The Bible And The Bard: The Gospel According To Shakespeare

F. LaGard Smith (Pepperdine) & John H. Parker (Lipscomb), The Gospel According to Shakespeare: 40 Inspiring Devotionals from the Bible and the Bard (2023):

Daily Devotionals Inspired by Shakespeare

For those who love Shakespeare and Scripture, this is the best of both.
Shakespeare’s writings are filled with classic biblical themes, such as guilt, redemption, sacrifice, forgiveness, and grace. Each chapter in the book is followed by a topical scripture reading and responsive prayer.

For those who seek spiritual insight, this is a mirror to the soul.
The Gospel According to Shakespeare moves the reader from the sheer enjoyment of a good play or sonnet to a personal spiritual journey that allows each of us to take an honest inventory of our moral selves and be called higher.

The Bible and the Bard.

Getting to the Moral of the Story!

F. LaGard Smith was born in 1944 in Houston, Texas, thereafter living in Shawnee and Tulsa, Oklahoma, Lancaster, Texas, and Birmingham, Alabama, before heading off to college at Florida College, graduating from Willamette University with both an undergraduate and law degree. 

Smith was a District Attorney for Malheur County, Oregon for three years, served as an administrator for the Oregon State Bar in Portland for a year, then spent 27 years teaching at Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, California, focusing on Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Trial Practice, and Law and Morality.

Continue reading

Tim Scott And The Role Of Chaste, Single, Mature Christians In Politics And The Church

Christianity Today Op-Ed:  Why We’re Weird for Thinking That Tim Scott Is Weird:  by Zachary Wagner (Author, Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality (2023)):

Tim Scott entered politics decades ago as a proud 30-year-old virgin. Campaigning at the height of 1990s evangelical “purity culture,” he proclaimed that sex should be reserved for marriage. Years later, chastity was still one of his talking points—even as he seemed to admit that his own commitment to abstinence had faltered.

Now, the South Carolina senator and vice-presidential hopeful is getting married to a “lovely Christian girl,” Mindy Noce. They’re set to tie the knot in early August, between the Republican National Convention and Election Day. ...

[T]he senator’s apologia for both his abstinence and his singleness ... makes sense. It’s indicative of our collective suspicion toward older single people, present in both secular and church culture—our tendency to regard those who’ve never been married with pity, concern, and unease. ...

Continue reading

WaPo Op-Ed: The Meaning Of Hagar

Washington Post Op-Ed: The Meaning of Hagar, by Marilynne Robinson (Author, Reading Genesis (2024)) (reviewed here):

The Bible’s human authors put characters in play for a reason. What were they trying to tell us with the servant girl cast in the wilderness?

The book of Genesis evokes the vernal moment, the very spring of Being, when new light awakens fecundity, and futurity, in anything it touches. When every niche of the good and possible is filled, mists rise from the primal garden and there they are, our glorious human progenitors, already complicating everything. Genesis introduces a very distinctive understanding of God and humankind and their history with one another. Within the terms of its vision, it establishes fundamental premises — that there is one God, Creator of heaven and Earth, that human beings are made in His image and likeness; that they are estranged from Him nevertheless; that in response to their estrangement, He offers a covenant bond with humankind in the person of a wandering herdsman named Abraham, and with his wife, Sarah, and their descendants. ... [T]he God and protagonist of Genesis has intentions through and beyond Abraham and his offspring that will, over vast reaches of time, embrace all the families of Earth. ...

Abraham, a hero of faith and patience, dies leaving one son who, despite his miraculous birth, is the slightest possible assurance that God’s promises to Abraham, notably a multitude of descendants, will be fulfilled. The moral of Abraham’s story would seem to be that, though he is the Lord’s familiar and confidant, this does not alter the fact that history unfolds on a scale human hope or dread or foresight cannot accommodate. At the scale of history, Providence can seem so attenuated that it becomes invisible in the stream of events. In Abrahamic terms, the faithfulness of God must be, and may be, taken on faith. No one can gauge the importance or success of his or her life or the life of anyone else, or imagine its further consequences. Nevertheless, because of the interest of Genesis in the origins of things — being, the sidereal heavens, nations, languages, the harshnesses of life — seeing persons or actions as existing in historic time, as having been seminal, with ongoing significance, is pervasive in Genesis.

Continue reading

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education: 

1. Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed (Steven Teles), Why Are There So Few Conservative Professors? 
2. Scott Devito (Jacksonville), As The Percentage Of Accommodated Students In A Law School Increases, Its First-Time Bar Pass Rate Decreases
3. Becket, UCLA Defends Facilitating Antisemitic Encampments On Campus
4. The Hill, Law Schools Left Reeling After Latest Supreme Court Earthquakes
5. Chronicle of Higher Education, Tenure-Track Professors Are Walking Away From Their 'Dream Jobs'
6. Bloomberg Law,  Law Student Mental Health And Wellness By Year 
7. Maya Moritz (PhD Student, Penn), The Law Professor Market: To JD/PhD Or Not To JD/PhD?
8. Josh Blackman (South Texas), John Roberts, The Professoriate, And Amy Coney Barrett
9. Symposium, Current Issues In Professional Identity Formation
10. National Review, Commencement Address To The 2024 Twitter Law School Graduates

Tax:

1. Wall Street Journal Editorial, The Blue-State Wealth Exodus Continues
2. Darien Shanske (UC-Davis), An Open Letter From 75 Tax Policy Experts Concerning TaxEDU 
3. Rebecca Kysar (Fordham), Moore v. United States—The Stakes Of Constitutionalizing The Tax Law 
4. Alex Zhang (Emory), Rethinking Eisner v. Macomber And The Future Of Structural Tax Reform
5. ABA Tax Section, Interview With Tax Prof Anthony Infanti
6. Netanya Academic College, 8th International Roundtable On Taxation And Tax Policy
7. Aravind Boddupalli, Janet Holtzblatt & Lillian Hunter (Tax Policy Center), A Guide To Understanding Racial Disparities In The Federal Individual Income Tax System
8. Cravath On Tax, Daniel Hemel (NYU)
9. David Weisbach (Chicago) & Kristin Hickman (Minnesota), Debate On Tax Exceptionalism
10. Dorothy Brown (Georgetown), Review Of Richard Winchester's A Simple Tax Case Complicated By Race

Faith:

1. Washington Post, Roger Federer’s Dartmouth Graduation Speech: Winning In Tennis — And In Life 
2. Douglas Murray (The Free Press), Things Worth Remembering: Why Forgiveness Matters
3. Christianity Today Op-Ed (Ellie Wiener), The Book Of Job: Good News For An Unfair World
4. Washington Post Op-Ed (Anne Lamott), Gentle Is The Joy That Comes With Age
5. Inside Higher Ed, Christian Belmont University Permits Hiring Faculty Of Other Faiths Or No Faith

WaPo Op-Ed: Gentle Is The Joy That Comes With Age

Washington Post Op-Ed:  Gentle is the Joy That Comes With Age, by Anne Lamott (Author, Somehow: Thoughts on Love (2024)):

Some of my much older friends have 10 doctors or more, like an overeducated friend community. I have only six so far. But time lurches on and the reality is that, before too long, I will have 10, as well. Until then, the point of life is gratitude, modest miseries aside. And gratitude is joy. ...

To a great degree, in older age, ambition falls away. Such a relief. Appreciation and surprise bloom many mornings: Yay — I like it here.

We more easily accept the world as is, even as we doggedly keep trying to save it, like aging Smurfs. A man who got sober with me in 1986 said he had come into recovery a big shot, but the guys had helped him work his way up to servant, and he had finally found happiness.

We take it slower, and thus can be amused by the foibles of humanity around us, even as we are alarmed by how quickly the days we have speed by. ...

Continue reading

Were Christian Colonists Justified In Fighting In The Revolutionary War?

Christianity Today Op-Ed:  Were Christian Colonists Justified in Fighting in the Revolutionary War?, by  Mark A. Noll (Regent; Author, Christians in the American Revolution):

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
Rom. 13:1 (NIV)

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority,  or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.
1 Peter 2:13-14 (NIV)

Only one population in the colonies clearly was justified by classical Christian reasoning in taking up arms to defend itself—the half-million or so enslaved African Americans who were held in bondage as the result of armed attacks upon peaceful noncombatants.

When it comes to the British actions toward the colonies in the decade before 1776, almost all historians concede those actions were insensitive, based on lamentable misconceptions of colonial life, and often simply stupid. ... [C]olonial leaders complaining about mistreatment from Britain were not making things up.

