“The state must be lay. Confessional states end badly. That goes against history.” So said Pope Francis in a 2016…
J. C. Murray, the Vatican, and the lay state challenge
religious freedom
Why not just abolish the religion clauses?
“What is a church in the mind of a secular American today?” “How does US law imagine religion?” and “Where…
An American political theology?
One question I have been thinking about is whether contested political theologies can coexist with collective governance, which would have…
Church State Corporation—An introduction
Following this introduction, five dialogues will be published in which Sullivan was paired with another scholar to discuss Church State…
Why religion is different: Five contradictions of religion in law
Tamir Moustafa’s Constituting Religion incisively reveals both the enduring and disturbing impacts of constitutional law on the ways Malaysians imagine…
Constituting religion, contesting constitutional identity
It is a truth universally acknowledged that religion, in the possession of man, causes division, conflict, and even war. Well,…
Judges, lawyers, politics: Religion still divides Malaysia
Constituting Religion is an immensely valuable work, as it shows the extent to which the Malaysian state apparatus has contributed…
Mansplaining religion
While the hot cases [in Malaysia] differ in their details from those in the United States, the structure of the…
Constituting Religion—An introduction
Most Muslim-majority countries have legal systems that are meant to embed religion in state law. In many cases, the broad…
Is Masterpiece Cakeshop a church?
Where is the religion in this case and what kind of religion is it?