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 […]
Ministerial Exception Does Not Apply To Exercise Science Teacher At Christian University: a U.S. District Court has rule that Northwest Christian University engaged in illegal discrimination based on marital status when it told an unmarried, pregnant instructor to either marry the father of the child she was carrying, stop living with him or lose her job. […]
The Monologue Beynd the Dialogue: Why are Dostoevsky’s characters are so real? Dostoevsky’s polyphonic world is full of free subjects, not objects. We don’t know what they might say or do next, and we suspect that the author doesn’t know either. They speak in their own voices, and Dostoevsky doesn’t drown them out. Yet Dostoevsky’s complex […]
The Happiness Effect: How Social Media is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost by Donna Freitas (Oxford University Press, 2017) — Apart from the usual clickbait stories of cyber bullying and sexting, Freitas finds that college students have an overwhelming urge to present themselves on social media as successful and happy. Many reported […]
Healing Victims of Human Trafficking: A Long, Slow Road to Transformation — This brief article can introduce students to human trafficking ministries. The author is the Associate Executive Director of Naomi’s House , a long-term residential program for women (18+) who have suffered from commercial sexual exploitation. The program is trauma-informed, faith-based, and comprehensive. It is designed […]
A celebration of peace through progress: This article can introduce students to London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 and modernity’s coming-of-age. The Crystal Palace resembled a mighty cathedral: the great nave, more than half a kilometer in length, was intersected by a transept where the immense barrel-vaulted glass roof dwarfed the elm trees enclosed by it. When the […]
Doctors harvesting organs from Canadian patients who underwent medically assisted death: Doctors have already harvested organs from dozens of Canadians who underwent medically assisted death, a practice supporters say expands the pool of desperately needed organs, but ethicists worry could make it harder for euthanasia patients to voice a last-minute change of heart.