But were the admitted abuses serious enough to warrant an armed revolution? Patriot leaders thought so, but there is a problem with why they thought so. They were troubled less by actual evils. ... Rather, they interpreted the bumbling British actions as a conspiracy to exterminate liberty in the colonies. ...

To the extent that colonists really thought that Britain intended systematic despotism, their going to war could perhaps be justified in classical Christian terms. Armed action to preempt an enemy's destructive intentions had long been considered moral. But if the problem in Britain was not primarily a malicious conspiracy but insensitive bungling, war would not have been justified. ...

Continue reading

Roger Federer’s Dartmouth Graduation Speech: Winning In Tennis — And In Life

Washington Post, For Tennis’s Greatest Winners, the Slimmest Margin Makes All the Difference:

Carlos Alcaraz embodies Roger Federer’s fundamental lesson: Tennis champions are defined not by the titles they win but by the points they lose.

There is no better place than Wimbledon to examine the slim difference between winners and pretenders. Centre Court is arguably the most exposing platform in all of sports; the players seem particularly alone, isolated 78 feet away from each other, outlined in their stark whites on that time-robbing green lawn. There are no sweating throngs of teammates to hide among, not even a caddie to blame. Carlos Alcaraz and Frances Tiafoe looked as if they were in skivvies out there Friday afternoon. And the difference between them was vividly clear.

Roger Federer recently observed this: “Even top-ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play,” he told Dartmouth graduates in a June commencement speech. Can this possibly be true? Yes, it’s an actual fact. According to ATP statistics, Federer won just 54 percent of the points he played. Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have the same efficiency rate. Yet their 54 percents are good for a combined 66 Grand Slam titles.

Three or four percentage points, sometimes less. That’s the difference between a great and a chaser. Young Alcaraz wins just 53 percent of his points — but one percentage point was all he needed against Tiafoe. The 21-year-old Spaniard took just 51 percent of their points in the third-round encounter, a 5-7, 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), 6-2 victory. The advantage continually swung back and forth with the action on practically every other point, so fleet and soft-shoed across the grass. Check this out: By the time Alcaraz took a 2-1 lead in the fifth set, the two men had played 288 points — and the split was a dead-even 144-144.

But in the end, Alcaraz was living proof of what Federer told those Dartmouth grads. “The best in the world are not the best because they win every point,” Federer explained. “It’s because they know they’ll lose — again and again — and have learned how to deal with it.”

Continue reading

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education: 

1. Washington Post, Lawsuit: Northwestern’s Law School Is Biased Against White Men in Hiring
2. New York Times, How A Trump-Beating, #MeToo Legal Legend Lost Her Law Firm
3. Lisa Smith-Butler (Charleston), The Upper-Level Writing Paper and the Law Review Article: How to Tell Your Story
4. ABA Journal, Online Purdue Global Law School To Add Full-Time JD Program
5. Reuters, Golden Gate Law Students Ask Court To Keep School Open Another Year
6. U.S. News, 2024-25 Global Universities Rankings
7. New York Times, Pay For Lawyers Is So High People Are Comparing It To The NBA
8. Playbill, I Coulda Gone To Law School
9. Law.com, Former Law Prof Joshua Wright's Lawyer Criticizes Congressional Request For Information On George Mason's Title IX Investigation
10. Committee on Education and the Workforce, George Mason To Comply With Congressional Request For Information On Sexual Allegations Against Former Law Prof Joshua Wright

Tax:

1. Brooklyn Law School, Richard Winchester Leaves Seton Hall For Brooklyn
2. Roundup, Tax Policy In The Biden Administration
3. Vault, 2025 Law Firm Tax Rankings: Skadden Is #1 For 15th Year In A Row
4. Alex Zhang (Emory), Moore And The Judicial Role In Tax Law
5. Brendan Bargmann (Cal-Western), 'Pillar Two' And The Uncertain Progress Towards A Harmonized Global Minimum Tax
6. Andy Grewal (Iowa), Billionaire Taxes And The Constitution
7. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers
8. U.S. Treasury Department Job Openings: Office Of Tax Legislative Counsel Attorneys and Deputy Tax Legislative Counsel ($147,649 - $221,900) 
9. Wisconsin Law School, 19th Annual Junior Tax Scholars Workshop
10. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Finding Safe Harbors From The §72(t) Early Distribution Penalty

Faith:

1. Douglas Murray (The Free Press), Things Worth Remembering: Why Forgiveness Matters
2. Christianity Today Op-Ed (Ellie Wiener), The Book Of Job: Good News For An Unfair World
3. Rupert Shortt (Cambridge), An Essay In Defense Of Christianity
4. Inside Higher Ed, Christian Belmont University Permits Hiring Faculty Of Other Faiths Or No Faith
5. Wall Street Journal Op-Ed (Gary Saul Morson (Northwestern)), How Solzhenitsyn Found Himself—And God

Things Worth Remembering: Why Forgiveness Matters

Douglas Murray (The Free Press), Things Worth Remembering: Why Forgiveness Matters:

This week, I want to turn to a speech about forgiveness and why forgiveness is so important when it comes to freedom—the freedom of both the forgiver and the forgiven.

Some speeches are memorable because of their rhetorical power. Others stick with you because of the depth of their insights. Sometimes that comes with the feeling “I know that to be true.” Sometimes it’s more like “I’m going to need to think about that.”

When I first read this magnificent talk given by Hannah Arendt, I felt both.

Arendt is the political philosopher best known for her monumental 1951 work The Origins of Totalitarianism. Her speech took place on November 10, 1964 at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. The title of the conference she spoke at—“Christianity and Economic Man: Moral Decisions in an Affluent Society”—and that of the lecture she delivered—“Labor, Work, Action”—were not encouraging. Certainly, they lacked the wit of William F. Buckley or the emotional force of James Baldwin. But none of that matters here, because of the content of the speech itself. ...

Continue reading

WSJ Op-Ed: How Solzhenitsyn Found Himself—And God

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed:  How Solzhenitsyn Found Himself—and God, by Gary Saul Morson (Northwestern):

Uncompromising atheism was the fundamental principle of Soviet ideology. It’s thus remarkable that three of the greatest Soviet literary masterpieces—Boris Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago,” Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago”—were avowedly Christian. Woven into Solzhenitsyn’s account of torture, starvation and hard labor in the gulag—evil that many would take as evidence that a benevolent God doesn’t exist—is the story of how he found faith, not in spite of but because of these conditions.

The conversion went through stages. In a prison hospital Solzhenitsyn happened to mention a prayer offered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and called it obvious hypocrisy. Another prisoner, Boris Gammerov, asked sternly: “Why do you not admit the possibility that a political leader might sincerely believe in God?” Solzhenitsyn could have given the prescribed answers, but it dawned on him that atheism “had been planted in me from outside.”

At the time, he had never thought for himself. “I was committed to that world outlook which is incapable of admitting any new fact or evaluating any new opinion before a label has been found for it from the already available stock: be it the ‘hesitant duplicity of the petty bourgeoisie,’ or the ‘militant nihilism of the déclassé intelligentsia.’ ” Now he asked himself, for the first time, what he believed and found no answer. ...

Continue reading

NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) To YIGBY (Yes In God's Back Yard): Affordable Housing On Church Property

Ilya Somin (George Mason; Google Scholar), "Yes in God's Backyard"—A Useful, But Limited Form of Housing Deregulation:

America has a serious shortage of housing in many parts of the country, and the main cause of the probem is exclusionary zoning: regulations that severely restrict the amount and types of housing that can be built in many areas. One increasingly popular proposal for addressing the housing crisis is "Yes in God's Backyard" [YIGBY]: giving religious organizations like churches, synagogues, and mosques exemptions from zoning rules and other restrictions that would otherwise prevent them from building housing on their land. ...

Ultimately, the most compelling arguments for letting religious organizations build new housing on their property also apply to conventional secular property owners. And, despite suspicion of the profit motive, there is little reason to think religious entities will necessary build better or more affordable housing than commercial developers would. ...

Ideally, we should abolish exclusionary zoning across the board. Let both religious and secular property owners build whatever housing they want, subject only to narrowly defined "police power" health and safety restrictions.  But the best should not be the enemy of the good. Where YIGBY policies are politically feasible, but broader YIMBY reforms are not, we should by all means pursue the former.

