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…
Yoga class, Lightning in a Bottle, 2016 / Photo courtesy of author. When I was conducting research for my new book I spent nine years in multiple field sites with people who largely identified as “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR). These people were seeking expansive spiritual experiences, and I followed them through networks of transformational…
The Cambridge Companion to the First Amendment and Religious Liberty edited by Michael D. Breidenbach and Owen Anderson Review by Lael Weinberger Religious liberty has been the subject of lots of debates over the course of American history. The founding period saw debates about state establishments. The nineteenth century was marked by the public-school “Bible…
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. 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…
The Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street, Los Angeles, CA in 1907 / Wikimedia Most observers (and participants!) do not see much if any connection between Baptists and Pentecostals. Baptists are generally known as cessationists — contending that the miracles in the New Testament and the extraordinary spiritual gifts practiced like glossolalia (speaking in tongues),…
Recent killings of black Americans have incited anger, leading to large and sometimes violent protests across the country. The most notable deaths are those of Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed by two white men in February while out for a run; Breonna Taylor, who was sleeping in her apartment when she was shot by police;…
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. By wonderful happenstance, this year’s Constitution Day (Thursday, September 17) occurs just two days before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and one of the “High Holy Days,” together with Yom…
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. The meaning of the religion clauses in judicial opinions has changed dramatically over the last 150 years. Doctrine has shifted, sometimes precipitously. The case law has been convoluted and unpredictable. The…
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. 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…
In his dissent in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, wherein the Supreme Court invalidated student-led prayer prior to the start of high school football games, a dismayed Chief Justice William Rehnquist expressed the sentiment of many Americans, that “[t]he Court … bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life.”In light of…