Interactions – A Law and Religion Podcast

In this episode we speak with Dr. Mark Storslee about his work on History and the school prayer cases. Mark Storslee is an Associate Professor of Law and McDonald Distinguished Fellow at Emory Law School. He holds many degrees, including a JD from Stanford Law School and a PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. Storslee’s article, History and the School Prayer Cases was recently...

In this episode we speak Ariel Liberman, a legal scholar whose work touches on education through an interdisciplinary perspective, as well as inter-religious engagement and legal theory. Dr. Liberman has an SJD from Emory Law School, and currently serves as the Paul and Marion Kuntz Scholar in Law and Religion, the Director of Undergraduate Outreach and Engagement, and the Managing Editor of Canop...

In this episode, we’re excited to welcome Alexa Windsor, a legal scholar and educator whose work focuses on the intersections of law and religion, contract law, and arbitration, especially in relation to gender and sexuality. Alexa Windsor is currently completing her SJD at Emory University School of Law. She has dedicated her research to exploring how contract law principles can be adapted for al...

In this season of Interactions, Whitney Barth and John Bernau engage with contemporary voices in the field to discuss recent works in law and religion. Today’s guest is Dr. Thomas Jared Farmer, the McDonald Scholar in residence at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. In this episode, Dr. Farmer talks about his motivation to write a biography about Gianni Vattimo, and t...

In this season of Interactions, Terri Montague, and Brandon Paradise, engage with contemporary leaders and social change agents regarding the influence and convergence of Christianity, the law, and racial justice. Today’s guest is Reverend Bernice King, the daughter of Corretta Scott and Martin Luther King Jr, a social activist in her own right and regularly speaks truth to power. Additionally, as...

In this season of Interactions, Terri Montague, and Brandon Paradise, engage with contemporary leaders and social change agents regarding the influence and convergence of Christianity, the law, and racial justice. Today’s guest is Reverend Bernice King, the daughter of Corretta Scott and Martin Luther King Jr, a social activist in her own right and regularly speaks truth to power. Additionally, as...

In this season of Interactions, Terri Montague, and Brandon Paradise, engage with contemporary leaders and social change agents regarding the influence and convergence of Christianity, the law, and racial justice. Today’s guest is Reverend Doctor Kelly Brown Douglas, the Canon Theologian at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, author of several books, and the president of Episcopal Divinity S...

In this season of Interactions, Terri Montague, and Brandon Paradise, engage with contemporary leaders and social change agents regarding the influence and convergence of Christianity, the law, and racial justice. Today’s guest is Reverend Doctor Kelly Brown Douglas, the Canon Theologian at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, author of several books, and the president of Episcopal Divinity S...

In this season of Interactions, Terri Montague and Brandon Paradise, engage with contemporary leaders and social change agents regarding the influence and convergence of Christianity, the law, and racial justice. Today’s guest is Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, and the author of the 2014 memoir Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. This book was ad...

In this episode, we hear from Matthew P. Cavedon, the Robert Pool Fellow in Law and Religion at Emory’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion, and a Senior Lecturer at Emory Law School. His recent book, “From the Pope's Hands to Indigenous Lands: Alexander VI in Spanish Imperialism,” explores the historical impact of "inter caetera"– a papal bull issued in 1493 with wide-ranging influence on Sp...

Today’s guest is John Witte, Jr. — Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, McDonald Distinguished Professor of Religion, and Faculty Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. A specialist in Legal History, Human Rights, Religious Freedom, Marriage and Family Law, and Law and Religion, he has published more than 300 articles, 19 journal symposia, and 45 books. As th...

Today’s guest is Deepa Das Acevedo, Associate Professor of Law at Emory University. In this episode, we talk about her forthcoming book from Oxford University Press, “The Battle for Sabarimala: Religion, Law, and Gender in Contemporary India.” The book tells the complex and ongoing story of the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, India —–a site of heated dispute over gender equality, religious freedom, a...

In this episode, we hear from Michael Broyde, a law professor at Emory Law School,  and Berman Projects director at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion.  Recently, Professor Broyde has turned his scholarly attention to the potential impacts of artificial intelligence on law and religion.  He and the Center’s Executive Director Whittney Barth have convened a working group on...