Rev. Patrick E. Reidy C.S.C. (Notre Dame), Churching NIMBYs: Creating Affordable Housing on Church Property, 133 Yale L.J__ (2024):

In recent years, faith communities across the United States have begun to create affordable housing on church property, inspired by sincerely held religious beliefs. Some are building microhomes behind their houses of worship. Others are converting residences once used by religious ministers—from rectories to abbeys to convents—into units for seniors and low-income families. Still others are repurposing their vacant schools, church parking lots, and undeveloped parcels of land for denser multifamily structures, from townhouses to apartment buildings. Within housing-advocacy circles and among faith communities, these continent-wide efforts to create affordable housing on church property have manifested an affirmative declaration: “Yes, In God’s Backyard.”

Continue reading

The Book Of Job: Good News For An Unfair World

Christianity Today Op-Ed:  The Book of Job Gives Us Good News for an Unfair World, by Ellie Wiener (Ph.D. Student (Dissertation, The Book of Job), Cambridge):

Life is unfair, and that is a problem.

All humans seem to have an “unfairness radar” that goes off whenever we encounter senseless injustice. From trite examples provoking our frustration, such as someone cutting us in line, to those that deeply grieve us, like a young mother of three fighting terminal cancer, we mourn with an acute sense that the world is not as it should be. Or consider unfairness on a global scale, as the news barrages us with unrelenting reports of armed conflicts and natural disasters—as we struggle to register the staggering counts of individual lives upended or ended by relentless forces of harm. ...

And in all this, we wrestle with a God who could have intervened but did not. ...

How could an infinitely powerful and thoroughly good Creator God be governing this world, as the Bible claims, when the world seems to be in such a messy state? ...

Continue reading

WSJ: God Inc.—Church Startups Spread Franchise Model Across U.S.

Wall Street Journal, God Inc.—Church Startups Spread Franchise Model Across U.S.:

Aaron Burke launched Radiant Church a decade ago in a rundown movie theater in Tampa, Fla., offering a model of Christianity increasingly popular among America’s faithful.

The church leans conservative on matters of gender and sexuality, and its services feature a Pentecostal-style exuberance with high-energy bands and entertaining sermons. Radiant drew fewer than 200 guests in the early days. It now averages nearly 8,000 in nine church locations.

Burke, a pastor ordained in the Pentecostal Assemblies of God, started his church with more than faith. He sold a thrift store in Pensacola, Fla., and raised other funds, including $30,000 from the Association of Related Churches, a franchise-style church network known as ARC.

ARC functions as a startup accelerator, providing money and mentoring in exchange for a continuing cut of church revenues that it invests in opening new churches.

Similar entrepreneurial networks are sprouting new, largely nondenominational places of worship at a time when many traditional church congregations are shrinking. The new churches are opening across the U.S., from urban centers to suburbs, red states and blue, as well as abroad. The “church-planting” networks, established as nonprofit organizations, deploy marketing, branding and social-media strategies akin to other franchise businesses. ...

Continue reading

Christian Belmont University Permits Hiring Faculty Of Other Faiths Or No Faith

Inside Higher Ed, Belmont University Permits Hiring Interfaith Faculty:

Belmont University has hired only Christian professors for most of its history, but university leaders announced Wednesday that faculty members of all faiths, or no faith at all, are now welcome to apply, representing a major policy shift for the private Christian institution in Nashville.

The university has been gradually softening in recent years to the idea of employing non-Christian professors. Last year, Belmont announced that it would allow Jewish faculty members for the first time, but only for positions in its pharmacy, law and medical schools, a move puzzling to some onlookers and celebrated by others as a step toward broader inclusivity.

Continue reading

Baez: The Medical Expense Deduction—Physicians, Medicine Men, And Spirituality

Beau Baez (Ohio Northern; Google Scholar), The Medical Expense Deduction: Physicians, Medicine Men, and Spirituality:

Expenses for buckskins, baskets, and Navajo healing ceremonies were allowed as medical deductions in Tso v. Commissioner of Revenue (“Tso”).  This case led to an expansion of the medical expense tax deduction to other non-traditional treatments, including energy healers that “connect spiritually through the universe.” While there are many alternative medical treatments of questionable efficacy, at least from an empirical perspective, courts after Tso appear more willing to allow the medical expense tax deduction for what might better be classified as spiritual experiences. In the four decades since Tso, every case and administrative ruling citing Tso has done so in a manner approving alternative healing. ...

As people seek new and exotic alternative medical treatments, a decision needs to be made whether to continue funding them through the medical expense income tax deduction.

Continue reading

An Essay In Defense Of Christianity

Rupert Shortt (Cambridge; Author, The Eclipse of Christianity and Why It Matters (2025)), An Essay in Defence of Christianity:

Any bid to commend the claims of Christianity in writing should include a critical caveat. This essay defends a way of life, not a scientific theory such as evolution, or an abstract term like liberty. Whatever view you take of my theme, it cannot be divorced from the personal commitment that gives it its meaning. Like some of the ancient philosophical schools, religion is a path of understanding which can say little to those who have not set out on the journey. Disengaged study misses the point: it is like analysing a poem in terms of the chemistry of the ink on the page.

This thought leads to my main coordinates. You don’t think your way into a new way of living, but live your way into a new way of thinking. Being a Christian should not entail assenting to six impossible propositions before breakfast, but doing things that change you. The practical witness of believers may be their most eloquent statement of faith. G. K. Chesterton got right to the point when he described his creed as ‘less of a theory and more of a love affair’. Now consider the contrast between all this and much English-language philosophy, which tends to neglect the big picture. I would rather follow the lights of earlier thinkers including Cicero — especially his belief that the only fulfilling model for life rests on altruistic endeavour — and later figures who Christianised some of the noblest strands in pagan thought by adding the key precepts on love of God and neighbour. 

Continue reading

Discovery Of Oldest Account Of Jesus As A Boy Provides Added Context To New Testament

Washington Post, An Account of Jesus as a Boy is Decoded From an Ancient Papyrus Scrap:

For decades, a clumsily written document sat unnoticed at a university library in Germany, believed to be nothing more than a very old, everyday note, such as a private letter or a shopping list. Now, more than a millennium and a half after it was written, researchers believe the papyrus fragment is no ordinary memo, but the oldest surviving written copy of a gospel detailing Jesus’ childhood.

Lajos Berkes from Humboldt University of Berlin and Gabriel Nocchi Macedo from the University of Liège in Belgium, two papyrologists, date it to the 4th or 5th century, according to a news release.

They deciphered the fragment and identified it as a passage from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a work that is apocryphal — or outside the accepted canon of scripture — and is believed to have been originally written in the 2nd century A.D. That makes it the oldest extant copy of that particular gospel.

Continue reading

Inazu: Encouraging And Equipping Christian Faculty At Non-Christian Universities

John Inazu (Washington University; Google Scholar), Encouraging and Equipping Christian Faculty at Non-Christian Universities:

In an earlier post, I described the Newbigin Fellows, a partnership between Interfaith America (where I serve as a Senior Fellow) and The Carver Project (an organization I founded five years ago). The Newbigin Fellows convenes cohorts of Christian faculty working at non-Christian colleges and universities. These cohorts meet monthly over Zoom and then gather in person with the goal of cultivating relationships with one another, reflecting on the theory and practice of interfaith engagement, and developing interfaith activities on their respective campuses. I co-lead the group with Interfaith America’s founder and president, Eboo Patel.

Last week, our second Newbigin cohort gathered in St. Louis. ... Our time together included substantive conversations about the state of politics and religion in our country, the recent campus protests, and the challenges and opportunities of being a Christian faculty member on campuses like ours.

Continue reading

A New Book Of Job Movie: ‘If God Loves You, Why Does He Let Me Hurt You?’

Christianity Today Movie Review:  ‘Have You Considered My Servant Kevin?’, by Rebecca Cusey (Blankingship & Keith, Fairfax, VA):

A new film, “The Shift” [available on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and YouTube], is an entertaining, thoughtful, and cinematically competent retelling of Job.

Movies created for a Christian audience by Christian production houses are historically a mixed bag. Some are decent. Some are embarrassing. Few are truly great. But a new film, The Shift, ... is a promising step for the genre.

The movie presents itself as a retelling of the biblical Book of Job. Although it covers some of the same philosophical ground, you won’t find burnt offerings or camels here. The setting is modern-day—the plot akin to The Matrix meets It’s a Wonderful Life—and the script is a meditation on love and joy as much as inexplicable loss in a chaotic world.

