Church Laws and Ecumenism: A New Path for Christian Unity edited by Norman Doe Review by John Witte, Jr. Law is the backbone of Christian ecclesiology and ecumenism. That is the central message of this collection of well-written and well-integrated chapters on church law by scholars of a dozen global Christian churches. And that has…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “Don’t Write off Sharia’s Forgiveness Option Just Because of the Khashoggi Case” Matthew P. Cavedon Jamal Khashoggi was a prominent international journalist and Saudi dissident. He was tortured to death and dismembered in 2018 at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. On September 7, eight Saudis were sentenced for…
Photo by Varun Yadav on Unsplash This article is part of our “Law, Religion, and the Constitutionalism” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Each year the United States Supreme Court produces a new batch of cases construing the religion clauses of the first amendment. There is something stylized…
Dār al-Islām Revisited: Territoriality in Contemporary Islamic Legal Discourse on Muslims in the West by Sarah Albrecht Review by David R. Blumenthal Albrecht begins her very fine study with a methodological introduction, a summary of the various pre-modern views of territoriality in Islam, and an overview of various Islamic views on territoriality in the modern…
“Blossoming of Magnolia Flowers in Spring Time” by Kaboompics.com on Pexels (CCO) In Israeli society, Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) and traditional Arabs live within close proximity to one another. While these religiously, ethnically, and culturally differentiated groups do not typically interact with each other, women from both groups appear to share certain aspects of their lifestyles.…
Pixabay (License) An earlier Spanish-language version of this essay was recently published on CNN en Español. Recently, the Catholic Church has begun an internal conversation about ordaining married men as priests. This move would mark a significant change from what has been the settled policy of the Latin Church for a thousand years, under which…
Photo of red flowers by FanDeLy (Pixabay CC) This article is part of our “Religious Reflections on Forgiveness in Law” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. This essay is excerpted from Samuel J. Levine, Teshuva: A Look at Repentance, Forgiveness and Atonement in Jewish Law and Philosophy and American Legal…
Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash (License) This article is part of our “Religious Reflections on Forgiveness in Law” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. From a Catholic perspective, law, justice, mercy, and forgiveness ultimately converge in God, who is the ultimate source of law and combines justice, mercy, and forgiveness in…
This article is part of our “Religious Reflections on Forgiveness in Law” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Amber Guyger, a white police officer, mistakenly entered the home of Botham Jean, a black man, and shot him dead. Months later, a Texas jury convicted Guyger of murder. Some celebrated…
(Abbey, Church, Interiors image) (Pixabay) Many members of the United Methodist Church (UMC) woke up to unexpected news earlier this month when it was announced some leaders of the UMC had met in private and negotiated through mediation the terms for a division of the denomination. The UMC, one of the largest Christian denominations in…