Category: Law and Religion
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Creativity, Artificial Intelligence, and God

8 January 2024. This Christmas, I wrote an essay entitled “Creativity, artificial intelligence, and God” for a forthcoming edited volume on technology, religion, and the law. The volume has a working title of Emerging Technologies, Converging Theologies and will be part of Springer’s Law and Religion in Global Context book series. I must confess that…
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Further reviews of A Christian Approach to Corporate Religious Liberty

The Oxford Journal of Law and Religion published a review of my monograph, A Christian Approach to Corporate Religious Liberty. Thanks to Michael Bradley for the generous — and critical — analysis: everything an author could hope for from a review! David makes good on Palgrave’s promise to deliver fresh, insightful interventions. His retrieval and…
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Church Autonomy and the Corpus Mysticum Tradition

By Edward A. David McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow in Christian Ethics and Public Life, University of Oxford 24 February 2023. A short paper for the Centre for Theology, Law, and Culture at Pusey House, Oxford Churches can be forgiven for describing themselves, like any other civil society organization, as “voluntary.” This Lockean portrayal, after all, dominates…
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Religious Liberty and Corporate Metaphysics

By Edward A. David McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow in Christian Ethics and Public Life, University of Oxford 23 February 2023, Recollection Lecture, Pusey House, Oxford Introduction Thank you to the Centre for Theology, Law, and Culture for the kind invitation to speak today, ahead of a symposium dedicated to the topic of corporate persons. The aim…
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Church, State, and Virtue in Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo (2020)

To curb the spread of COVID-19, houses of worship in the State of New York were legally required to limit attendance at religious ceremonies. Two religious communities—the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and the Orthodox Jewish organization, Agudath Israel of America—asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. This article provides a theological interpretation of the…
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Dissertation Prize 2022: Academy of Catholic Theology

During the 2022 annual conference of the Academy of Catholic Theology, my DPhil thesis on corporate religious liberty received an honourable mention for the Academy’s Dissertation Prize, awarded to early career academics. We are pleased to announce that Prof. Rachel Coleman won the ACT Dissertation Prize, and Fr. Joseph Van House, O.Cist., and Dr. Edward…
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Live Radio: The Crucifixion with Voice of Islam UK

Last week, I joined the Voice of Islam UK once more as a guest on their live radio programme, The Breakfast Show. We discussed archaeological and historical evidence of Christ’s crucifixion as well as the role of Pontius Pilate in Christ’s passion. With me sharing a Christian’s perspective, we certainly had much to speak about…
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More reviews of A Christian Approach to Corporate Religious Liberty

Reviews of my book can now be found in Studies in Christian Ethics and the Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Theory. My sincere thanks to Allen Calhoun and David Hodge for their generous words and insights. Their reviews can be found through the links above—though, journal subscriptions may be necessary. The…
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Article: Religious Deviance and Psychological Medicine in the Second Great Awakening

In our first co-authored publication, Mark W. Lee (Crandall University, Canada) and I examine asylum narratives to explore tensions between the religious self and society in nineteenth-century Massachusetts. “Religious Deviance and Psychological Medicine in the Second Great Awakening: the Asylum Narratives of Elizabeth T. Stone (b. 1811)” is an open access article in the Journal…
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Lectures: Character formation at Trinity Law School

Last week, I wrote and recorded two guest lectures for an elective course on ethics, law, and public policy at Trinity Law School, California. Using the parable of the shrewd manager (Luke 16: 1-8) as an illustration, the first lecture introduces students to the virtue of practical wisdom, showing how it (phronesis) directs the other…