At the center of the story is Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha), a man pulled away from the life he loves into another dimension by a malignant entity called “The Benefactor” (Neal McDonough). Kevin fights to return to his wife, Molly (Elizabeth Tabish), and in the process weighs ideas about suffering, loss, evil, and the God who allows it all. ...

Continue reading

WaPo Op-Ed: Invisible And Exposed — But Adaptable, As Only The Old Can Be

Washington Post Op-Ed:  Invisible and Exposed — But Adaptable, As Only the Old Can Be, by Anne Lamott (Author, Somehow: Thoughts on Love (2024)):

Anyone who survived eighth-grade gym class believes that the worst is over, that it will all be downhill from that peak of vulnerability and mortification.

And then you get old.

For decades, the focused attention on raising families and/or yourself, all that competitive hustle, strive and fixation with appearances, provides a kind of carapace. You were always as vulnerable as kittens, but you could ignore it in your big-girl-in-charge years. Then, one day, you wake up and find yourself simultaneously invisible and exposed again. Maybe you’re not standing there in the locker room in your underpants, but you’re equally revealed to the world’s harsh, arrogant eyes.

Eyes? Did someone mention eyes? I had made peace with the decline of my eyes — the weakening vision, the saggy eyelids’ hostile takeover of the eyeball, the eight remaining lashes — until two years ago, when dry eye appeared. Dry eye in my case has meant symptoms too repulsive to go into here. ...

Continue reading

WSJ Op-Ed: God’s Place In D-Day’s Great Crusade

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed:  God’s Place in D-Day’s Great Crusade, by Michael Snape (Durham University):

As the West marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, there is a telling instance of amnesia. The religious significance of Operation Overlord, the Allied forces’ invasion of France on June 6, 1944, is largely ignored. That misses an essential part of the history.

In an order distributed to the expeditionary force, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower hailed the cross-channel invasion as a “Great Crusade” and invoked “the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.” That language might grate against 21st-century sensibilities. In the intervening decades, a tide of secularization, the growth of multifaith societies, and the bitter legacy of subsequent conflicts have infused such sentiments with a toxicity they didn’t possess in 1944. In many Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, now in thrall to a functional pacifism born of the nuclear age, such militancy seems alien and unsettling, something best forgotten.

Yet World War II, and D-Day in particular, wasn’t the “notably secular affair” historian Paul Fussell once claimed it to be. Operation Overlord was carried out primarily by countries in which Judeo-Christian beliefs and values were normative and unifying. Despite popular misconceptions, the shock of World War I hadn’t made the Lord of Hosts redundant. A generation after the Great War, faced with an apparently existential threat, the Western and historically Christian democracies still sought comfort, definition and inspiration in a faith that set them apart from the neopaganism of Nazi Germany. ...

Continue reading

Morse Tan Steps Down As Liberty Law School Dean After 2 1/2 Years; Tax Prof Tim Todd Named Interim Dean

Liberty University Names Morse Tan Senior Executive Director of Center for Law & Government:

The Center for Law & Government in Liberty University’s Helms School of Government was established as a training ground for tomorrow’s leaders to learn how to engage the culture and impact law and policy in America. The center has become an arena for thought and debate as it provides opportunities for faculty and students in research, analysis, and the formation of sound conservative policy at all levels of government.

Liberty has announced that Morse Tan, former Ambassador at Large for the U.S. State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice, has been named the center’s Senior Executive Director, beginning July 1. Tan previously served as co-chair of the center, alongside Joel Cox, interim dean of the Helms School of Government. ...

Tan has been serving as dean of the School of Law since Jan. 1, 2022, and will be leaving that role to serve in the center. Tim Todd, Ph.D., will serve as interim dean.

Continue reading

One Year Later . . .

It is one year to the day since we put down our beloved sweet dog, Josie. I am astonished by how much I miss her. So much so that this is my home workstation, where Josie slept at my feet. Now it is adorned with her collar and dog tag, along with the daily reminder of Psalm 118:24 (ESV): This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Chasing Hope: Courage In A Hurting World

Christianity Today Book Review:  After Covering Global Disasters for Decades, Nicholas Kristof Is More Hopeful Than Ever, by Gary Haugen (Founder & CEO, International Justice Mission; Author, Good News About Injustice: A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World (2021)) (reviewing Nicholas Kristof, Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life (2024)):

This is a memoir from someone who has led one of the most dramatically interesting lives of the last half-century, as an acclaimed foreign correspondent and columnist for The New York Times.

If you make a list of the world’s most shattering and consequential conflicts, catastrophes, and convulsions over the last 40 years, the odds are very high that Kristof was present to witness them. So too are the odds that someone was threatening to shoot him. ...

The book’s narrative would be implausible as a movie script, but it’s irresistible as personal storytelling because there is no hint of bravado, attention seeking, or adrenaline addiction. We simply find ourselves following a very sincere human who, over a lifetime, keeps taking small steps to go see what is happening to other humans who are suffering unspeakable brutality in the hidden corners of our world. As he goes, he finds himself sharing the unseen terror borne by millions of ordinary people when history’s great catastrophes unfold. And once among them, Kristof becomes the steward of their stories. ...

This is not only a book about an exceedingly interesting and thoughtful life. It also poses interesting questions. How ought humans to live with eyes wide open in a fallen world of so much suffering, violence, injustice, and death—yet so much courage, love, undeniable beauty, and pulsating life? ...

Continue reading

WaPo Op-Ed: The Dressing Room Encounter That Made Me Get Real About Aging

Washington Post Op-Ed:  The Dressing-Room Encounter That Made Me Get Real About Aging, by Anne Lamott (Author, Somehow: Thoughts on Love (2024)):

The game of life is hard, and a lot of us are playing hurt.

I ache for the world but naturally I’m mostly watching the Me Movie, where balance and strength are beginning to ebb and, on the surface, things are descending into grandma pudding. ...

What can we do as the creaking elevators of age slowly descend? The main solution is not to Google new symptoms late at night. But I also try to get outside every day, ideally with friends. Old friends — even thoughts of them — are my ballast; all that love and loyalty, those delicious memories, the gossip.

When I can no longer walk, I will sit outside with them, gaze into their faces, and look up. That is the perennial instruction: Look up! Looking up gives us freedom and causes the shadows to slip right down our backs.

Continue reading

The Bible And Same-Sex Marriage

Christianity Today Book Review:  What Believers Can and Can’t Affirm in Those Who Affirm Same-Sex Marriage, by Darrin W. Snyder Belousek (Ohio Northern; Google Scholar; Author, Marriage, Scripture, and the Church: Theological Discernment on the Question of Same-Sex Union (2021) (reviewing Rebecca McLaughlin, Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Relationships? Examining 10 Claims about Scripture and Sexuality (2024)):

Maybe you believe that the Bible opposes same-sex sexual relationships. Where in the Bible would you begin to explain your view? Maybe you doubt that the Bible opposes same-sex sexual relationships. Where in the Bible would you begin to build an argument for affirmation? Or maybe you are unsure whether the Bible affirms or opposes same-sex sexual relationships. Where in the Bible would you begin to inquire about the matter?

Whichever position you might find yourself in, Rebecca McLaughlin’s new book will point you to precisely the place in the Bible where you should begin—with the gospel and Jesus. ...

The book, Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Relationships? Examining 10 Claims about Scripture and Sexuality (2024), brings together two recent trends of books by evangelical writers.

Continue reading

I’m A Jewish Alumna Of Christian Colleges —Where I Found A Safe Home

New York Post Op-Ed:  I’m a Jewish Alumna of Christian Colleges —Where I Found a Safe Home, by Sara Garfinkle (B.A. 2020, Hillsdale; M.P.P. 2022, Pepperdine):

“But you’re Jewish!”

Other than “Why?” this is the most common reaction when I share that I attended a Christian college.

Actually, I attended two.

Recent events on college campuses have invited me to reflect on my own college experience — and what it could have been had I attended another school. ...

Hillsdale and Pepperdine regularly invited Jewish guest speakers, for whom students filled lecture halls and commencement spaces to the brim. ...

Jewish students are not safe on many college campuses.

At my Christian colleges, I not only survived, I thrived. ...

To sit with friends, to learn, to eat, to pray in many languages, to eat some more — what a perfect thing to do with the freedom that Hillsdale so ardently defends.

In many American universities, students abuse that freedom. ...

I came home to Southern California for graduate school at Pepperdine University, another Christian college.