In a special episode of the Interactions podcast, Whittney Barth and John Bernau sat down to discuss some of the report's main findings with three distinguished guests: Rev. Dr. Ted Smith, Rev. Caroline Magee, and Rev. Ingrid McIntyre. While our guests were not involved in the study, we brought them in to talk about three themes that emerged from the study, including the nature of theological educ...

There are few figures so engrained in pop culture and world history like Muhammad Ali. Along with being one of the best professional heavyweight boxers in history, Ali was a civil rights and anti-war activist, a follower of the Nation of Islam, later converting to Sunni Islam, an author, and an artist.  Beyond these titles though, Muhammad Ali stands as this almost mythological figure; a symb...

Imagine this scenario: There’s an American who’s part of a congregation of a Protestant church. While attending church, this American enters a discussion with a few leaders of that church about the meaning behind a certain scripture. This discussion develops into a disagreement and this disagreement results in the American being excommunicated from the church with little to no opportunity to defen...

In today’s episode, Matt and Ira speak with Greg Johnson, Professor in the department of religious studies at UC Santa Barbara and director of the Walter H. Capps Center for the study of Ethics, Religion and Public Life. His essay “Domestic Bones, Foreign Land, and the Kingdom Come: Jurisdictions of Religion in Contemporary Hawaii” explores the legal efforts of Native Hawaiians in repossessing lan...

Welcome back to Interactions, a podcast about law and religion, and how they interact in the world around us. On March 2nd, 2021, Columbia University Press released the book At Home and Abroad: The Politics of American Religion . Edited by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, this collection of fifteen essays explores the ways religion connects with law and politics on topics ran...

In today's episode of Interactions, we’re going to talk about the r-i-t-e rite to death—the religious rites and rituals that accompany death, made particularly salient in death row cases. For this, we’ll be looking at the case of Ramirez v. Collier.  In this case, John Ramirez, a Texas death row inmate, requested that he be permitted to have his pastor present at his execution, pray over him...

In today's episode of Interactions , we want to talk about prisoners on death row and the r-i-g-h-t right to death—the right, if there is one, for death row inmates to have a say in deciding the way in which they die. For this, we’re going to be looking at the case of Michael Nance, a death row inmate who requested death by firing squad in the state of Georgia. By current law, death row inmates ar...

In today’s episode, we hear from Daniel Teater and his article “Power Imbalances and Abuse Dynamics in Christian Conciliation," which was featured as part of the religious arbitration conference hosted by Canopy Forum in June of 2022. In his article, Teater argues that while Christian conciliation is “a valuable tool in everyday conflict situations,” it is not an appropriate method of conciliation...

In light of the recent Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA, we are releasing Henry Kuo's Canopy Forum article “Teaching the Virtues of Climate Responsibility.” In his article, Kuo weighs the effectiveness of climate pacts which are more generalized against the focused power of grassroots movements. “The various difficulties confronting institutional proposals to reverse climate change s...

In today’s episode of Interactions, we hear from Mark Satta and his Canopy Forum article “303 Creative v. Elenis: Masterpiece Cakeshop 2.0?”.  In his article, Satta considers an upcoming Supreme Court Case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, which concerns whether a Christian website designer has the right to refuse services to same-sex couples, in relation to a similar case: Masterpiece Cakeshop v....

In today’s episode of Interactions, we hear from George D. Chryssides of York St. John University and his Canopy Forum article “Jehovah’s Witnesses and Religious Persecution: Do Signed Declarations Help?” In his article, Chryssides explores the ways in which Jehovah’s Witnesses have been religiously persectued and questions the usefulness of documents meant to criticize this persecution after the...

In today’s episode, we hear from Elizabeth Reiner Platt and her Canopy Forum article “Religious Exemption Laws and the Conservative Legal Movement.” Adapted from “ Parading the Horribles: The Risks of Expanding Religious Exemptions ,” which was co-authored by Platt, the article explains how conservative Christians have disproportinately benefited from the right to free exercise of religion. “In re...