Pastor’s Suit Dismissed Under Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine: The Michigan Court of Appeals applied the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine to dismiss a suit brought by a Lutheran pastor challenging actions that forced his resignation from St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church. He claims this led to his “blacklisting” in the church and his inability to practice his profession. The court […]
Mind, Matter And Materialism: If mind rests on matter, this must include admitting just how murky our understanding of matter is at the deepest levels. Our job in thinking about the world is to distinguish what science has actually found out about the world from the metaphysical commitments for which the findings of science are often mistaken. We […]
Cracking the Gender Code: Douglas Farrow at McGill University has been developing some concise discussions on the gender identity language and perspectives. Students can assess his efforts in this article and in a piece at First Things titled The Right to Be Yourself.
March Mildness? Americans Say Sports Isn’t All About Winning: 52 percent of Americans describe their philosophy of sports by saying, “It’s not whether you win or lose—it’s how you play the game.” Most Americans want players to play the game ‘the right way’ and not potentially endanger others simply for the sake of winning. 40 percent of Americans […]
Hey Journalists: Who is the Face of the Religious Left? — This audio program seeks to examine the recent history of politics and religion, the labels for the factions, and the issues embedded in those factions and labels. Students might use this discussion to explore their own perceptions and what they hear in the news […]
What motivates moral outrage? — Expressing outrage could reflect an underlying concern with justice. Research shows bystanders’ level of moral outrage can predict their willingness to pursue justice for a victimized group. From this perspective, outrage is driven by differing conceptions of what is just. From our perspective, such public displays of outrage make more sense if […]
The Clash Between Religious Freedom and Equality Law: This review of a new book, Religious Freedom in an Egalitarian Age (Harvard University Press, 2017) by former ACLU lawyer Nelson Tebbe, considers his theme that “disagreement, both reasonable and unreasonable, is a fixed feature of constitutional politics.” Tebbe writes in a scholarly tone for colleagues in law and academia, […]
Supreme Incoherence: Transgender Ideology and the End of the Law — Agree or disagree with the author, this careful analysis will challenge students to think carefully about language, positive law, and the claims our words make to natural and revealed knowledge. This might be the essay to help students on any side of the gender identity […]
High Court Struggles Over Hospital Pension Dispute: Supreme Court Justices considered the cases of three church-affiliated nonprofit hospital systems being sued for underfunding pension plans covering about 100,000 employees. But the outcome ultimately could affect the retirement benefits of roughly a million employees around the country. Workers suing the health systems argue that Congress never meant […]
Daniel Dennett’s Science of the Soul: This lengthy article explores Daniel Dennett’s (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Simon & Schuster, 1996)) views on consciousness and physicalism: a materialist view on human nature. Students may find it useful as a conversational introduction to the various current positions on consciousness, soul, and the transcendent: the physicist’s world of matter and […]