Continue reading

Happy Memorial Day From Pepperdine

Tom Knudsen (General Counsel, Pepperdine), A Special Memorial Day Message:

While there are competing claims as to the origins of Memorial Day, Congress has declared its birthplace as Waterloo, New York. There, on May 5, 1866, a year after its conclusion, a small ceremony was held to honor local residents who had fought in the Civil War. Businesses closed, flags were flown at half-staff, and flowers were draped on the graves of those who had fallen. Two years later, in 1868, John A. Logan, a former major general of the Union Army, declared that May 30 — a date supposedly chosen because "the choicest flowers of springtime" would be in bloom throughout the nation — would be a day to decorate "the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.” In so doing, he stated, “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance.... Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.”

Continue reading

NY Times Op-Ed: Harrison Butker’s Very American Catholic Traditionalism

New York Times Op-Ed:  Harrison Butker’s Very American Traditionalism, by Ross Douthat:

Across almost two weeks of controversy over the commencement speech that Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker gave at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., one of the most useful pieces of commentary came from Kevin Tierney, writing in Catholic World Report. Tierney neither defended nor attacked Butker’s sweeping condemnation of modern secular culture and lukewarm forms of Catholic faith. Instead he identified the kicker’s worldview as part of a distinctive tendency that Tierney calls “DIY traditionalism” — a form of Catholic piety that offers a “radical emphasis on personal accountability, is inherently populist, and has little direct connection to Church authorities.”

A little context: Butker is a Latin Mass Catholic as well as Travis Kelce’s teammate. Benedictine College is a conservative Catholic college that featured prominently in a recent Associated Press report on the rightward turn in American Catholic piety and practice. The most controversial portion of the kicker’s graduation speech, the part that zipped from social media to “The View,” urged the college’s female graduates to ignore the “diabolical lies” that emphasize “promotions and titles” over “your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

But the speech did more than just champion “one of the most important titles of all: homemaker” while denouncing “degenerate cultural values” in society at large. Butker also delivered a sweeping condemnation of the church’s bishops, whom he cast as weak-kneed bureaucrats and denounced especially for suspending Masses and disappearing from the lives of the faithful during the pandemic. He criticized priests for being “overly familiar” with their parishioners — “because as my teammate’s girlfriend says, familiarity breeds contempt.” ...

Continue reading

A Year After Tim Keller's Death, His Humility And Self-Forgetfulness Are His Biggest Legacy For Us

Following up on my post, The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller:  Christianity Today, Would Tim Keller Care If We Weren’t Still Talking About Him? Probably Not.:

[Tim Keller had] an indifference to fame and to curating an image—something many of us struggle with in the social media era. This is also part of why, I believe, he finished his race so well.

Finishing well in life and ministry has been historically difficult for believers, especially for those in positions of leadership. Think of Gideon or Solomon in the Old Testament, Demas in the New Testament, or, of course, the many church leaders today who have infamously failed to persevere.

The esteem that leaders receive from the Christian community can allow for hidden flaws to grow like rust on the hull of a ship, unnoticed and unaddressed at first. But as these leaders reach greater influence, greater weight is placed on these flaws—which can reach dangerous levels of corrosion—and can often be enough to sink the whole ship of their character and legacy. Yet Keller’s neither corroded nor sank.

As Keller wrote in his best-selling booklet on self-forgetfulness [The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy], “Friends, wouldn’t you want to be a person who does not need honor—nor is afraid of it? Someone who does not lust for recognition—nor, on the other hand, is frightened to death of it?” As someone who seemed neither to lust for recognition nor to be frightened by it, this description seemed to fit Keller well. ...

Continue reading

WSJ Op-Ed: United Methodist Church Abandons Traditional Christian Teaching On Homosexuality And Marriage

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: Methodists Keep Up With the Times, by Carl R. Trueman (Grove City College; Author, Crisis of Confidence: Reclaiming the Historic Faith in a Culture Consumed with Individualism and Identity (2024)):

The United Methodist Church at its General Conference last week voted by large margins to lift its ban on practicing homosexual clergy and to eliminate from its “Social Principles” the statement that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. The decision is significant for what has long been one of the nation’s biggest religious groups, with more than five million members.

As with every other mainline Protestant denomination in America, there has been a long struggle over the church’s traditional teaching that homosexuality is wrong and that marriage is between a man and a woman. The UMC stood its ground for longer than many other denominations, even reaffirming its position and strengthening the penalties for breaking the rules in 2019. That, however, was also the year the UMC adopted a policy that allowed congregations to leave the denomination with their property. Traditionalists did so in droves, with more than 7,000 American churches departing in the past five years, preparing the way for the progressives’ triumph.

The recent changes weren’t surprising. Liberal Protestantism has always been a religious reflection of the broader culture. ... [T]he Methodist church adopted a statement about marriage. It affirms “marriage as a sacred, lifelong covenant that brings two people of faith (adult man and adult woman of consenting age or two adult persons of consenting age) into a union of one another and into deeper relationship with God and the religious community.” But what does “sacred” mean when divorced from the traditional theological and ethical beliefs that underpin Christianity? The description is nothing more than an aesthetic gloss to conceal what’s transpiring: the reduction of marriage to an emotional bond rather than the mysterious union of a man and woman that would normatively lead to the most sacred and godlike of events, the creation of new life.

Continue reading

Pepperdine Caruso Law Celebrates The Class Of 2024

Commissioning Service:

Baccalaureate Service:

Commencement:

On Friday, May 17, the Pepperdine Caruso Law Class of 2024 gathered at Alumni Park to celebrate their commencement with their families, friends, and classmates. It was a joyous occasion for the 400 graduates who earned their Juris Doctor, Master of Laws, Master of Dispute Resolution, and Master of Legal Studies degrees. 

Continue reading

WaPo Op-Ed: Lifelong Lessons In Coping With Fear And Humiliation

Washington Post Op-Ed:  Lifelong Lessons in Coping With Fear and Humiliation, by Anne Lamott (Author, Somehow: Thoughts on Love (2024)):

As a woman of faith and cranky optimism, I am usually afraid of only a dozen or so things at any given time, which is a major improvement since childhood. I was the single most scared child on Earth in the 1950s. For instance, I was habitually afraid of being murdered while I slept, so I’d practice looking dead. Then the murderer would peek in my room and think, Hmmm, no one to kill in here; the little girl is already dead.

I don’t do that anymore (very often).

Now I am mostly afraid of my son and grandchild dying before me, beside which all other fears pale. I do worry about falling and breaking my hip. Gravity is a killer. I am, as we speak, on a long airplane flight, hearing a loud mechanical rattle, such as what a wing might make as it works itself off toward freedom. Also, I fear inheriting my mother’s Alzheimer’s, my father’s brain cancer, snakes, the election and the guy behind me coughing. ...

They say that babies are born cute so that their fathers won’t eat them, and I think a similar thing takes place when we age. As we look older and somewhat more frail, we have a last chance to coax forth compassion and kindness from the world. As we surrender to the reality that, as we age, most of the systems of body and mind start to go on the fritz, we invite humility into our lives. There is no greater strength.

I am definitely running out of time, and I have (mostly) made peace with that.

Continue reading

Dallas Mavericks: The NBA Basketball Team Created To Represent God

Christianity Today:  The Basketball Team Created to Represent God, by Paul Putz (Faith & Sports Institute, Baylor Truett Seminary; Author, The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports (2024)):

The Dallas Mavericks were intended to be the first Christian team in the NBA.

At the time, 1980 did not seem like a great year to launch a new professional sports franchise. Interest rates were high. The Iranian hostage crisis dominated national attention. A presidential election loomed. There was a general feeling of pessimism and uncertainty for many Americans.

But Norm Sonju had a vision—inspired by God, perhaps, but also from data and market analysis that showed Dallas had untapped potential as a National Basketball Association (NBA) city.

For two years, Sonju had worked to make his dream a reality. Now, in 1980, when his plans looked like they might be crumbling, he turned to two Bible verses he had learned from his mother as a child: “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jer. 33:3), and “Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39).

“The truth of God’s Word made such a difference in my attitude in those hectic days of starting the franchise,” Sonju would write a decade later. “I knew that God was in control even when things looked hopeless.”

Sonju’s Christian faith was more than a source of comfort. It was the central force behind his efforts to bring the NBA to Dallas, fueling his hopes for what the team could become and providing the point of connection with the owner who had the money to animate his vision. ...

[T]he origin of the Dallas Mavericks was not just an effort to create and build an NBA franchise that included Christian players. It was also an effort guided by Christian values. ...

