsplash. In the summer of 2021, the French National Assembly and Senate passed the so-called “anti-separatism” bill, signed into law by Emanuel Macron, ostensibly to protect laïcité, the French secularist doctrine designed to ensure government neutrality toward religion. The new law increases scrutiny by the government of religious associations, bars…
Photo by Rachel Moore on Unsplash. What does it mean to call a law generally applicable? The question is timely because of a confluence between the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this summer in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia and ongoing litigation over COVID-19 prevention measures, especially vaccination mandates. In Fulton, the Court gestured toward two…
Photo by Mikael Kristenson on Unsplash. This is Part II of Laura Ford’s essay on Social Identity Pietism and the First Amendment Balance. The First Amendment Balance & Social Peace In a careful historical study of American cultural and jurisprudential developments relating to First Amendment religious freedom, Philip Hamburger has persuasively argued that the U.S.…
Photo by Marko Beljan on Unsplash. Over the last three decades of work in the fields of law, religion, and human rights, I have been privileged to work with fellow scholars with a range of views on what is known in the United States as “religious freedom.” In my work with scholars outside the U.S.,…
Photo by Darya Tryfanava on Unsplash. This is the final remnant of the Christianity of their ancestors, the last enduring bit of their inheritance: a social gospel, without the gospel. – Joseph Bottum, An Anxious Age (2014) The law commands and requires us to do certain things. The law is thus directed to our behavior and…
Photo by Sajjad Ahmad on Unsplash. Offering a cup of tea to a stranger is universally viewed as an act of hospitality. Except if you are a Baha’i in Iran, where this kindness can result in torture, imprisonment, or death, both for the offeror and the recipient. The danger springs from the recent escalation of a government-led propaganda campaign meant to instigate…
Photo by Ebi Zandi on Unsplash. Recently, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) passed a new ruling on the Muslim headscarf. That headscarves cause debate shouldn’t be a surprise. Four years ago, the CJEU dealt with the very same issue: private employers asking Muslim women to remove their headscarves and Muslim women claiming…
Photo by Alex Vasey on Unsplash. This article is part of our “At Home and Abroad” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. In this volume about the politics of American religion, Shakman Hurd and Sullivan ask readers to consider the differences between “domestic versions of religion and religious freedom”…
Moses, Jesus, and Einstein and Those Who Hate Them A Contextualizing and Summary of Mordecai Would Not Bow Down: Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Christian Supersessionism Timothy P. Jackson Moses and Albert Einstein embodied a singular Judaic genius. Both men pointed out the intimate connection between realities typically considered separate if not adversarial, with Einstein doing…