Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Book Club
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WSJ: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord Of The Rings, And The Bible
Wall Street Journal, Tolkien’s Biblical Epic: If, in the 1930s, someone had sought to predict the bestselling English author of the 20th century, they probably would not have selected the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, who died 50 years ago on Sept. 2, 1973, spent his entire professional…
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NY Times Op-Ed: America Is Losing Religious Faith
New York Times Op-Ed: America Is Losing Religious Faith, by Nicholas Kristof: While much of the rest of the industrialized world has become more secular over the last half-century, the United States has appeared to be an exception. Politicians still end their speeches with “God bless America.” At least until recently, more Americans believed in…
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Buchanan Reviews Stewart’s Tax & Government In The 21st Century
Neil Buchanan (Florida; Google Scholar), Gender Issues in the Modern Tax State (JOTWELL) (reviewing Miranda Stewart (Melbourne), Tax & Government in the 21st Century (Cambridge University Press 2022)): Why are gender and unpaid work issues continually marginalized in tax policy analysis? After all, feminist legal theorists have spent at least two generations trying to address…
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Berg: Religious Liberty Doesn’t Have To Make Polarization Worse
Christianity Today Op-Ed: Religious Liberty Doesn’t Have to Make Polarization Worse, by Thomas C. Berg (St. Thomas-MN; Author, Religious Liberty in a Polarized Age (Emory University Studies in Law and Religion July 2023)): Americans support religious liberty—in general. But they are deeply polarized about how far the natural and constitutional right of individuals to respond…
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The Legal Singularity: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Law Radically Better
Abdi Aidid (Assistant Professor, University of Toronto Faculty of Law; Specialist, Legal Innovation, Blue J Legal) & Benjamin Alarie (Osler Chair in Business Law, University of Toronto Faculty of Law; CEO, Blue J Legal), The Legal Singularity: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Law Radically Better (University of Toronto Press 2023): Law today is incomplete, inaccessible,…
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The Awakened Brain: Faith Makes You Happier And Healthier
NPR, This Ivy League Researcher Says Spirituality Is Good For Our Mental Health: [A]ccording to Lisa Miller, a professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University, having a spiritual life is good for your mental health. Miller is a psychologist and has dedicated most of her career to the study of neuroscience…
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NY Times Op-Ed: Losing Our Religion — An Altar Call For Evangelical America
New York Times Op-Ed: The State of Evangelical America, by Tish Harrison Warren (Priest, Anglican Church; Author, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep (2021) (Christianity Today's 2022 Book of the Year)): There are few evangelical Christians who have gotten as much media coverage or criticism in the last decade as Russell Moore. He…
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The Bible Does Everything Critical Theory Does, But Better
Christianity Today, The Bible Does Everything Critical Theory Does, but Better: Many people become suspicious at the mention of critical theory, especially as it applies to controversial matters of race, gender, law, and public policy. Some see the ideologies traveling under that banner as abstruse frameworks only minimally related to real-world affairs. Others see critical…
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NY Times Op-Ed: My Church Was Part Of The Slave Trade. This Has Not Shaken My Faith.
New York Times Op-Ed: My Church Was Part of the Slave Trade. This Has Not Shaken My Faith., by Rachel L. Swarns (Author, The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church (2023)): For more than a century, Catholic priests in Maryland held Black people in bondage. They were…
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Brooks Reviews Cui’s Administrative Foundations Of The Chinese Fiscal State
Kim Brooks (Dalhousie University, Schulich School of Law; Google Scholar), Where Tax Law Canno Be Found, You Will Find a Robustly-Tasked Tax Administrator (JOTWELL) (reviewing Wei Cui (British Columbia; Google Scholar), The Administrative Foundations of the Chinese Fiscal State (Cambridge University Press (2022) (reviewed by David Elkins (Netanya; Google Scholar) here)): The hard work that went into…
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More On The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller
Following up on last Sunday's post, The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller: New York Times Op-Ed: Tim Keller Taught Me About Joy, by David Brooks: American evangelicalism suffers from an intellectual inferiority complex that sometimes turns into straight anti-intellectualism. But Tim could draw on a vast array of intellectual sources to argue for the…
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WSJ Book Review: Martin Luther King, Christian Radical
Wall Street Journal, Martin Luther King, Christian Radical, by Jonathan Eig (Author, King: A Life (2023)): Today, almost 1,000 cities and towns in the U.S. have streets named in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., and more than 100 public schools bear his name. In Washington, D.C., a 30-foot-tall MLK memorial stands within sight of the Lincoln…
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Bernie Sanders Calls For 100% Billionaire Tax Rate: ’People Can Make It On $999 Million’