Continue reading

Hasen: Taxation Of Work In Christian Theology

David Hasen (Florida; Google Scholar), Taxation of Work in Christian Theology:

How should Christian theological principles inform rules for the taxation of work? The answer to this question is ambiguous because work plays an ambiguous role in the life of the believer. Scripture accords dignity to work, but work, like almost any activity, can become an idol; depending on its content, work also can be harmful to the worker or to others. Similarly, work, or certain kinds of work, may be systematically underpaid or overpaid. For these reasons, recommendations about the optimal taxation of work in any given case depend on the larger tax system and indeed on the larger economic, social and political conditions in which the tax system operates.

Continue reading

NY Times Op-Ed: Can Conservative And Liberal Catholics Coexist?

New York Times Op-Ed:  Can Conservative and Liberal Catholics Coexist?, by Ross Douthat:

Before Pope Francis was elected, conservative Catholics had fallen into a habit of dismissing the more liberal form of Catholicism as an old and faded thing, a vision of the future that belonged to the church’s past, a relic of the 1970s that had little purchase among younger Catholics seriously practicing their faith.

The last 10 years have been hard on this kind of confidence. A college of supposedly conservative cardinals elected a surprisingly liberal pope. Moral and theological debates supposedly settled by Pope John Paul II were conspicuously reopened. The Latin Mass, rehabilitated under Pope Benedict XVI, was partially suppressed. Progressive theologians found themselves back in favor; formerly conservative bishops suddenly evolved. It seemed as though liberal Catholicism had been merely hibernating, awaiting a new pope, a new spring.

But lately, in both Rome and the United States, I’ve had conversations with well-informed Catholics in which the old conservative confidence has made a comeback. The idea of the Francis era as a “last gasp” for the Catholicism of the boomer era has figured prominently. The assumption that progressive Catholicism has no real long-term viability has returned. The fear that the next pope might be another liberalizer, younger and more ambitious than Francis, has largely receded.

Continue reading

WSJ Op-Ed: The Smear Campaign Against ‘Christian Nationalists’

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed:  The Smear Campaign Against ‘Christian Nationalists’, by Ralph Reed (Founder & Chairman, Faith & Freedom Coalition):

House Speaker Mike Johnson stared down anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University last month and affirmed the nation’s support for Jewish students. His remarks were sharp and unequivocal, a welcome contrast with university officials’ hand-wringing and the Biden administration’s feeble response to the antisemitism sweeping across the states.

Yet rather than give him credit, Democrats and the press for months have fixated on Mr. Johnson’s background as a “Christian nationalist.” ... A survey by the PRRI in February found that “three in ten Americans qualify as Christian nationalism adherents or sympathizers.” National Public Radio warned that what was once a “fringe viewpoint” has gained a “foothold in American politics.” It is difficult to imagine a more benign constituency than people who work hard, read the Bible, pray regularly and attend church weekly. Yet according to the liberal narrative, there are millions of them, faithful Christians, disposed toward authoritarianism and political violence. ...

[T]he slandering of evangelical Christians is more than a campaign strategy or proof of secularism’s triumph. Stripped of its academic jargon and pretense, it is a fashionable but insidious bigotry that seeks to marginalize and disqualify from our civic discourse tens of millions of Americans who take their faith seriously. ...

Continue reading

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education: 

1. Law360, UC-Berkeley Law Student Dinner Leads To Lawsuit By Jewish Advocacy Group Over Alleged Antisemitic Campaign Against Dean And University Civil Rights Investigation Of Alleged Harassment Of Muslim Student By His Law Professor Wife
2. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Law Prof Commentary On The Campus Protests
3. Aaron Sibarium (Washington Free Beacon), 13 Federal Judges Will Not Hire Law Clerks From Columbia: An ‘Incubator Of Bigotry’
4. Riverfront Times, Wash U Law Faculty, Students, And Alumni Condemn Protest Crackdown
5. Law360, Law School Class Of 2023 Jobs Rankings For All 195 Law Schools In Seven Categories
6. Aaron Sibarium (Washington Free Beacon), “Irrevocably Shaken”: Columbia Law Review Editors Demand Cancellation Of Exams Due To Campus Protests
7. Law.com, Law School Dean Developments
8. Fordham Symposium, The New AI: The Legal And Ethical Implications Of ChatGPT And Other Emerging Technologies
9. Tim Rosenberger (Manhattan Institute), The New LSAT Is Bad For America
10. Above the Law, 2024 ATL Law Revue Video Contest Finalists

Tax: 

1. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: When Is An Excise Tax Really A Penalty?
2. Susan Morse (Texas), The Truth About Safe Harbors
3. ProPublica, Sports Team Owners Face New Tax Scrutiny From The IRS
4. Columbia Tax Workshop, Day 1, Day 2
5. Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama), Review Of Efficiency vs. Welfare In Benefit-Cost Analysis — The Case Of Government Funding By Liscow & Sunstein
6. Sebastian Dyrda (Toronto) & Benjamin Pugsley (Notre Dame), The Rise Of Pass-Throughs: An Empirical Investigation
7. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers
8. Florida, 27th Annual Critical Tax Conference
9. Wall Street Journal, Reclassifying Marijuana Would Unlock Billions In Tax Savings For Cannabis Companies By Repealing Section 280E
10. New York Times Op-Ed (Gabriel Zucman, UC-Berkeley), It's Time To Tax The Billionaires

Faith:

1. Washington Post Op-Ed (Anne Lamott), It’s Not So ‘Terribly Strange To Be 70’
2. Robert George (Princeton) & John Inazu (Washington University), On Antisemitism And The Campus Protests
3. Pepperdine Caruso Law Surf Report, Religious Diversity At Pepperdine Caruso Law
4. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Caruso Law 3L Commissioning Service
5. ABA Journal, 'Friendly Gentile' And Jewish Law Profs, A Rabbi, And A Passover Contract

NY Times Op-Ed: The Three Strands Of American Evangelicalism: Fundamental, Evangelical, And Pentecostal

New York Times Op-Ed:  The Line Between Good and Evil Cuts Through Evangelical America, by David French (Author, Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation (2020)):

American evangelicalism is best understood as a combination of three religious traditions: fundamentalism, evangelicalism and Pentecostalism. These different traditions have different beliefs, different cultures and different effects on our nation.

The distinction between fundamentalism and evangelicalism can be the hardest to parse, especially since we now use the term “evangelical” to describe both branches of the movement. The conflict between evangelicalism and fundamentalism emerged most sharply in the years following World War II, when so-called neo-evangelicals arose as a biblically conservative response to traditional fundamentalism’s separatism and fighting spirit. I say “biblically conservative” because neo-evangelicals had the same high view of Scripture as the inerrant word of God that fundamentalists did, but their temperament and approach were quite different.

The difference between fundamentalism and neo-evangelicalism can be summed up in two men, Bob Jones and Billy Graham. ...

Continue reading

Robby George And John Inazu On Antisemitism And The Campus Protests

Robert P. George (McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University; Nootbaar Honorary Distinguished Professor of Law, Pepperdine Caruso Law School; Google Scholar), Why Christians Must Do More Than Merely Reject Antisemitism:

I hope it goes without saying to a Christian audience that we, as followers of Jesus, must reject antisemitism and, indeed, all forms of ethnic, racial, and religious bigotry. But beyond that, it is incumbent upon us to be outspoken against such bigotry and in defense of its victims.

One of the great stains on the history of Christianity is the contempt — and sometimes worse — that some Christians, including some leaders of the Church, have over the centuries expressed for Jews and Judaism. Catholics were never required as a matter of doctrine to hold anti-Jewish attitudes or support, much less participate in, the persecution of Jews. For centuries, however, the posture of the Catholic Church as an institution, and other Christian ecclesial communities, towards the Jewish faith and the Jewish people was decidedly negative – often hostile.

Continue reading

Religious Diversity At Pepperdine Caruso Law

Pepperdine Caruso Law Surf Report, April 2024 Spotlight: Religious Diversity:

Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law values the religious diversity among its faculty, staff, and student body. During the months of March and April, many of our community members celebrated the beginning of Ramadan, the Easter season, and Passover. These seasons remind us to pause and reflect on the importance of our spiritual journeys and the role it plays in developing our character, guiding our path and living a life of meaning in our professions and beyond. Four of our faculty and staff shared their reflections on the importance of spiritual formation and how our values play a key role in living out a life of purpose. 

