Category: Law and Religion
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Updates: Journal of Church and State, and Developing a Christian Mind
Two exciting updates. My friend and co-author (Prof. Mark Lee) and I have a forthcoming article in OUP’s Journal of Church and State. “Religious Deviance and Asylum Medicine in the Second Great Awakening” explores the life and writings of Elizabeth T. Stone (b. 1811), a New England evangelical who was incarcerated by her family and…
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Reviews of A Christian Approach to Corporate Religious Liberty
Two reviews of my book are now available online. My sincere thanks to the reviewers for their time and thoughtful engagement with the text. You can download the reviews through the links below. ‘A notable contribution of the book is its attentiveness to the “anatomy of group agency” … Instead of pitting the rights of…
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Lecture: Religious institutionalism at Oxford’s University Church
I recently spoke to the Graduate Theological Society at the University of Oxford about the moral foundations of religious institutionalism (or church autonomy doctrine) in the United States. James Hooks, a DPhil student, led the discussion. We spoke around the following theses: A predominate view of religious institutionalism tends to reduce the value of houses…
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Essay: Barry scholar James Pennell responds to my essay on church autonomy
James Pennell, a Barry Scholar at the University of Oxford, penned a response to my latest article for the Canopy Forum. He agrees that Christians should resist the Lockean image of religious associations, which views churches as mere loci for voluntarily consenting individuals. James, however, argues that courts need not affirm the truth of the…
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Essay: Church autonomy and the corpus mysticum tradition
Today, the Canopy Forum at Emory University published my essay on church autonomy and the corpus mysticum tradition. I argue that church communities should reflect on the extent to which they’ve ‘bought into’ individual rights-talk, especially when describing themselves as religious groups. This individualist (or voluntarist) tendency can skew their ecclesiological self-understanding and contribute to…
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Essay: Why do restrictions on public worship cause “irreparable harm”?
My latest essay for the Canopy Forum elaborates upon two points raised by the U.S. Supreme Court in Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo (2020): that New York’s COVID restrictions on religious attendance would cause “irreparable injury” to Catholics, and that relaxing the restrictions “would not harm the public interest.” The Court doesn’t explain the theology…
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Philosophy, psychology, and prayer with Voice of Islam UK
What better way to begin the morning than with prayer? On this particular morning, I had the pleasure of discussing prayer as well — this time with the Voice of Islam UK on their live radio programme, The Breakfast Show. You can hear my segment from 1hr 04min to 1hr 19min in the SoundCloud player…
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Podcast: Group ontology and religious freedom with the New Books Network
Recently, Ryan Shelton (@ryoldfashioned), a host of the New Books Network (NBN), interviewed me for the network’s New Books in Christian Studies channel. I came across the NBN through Twitter and was immediately impressed by their user experience (clean, intelligent) and remit (to raise the level of public discourse by introducing scholars to a wide…
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Essay: Corporate personhood is a moral distraction
For hundreds and even thousands of years, legal concepts like corporate personhood have contributed positively to the economic and political organisation of our lives, allowing us (for example) to contract with hundreds of individuals simultaneously should they coordinate together under one corporate entity. A reduction in transaction costs and an increase in efficiency are but…
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Discussing U.N. World Interfaith Harmony Week with Voice of Islam UK
In this podcast, I am interviewed by the gracious hosts of Voice of Islam‘s radio programme, The Breakfast Show, about the U.N.’s upcoming World Interfaith Harmony Week (1–7 February). At minute 30, they provide an overview of Islam’s perspectives on peace, emphasizing a universal message of harmony and brotherhood. From minutes 43 to 56, I…
Edward A. David 