Politico, Bernie Sanders Calls For Income Over $1 Billion to be Taxed at 100%: ’People Can Make it on $999 Million: Longtime wealth tax advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders has argued that all earnings above $1 billion in the U.S. should be confiscated by the government. In an interview with HBO Max’s Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, the Vermont senator…
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The Entangled Histories Of Science And Religion
Christianity Today Book Review: Conflict Between Science and Religion Is Always Possible but Never Inevitable, by Edward J. Larson (Pepperdine; Pulitizer-Prize Winning Author, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion (Basic Books 2006)) (reviewing Nicholas Spencer, Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion (Oneworld Publications 2023)):…
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Lent: The Season Of Repentance And Renewal
Christianity Today Op-Ed: I Met God on the Mountaintop of Ritual, by Esau McCaulley (Wheaton; Author, Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal (2022)): AAs someone who came from outside the liturgical expressions of Christianity, I had a certain suspicion of the whole enterprise. I thought the liturgical tradition, with its vestments, rituals, rules, and…
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Teo Presents The United Nations In Global Tax Coordination Today At British Columbia
Nikki J. Teo (University of Sydney) presents A False Start in International Tax Coordination: The Ghost of the UN’s Past today at Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia hosted by Wei Cui (email here to attend virtually over Zoom at 6:30 PM ET): This talk unveils the missing history of the UN’s first…
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Brooklyn Hosts A Book Talk And Discussion Today On For-Profit Philanthropy
Brooklyn hosts a hybrid Book Talk and Discussion with Dana Brakman Reiser (Brooklyn; Google Scholar) and Steven A. Dean (Brooklyn), featuring Anne-Marie Slaughter (CEO, New America; Professor Emerita, Princeton University) on For-Profit Philanthropy: Elite Power & the Threat of Limited Liability Companies, Donor-Advised Funds, & Strategic Corporate Giving (Oxford University Press 2023) today at 6:00…
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David French: How A Great American Victory Altered American Faith
David French (The Dispatch), How a Great American Victory Altered American Faith: Last week I read a tweet that led me to a book I’m now devouring at record speed. The tweet was from my friend Skye Jethani, and it referred to a potential link between the end of the Cold War and the rise…
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Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain Of Loss And The Comfort Of God
Tim Challies, Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God (2022): On November 3, 2020, Tim and Aileen Challies received the shocking news that their son Nick had died. A twenty-year-old student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, he had been participating in a school activity with his…
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American Inheritance: Liberty And Slavery In The Birth Of A Nation
New York Times Book Review: Can the Country Come to Terms With Its Original Sin?, by Jon Meacham (Vanderbilt) (reviewing Edward J. Larson (Pepperdine)), American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795 (2023): In Edward J. Larson’s “American Inheritance,” the Pulitzer-winning historian attempts to insert reason into a passionate public conversation.…
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Invitation: ABA Virtual Tax Book Club On Tax Law And The Environment
The next virtual meeting ABA Tax Policy and Simplification Committee Book Club will have its next meeting on Thursday, January 26, 2023 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. ET (registration). The book to be discussed is Tax Law and the Environment: A Multidisciplinary and Worldwide Perspective (Roberta F. Mann (Oregon) & Tracey M. Roberts (Samford) eds.…
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In The New Year, We Must View Time Through A Divine Lens: To Dust We Will Return
Christianity Today: To Dust We Will Return, by Jen Pollock Michel (Author, In Good Time: 8 Habits for Reimagining Productivity, Resisting Hurry, and Practicing Peace (2023)): In the New Year, we must view our time through a divine lens. Just as there once was sacred space (in the medieval cathedrals, for example), there was also…
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The Myth Of American Income Inequality
Wall Street Journal Book Review: Believe Your Eyes, Not the Statistics, by Charles W. Calomiris (Columbia; Google Scholar) (reviewing Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund & John Early, The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate (2022)): According to Mark Twain, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know…
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Extreme Punishment: The Chilling True Story Of Dan Markel’s Murder
In October, I blogged the release of the fascinating book Extreme Punishment: The Chilling True Story of Acclaimed Law Professor Dan Markel’s Murder (Oct. 9, 2022). The author, Steve Epstein, a litigation partner at Poyner Spruill (Raleigh, North Carolina), has published excerpts of the book on The Faculty Lounge: Friday, July 18, 2014, 10:50 a.m.…
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Inazu: How Can Christian Faculty Be Interfaith Leaders?
John Inazu (Washington University; Google Scholar), How Can Christian Faculty Be Interfaith Leaders?: In an earlier post, I discussed the importance of pursuing interfaith engagement without compromising core religious values. In contrast to some interfaith efforts that ignore or downplay differences, I suggested that meaningful interfaith relationships acknowledge and work across deep differences. This commitment…