I came first to Pepperdine in 1991, drawn in the abstract to Pepperdine's religiosity but without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ until 1995, when I became a Christian and was baptized by then-Malibu Church of Christ minister Dan Anders. From my first few weeks of law school several years later I wanted to come back and combine my vocation and passion for the University's mission—a dream that was realized in 2019 when I joined the law school as a staff and later faculty member. Pepperdine Caruso Law is to me unique in having an ecumenical Christian identity while welcoming people of all faiths and none. We often say that we refuse to compromise the twin pillars of our Christian mission and academic excellence. We could also say, however, that our commitment to each pillar supports the other. We pursue academic excellence because this is how Pepperdine can glorify God; and our commitment to the mission is strengthened by the knowledge and discipline our pursuit of the rule of law requires. To me this is what makes this place unique and special. — Dean Jason Jarvis

Before college, I spent a couple of years in Israel engaged in study at a yeshiva—what you might think of as a seminary of sorts. As part of that experience, I studied with one of the institution’s rabbis who not only provided insight into Talmud, but also periodically dispensed life advice as well. One piece of advice stands out: find a profession which is integrated with, as opposed to alienated from, your religious life. At the time, I don’t think I fully appreciated the advice. But decades later, I realize that so much of my personal fulfillment is the result of taking that advice seriously. When I think about why it is that law has been an enriching professional path, it is ultimately because my professional portfolio—everything from what I read and write to the institutions I work with and the pro bono projects I take on—is all wrapped together in the enterprise of bringing law and faith together. No doubt, how to engage in this endeavor looks different depending on one’s skills and one’s aspirations. But focusing on that goal of building an integrated life of faith and law is something that requires planning, care and commitment—all of which pay significant dividends in the long run. — Professor Michael A. Helfand

Continue reading

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education: 

1. Washington Post Op-Ed (Paul Berman), Punish Columbia Professors, Not Students Protesters, For The Intellectual Degeneration On Campus 
2. Vivia Chen, A 47-Year Old Lawyer Dies. Is Big Law To Blame? 
3. The Atlantic (Erwin Chemerinsky), No One Has A Right To Protest In My Home 
4. Law.com, Pro-Palestinian Protests Disrupt Law School Finals And Commencement Ceremonies
5. Reuters, Law School Class Of 2023 Jobs Rankings: Bar-Passage Required, BigLaw, Federal Judicial Clerkships, And Government|Public Interest 
6. ABA Journal,  Tenured Law Prof Takes Buyout, Becomes Stand-Up Comic 
7. Morris Ratner (UC Law SF), Stephen Goggin (San Diego State), Stefano Moscato (UC Law SF), Margaret Greer (UC Law SF) & Elizabeth McGriff (UC Law SF), Determinants Of Success On The Bar Exam: One Law School's Experience 2010-2023 
8. Reuters, 45% Of Junior Associates: Law School Failed To Prepare Me For Practice  
9. GW Hatchet, George Washington Law School Relocates Students For Final Exams Due To Pro-Palestinian Encampment On Campus 
10. Bloomberg Law, The Free Market Hits Big Law On-Campus Recruiting In Race For 1L Talent 

Tax: 

1. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Deanna Newton Joins Pepperdine Tax Faculty 
2. Haley Ritter (Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, Irvine, CA), The Tax Ramifications Of Name, Image, And Likeness Deals For Student-Athletes 
3. Shannon Weeks McCormack (University of Washington), America's Failure To Rescue Parents: A Narrative Of Inequitable Tax "Reform" 
4. In Memoriam, Death Of David Herwitz (Harvard) 
5. David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia) & Ari Glogower (Northwestern), The Policy And Politics Of Alternative Minimum Taxes 
6. Arun Advani (Warwick), Presentation of How Responsive Are Top Earners To Tax Rates? At Oxford 
7. The Athletic, California Legislation Would Ask Congress To Close Shohei Ohtani Tax Loophole 
8. David Elkins (Netanya), Review Of The Policy And Politics Of Alternative Minimum Taxes By Gamage & Glogower
9. Michelle Layser (San Diego), Privacy And Tax Information Collection: A Response To Blank And Glogower
10. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Tax Policy Workshop Series (Spring 2024)

Faith:

1. Washington Post Op-Ed (Anne Lamott), It’s Not So ‘Terribly Strange To Be 70’
2. ABA Journal, 'Friendly Gentile' And Jewish Law Profs, A Rabbi, And A Passover Contract
3. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Caruso Law 3L Commissioning Service
4. New York Times & Wall Street Journal Book Reviews, Enslaved Christians And The Making Of The Bible 
5. NOTUS, How Speaker Mike Johnson’s Faith Changed His Path On Ukraine 

How Speaker Mike Johnson’s Faith Changed His Path On Ukraine

NOTUS, How Mike Johnson’s Faith Changed His Path on Ukraine:

For House Speaker Mike Johnson, the fight to get new aid to Ukraine was as much a religious question as it was about policy — and it offered the clearest window into how his Southern Baptist faith has influenced his decision-making since claiming the gavel.

Johnson wrestled over the legislation in prayer, according to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, who said he was with Johnson the night before he chose to bring up the aid after weeks of stalling.

“He doesn’t wear it on his sleeve, but he got down on his knees, and he prayed for guidance and said, ‘Look, tell me. What is the right thing to do here?’” McCaul said of Johnson during a hearing this week. “And he told me the next day: ‘I want to be on the right side of history.’”

Even Johnson’s critics know how pivotal his faith was in bringing the legislation forward. “For Mike Johnson, that’s the truth. It’s a religious decision,” said South Carolina Republican Ralph Norman, who voted against advancing the bill to a floor debate on Friday. “He’s prayed about it. He said that when we met with him.” ...

Continue reading

'Friendly Gentile' And Jewish Law Profs, A Rabbi, And A Passover Contract

ABA Journal, How to Rid House of Leavened Products During Passover? Mormon Law Prof Has Contracts for That:

A professor at the William & Mary Law School was acting as a “friendly gentile” when he helped draft contracts to purchase unused leavened foodstuffs and lease its storage locations from members of another law professor’s synagogue in suburban Philadelphia.

Law professor Nathan B. Oman is a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He doesn’t drink alcohol, but the legal documents gave him short-term ownership last year of congregants’ whiskey and other leavened products, along with “a lease on a very nice apartment in Jerusalem,” he wrote in January for Wayfare magazine.

Oman’s specialties include contracts and law and religion. The other law professor, Chaim Saiman, is a scholar of Jewish law at the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law.

The Salt Lake Tribune caught up with Oman after he drove about six hours each way to repeat the contractual exchange with Saiman’s rabbi in advance of Passover, which began Monday evening.

Salt Lake Tribune, Why This Faithful Latter-Day Saint Drives Six Hours to Buy Liquor He Will Never Drink:

He will never see or taste the Oreos and half-eaten boxes of Cheerios he buys. He purchases them anyway to help a rabbi friend honor his faith.

Continue reading

WSJ: Going To Church Enhances Your Mental Health

Wall Street Journal, The Mental-Health Benefits Linked to Going to Church:

Active religious practice, such as going to churches, synagogues and mosques, is linked to mental well-being, according to a growing body of research.

One possible explanation for the link, researchers and clergy say, is that places of worship can provide community and belonging, which are big drivers in mental well-being, and help counter isolation and loneliness.

The findings come at a time of declining regular attendance at services across nearly all faith denominations and rising rates of depression and anxiety. Young people in particular have low rates of church attendance and report often feeling lonely and anxious.

“There is a mounting body of empirical evidence suggesting that people who are active in their faith tend to be the recipients of a number of important physical and mental-health benefits,” says Byron Johnson, professor of social sciences at Baylor University [and Pepperdine University]. 

Believing in a higher power can foster a sense of connection, research has shown. Helping others, which many religions facilitate through organized-outreach programs, builds compassion, which psychologists have found can improve mental health. ...

In recent years, many people have left churches, or never attended in the first place, because they don’t feel accepted. Young people, in particular, have expressed feelings of alienation over some religions’ stances on gender, abortion and sexual orientation, and of exclusion because they don’t fit a religious community’s mold.

Baylor’s Johnson co-directs a study on what makes people flourish. He and researchers at Harvard University, in conjunction with Gallup, found that among 200,000 people surveyed worldwide, those attending religious services weekly had higher “flourishing” scores than those who never attended. ...

