by Well, not really, but this Onion News Network video clip satirizes the absurdity of many of the ongoing disputes about “balancing” public school curricula. This clip would be very funny if it weren’t so sad.
Read the full postMonthly Archive for May, 2010
by I spent some of the weekend rereading Steve Smith’s fine new book The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse. It made me think of two other works, both of which I think have been influenced by Steve. One is unpublished, so I won’t say too much about it: it’s Marc DeGirolami’s excellent work on what he calls “tragic minimalism” or “tragic historicism” in Religion Clause jurisprudence and theory. The other is my own forthcoming book, Constitutional Agnosticism, which argues that law and religion, both in theory and practice, is bedeviled by its inability to avoid confronting the question of religious truth, and advocates a so-called “agnostic turn” (although I have something in particular in mind when I use the word agnosticism) in thinking about law and religion. I also argue that although constitutional agnosticism may be a good step forward in thinking about law and religion, neither it nor any other theory of religious liberty can ultimately completely dissolve the tragic conflicts between religion and liberal democracy.
Read the full post
by A friend just asked my view of Peter Beinart’s recent and controversial article “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment.” Beinart describes the declining attachment of younger, non-Orthodox American Jews to Israel and argues that this results from the disjunction between their liberal political values and the increasing absence of those values in Israeli politics. Here’s a few quick reactions. Ultimately, there’s little the “American Jewish Establishment” could do about this even if it wanted to. The Israeli electorate – both Jewish and Arab – has to work this out.
Read the full post
by Each year, many people wait eagerly for the Academy Award nominations. I wait for something different. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has just announced its annual list of “America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places,” which you can see at http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/11-most-endangered/. Not to ruin the suspense, but this year’s list names:
America’s State Parks & State-Owned Historic Sites
Black Mountain, Kentucky
Read the full post
by As we await the Court’s decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, I’d like to reflect on an aspect of last month’s oral argument and what it may suggest about our culture’s view of sexuality.
Repeatedly, the justices turned to whether CLS was discriminating on the basis of status or belief. Did CLS exclude people because of their sexual orientation – their status –or because of their convictions about homosexual conduct – their beliefs? CLS maintained it was the latter, but at least some justices were skeptical. Here, for example, is an exchange between Justice Sotomayor and CLS’ attorney, Michael McConnell:
Read the full post
by One consequence of the rise of radical Islamic movements is my own temptation to buy into the notion, often promoted by media coverage, that we are faced with a simple choice: embrace secularism or embrace theocracy. If that’s the choice, I’ll opt for secularism, thank you very much. That might explain my own initial “I’m smiling a little inside even though I know I shouldn’t be” reaction to “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.” I oppose censorship, and I am concerned that threats of violence are inhibiting free speech. At the same time, I need to remember that respect for religion is not a sign of weakness but an act of strength.
Read the full postIn his new book To Change the World, leading faith-and-culture scholar James Davidson Hunter describes the misplaced efforts by both conservative and progressive Christians in recent decades to change culture through law and politics. In my view, Hunter’s deconstruction of the Church’s complicity in fostering unproductive culture wars is nothing short of prophetic. But what does Hunter [...]
Read the full postMaybe we’re getting the religious composition of the Supreme Court all wrong. Maybe, in terms of a Justice’s approach to religion belief and how it matters to a person’s life, all nine are Protestant.
Read the full postYesterday I participated in a roundtable discussion about conscientious objector status in the military. The discussion was convened by the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and so much of the discussion concerned the development of the Adventist teaching on military service (similar to Catholic discussions, there was some tension surrounding the question of whether the teaching had, in fact, “developed”). One thing that stood out to me, though, was the fact that many Adventists today serve as combatants in the military, while many find it incompatible with their faith. As with other issues in other faith traditions, it seems that a religious believer’s church affiliation tells us less about their own decision-making than it might have in past eras.
Read the full post
by As we’ve all read, any number of groups, municipalities, and other entities have condemned Arizona for its attempt to curb illegal immigration, and some have urged or declared boycotts against the State. Among these righteously indignant entities are the San Diego City Council and a San Diego school district (for which Arizona’s law enforcement policies are evidently an urgent item of business). Arizonans are now, predictably and understandably, retaliating. An article in the local newspaper this morning reports that San Diego hotels and tourism-related businesses are worried because a significant number of Arizonans (who typically come here in droves to escape the Arizona summer heat) are cancelling their plans to visit.
Read the full post