Continue reading

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education: 

1. U.S. News Specialty Rankings
1. Omnibus Specialty Rankings
2. Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings
3. International Law
4. Legal Writing 
5. Trial Advocacy
2. New York Times, 54 Columbia Law Faculty Condemn Administration For Disciplinary Action Against Anti-Israel Student Protesters
3. Law.com, 27 Law Schools (Including Cornell (Est. 1887) & Michigan (Est. 1859)) Have Not Had A Woman Dean
4. David Lat, An Exit Interview With Virginia Law School Dean Risa Goluboff
5. Quacquarelli Symonds, 2024 World Law School Rankings
6. New York Times Op-Ed (Frank Bruni), The Most Important Thing I Teach My Students Isn’t On The Syllabus: Humility
7. ABA, Class Of 2023 Jobs Data: Full-Credit Jobs Rate Rises To 85.6%, Up From 84.6% Last Year
8. Jonathan Turley (George Washington), One Year After Disruption Of Judge Duncan's Speech, 54% Of Stanford Students Support Cancelling Conservative Speakers
9. Reuters, Law School Deans Balk At Course Uniformity Proposed By ABA In Learning Outcomes Accreditation Standard 
10. ABA Journal, Law Schools Examine Pedagogy As NextGen Bar Exam Looms 

Tax: 

1. Reuven Avi-Yonah & Lucas Salama (Michigan), Taxation Of Autonomous Artificial Intelligence 
2. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Tax Policy In The Biden Administration
3. Michael Graetz (Columbia), Presentation of The Power to Destroy: How The Antitax Movement Hijacked America At Pepperdine 
4. Pittsburgh Tax Review, Call For Papers: Combatting Poverty Through Federal Tax Policy
5. Sloan Speck (Colorado), Review of Elkins's Rules, Standards, And The Value Of Certainty In Tax Law
6. Adam Michel (Cato Institute), President Biden Would Saddle The U.S. With Highest Tax Rate On Corporate Income In The Developed World
7. Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia), Taxing The Ten Percent 
8. Stephen E. Sachs (Harvard), Abortion, Tax, And Wayfair
9. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers 
10. Tax Executives Institute, Student Case Competition 

Faith:

1. New York Times, Vatican Says Gender Change And Fluidity Are Threat To Human Dignity; WSJ: Pope Francis Slams Door On 'Cafeteria Catholics'
2. Washington Post Op-Ed (Anne Lamott), It’s Not So ‘Terribly Strange To Be 70’ 
3. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Caruso Law 3L Commissioning Service
4. New York Times & Wall Street Journal Book Reviews, Enslaved Christians And The Making Of The Bible
5. Harvard Law Today, Ruth Okediji: Music And Faith Foster Hope In Difficult Times

Harvard Law Prof Ruth Okediji: Music And Faith Foster Hope In Difficult Times

Harvard Law Today, A Show of Faith: Harvard Law Professor Ruth Okediji Explains Why She Believes Music — and Faith — Foster Hope in Difficult Times:

Shortly before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington in 1963, iconic gospel singer Mahalia Jackson performed an electrifying version of the spiritual “I’ve Been ‘Buked, and I’ve Been Scorned.” As Jackson sang, some in the audience closed their eyes in reverence, while others swayed gently in time with the music. At Jackson’s final note, the crowd, once transfixed, burst into applause.

Although an undeniably powerful moment, this was not the first time — nor would it be the last — that music would serve to ground, fortify, and uplift African Americans in the fight for civil rights, or others who are going through difficult times, says Ruth Okediji LL.M. ’91, S.J.D. ’96, the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor at Harvard Law School.

In fact, Okediji says, faith has long played an important role in the lives of many Black Americans, with worship music providing strength, joy, and hope, even amid oppression. And one way that faith is made manifest in biblical Christianity is through music, particularly hymns, she adds.

“A confidence in the Bible and its life-giving precepts made it possible for people to, day after day, week after week, month after month, get up again, and say, ‘We’re going to continue with faith and in this struggle, whatever the day might hold.’”

Continue reading

WaPo Op-Ed: It’s Not So ‘Terribly Strange To Be 70’

Washington Post Op-Ed:  It’s Not So ‘Terribly Strange to be 70’, by Anne Lamott (Author, Somehow: Thoughts on Love (2024)):

I I turned 70 today, a young age for an older person to be, but it is the oldest I have ever been by a long shot. It has been well over six decades since I learned in arithmetic how to carry the one, and the rest has sped by like microfiche.

One big juicy, messy, hard, joyful, quiet life. That’s what my 70 years have bequeathed me.

In my teens, already drinking and drugging, I didn’t expect to see 21, and at 21, out of control, I didn’t expect to see 30. At 30, I had published three books but, as a sober friend put it, was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards.

Then at 32, I got clean and sober, the miracle of my life from which all other blessings flow. My son was born three years later. The apple fell close to the tree: My son went off the rails, too. He and his partner had a baby at 19, which had not been in my specific plans for him, but you know the old line: If you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans.

Continue reading

Pepperdine Caruso Law 3L Commissioning Service

We hosted our 13th annual 3L Commissioning Service at Pepperdine Caruso Law last week. Like many of the best things at our school, it is the brainchild of a student. In 2012, 2L Raija Churchill proposed that the last Wednesday night Dean's Bible study of the year model the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) as a send-off for our graduating 3Ls.

I was honored to give a gift to our 3Ls to encourage them to live the lives that God has called them to after they graduate: a paperweight to keep on their desks to remind them (on the top) of their time at Pepperdine Caruso Law and (on the bottom) a single word — the most powerful word that Jesus talked about and modeled for us — forgiveness. I shared several of the forgiveness stories I have chronicled on this blog, including this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.

The highlight of the evening was when our faculty and staff spoke words of life over each of the graduating 3Ls (kudos to Tyler Clark (JD '12) for beginning this wonderful tradition):

Continue reading

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education: 

1. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), U.S. News Rankings Potpourri: Waning Influence, Penalizing 53 Boycotting Law Schools, And Declining T14 Lawyer|Judge Reputation Scores 
2. Charleston Gazette-Mail, Over 40% Of Full-Time Faculty Depart West Virginia Law School 
3. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), More Commentary On Student Protest At Berkeley Law Dean Chemerinsky's Home 
4. Timothy Fisher (Dean, Connecticut (2013-2020)), The Experiences Of Non-Traditional Law Deans And The Law Schools That Hire Them 
5. U.S. News Specialty Rankings
   1. Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings 
   2. Criminal Law 
   3. Dispute Resolution 
   4. Environmental Law 
   5. Health Care Law 
   6. Intellectual Property Law 
6. David H. Schraub (Lewis & Clark), They Managed A Protest: Prohibitory, Ethical, And Prudential Policing Of Academic Speech
7. Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Blog), Weekly Legal Education Roundup 
8. Wake Forest Law Review, Symposium: Leading Change In The Legal Profession 
9. University of Houston, Conference On The Future Of Affirmative Action In Legal And Medical Education 
10. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 20-Year Anniversary Of TaxProf Blog 

Tax: 

1. Bloomberg Law, Northwestern Law School, 78-Year-Old Tax Professor Settle Age Discrimination Lawsuit 
2. New York Times Op-Ed (Andrew W. Kahrl), How Property Taxes Drive Racism And Inequality 
3. Jonathan Grossberg (Thomson Reuters), Kerry Inger (Auburn) & Carneil Wilson (Dentons Sirote, Birmingham, AL), Moore v. United States And The Original Public Meaning Of 'Taxes On Incomes'
4. Loyola L.A. Law Review, Festschrift To Honor Ellen Aprill 
5. Pittsburg Tax Review, Symposium: The Federal Income Tax—Racially Blind But Not Racially Neutral
6. Richard Winchester (Seton Hall), Tax Day Lecture At Temple On A Simple Tax Case Complicated By Race 
7. Blaine Saito (Ohio State), Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Saito Reviews Kern’s Progressive Taxation For The World
8. The Tax Lawyer, New Issue 
9. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers 
10. UC-Irvine, Symposium On Moore And The Future Of The Realization Doctrine 

Faith:

1. New York Times, Vatican Says Gender Change And Fluidity Are Threat To Human Dignity; WSJ: Pope Francis Slams Door On 'Cafeteria Catholics'
2. AL.com Op-Ed (Blake Hudson, Dean, Cumberland Law School), Pastors, Are You Prepared To Lose Your Job Or Half Your Congregation To Tell The Truth? Jesus Was. 
3. New York Times Op-Ed (David French), Don’t Let Our Broken Politics Mangle Our Faith 
4. Wall Street Journal Book Review (Peter Thonemann), Enslaved Christians And The Making Of The Bible 
5. Pepperdine Caruso Law, Celebration of Founding Dean Ron Phillips