Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Faith
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Inazu: Kicking Off The Legal Vocation Fellowship For Early-Career Christian Attorneys
Following up on my previous post, Pepperdine Caruso Law Partners With Legal Vocation Fellowship For Early-Career Attorneys: John Inazu (Washington University; Google Scholar), Kicking off the Legal Vocation Fellowship: This past Thursday, we launched the Legal Vocation Fellowship (LVF). I mentioned LVF in an earlier post discussing the challenges of burnout and mental health in contemporary legal practice. ……
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WSJ Op-Ed: The Gospel Of St. George (Costanza)
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: George Costanza’s Guide to Better Living, by Mike Kerrigan (Hunton Andrews Kurth, Charlotte, NC): In the classic “Seinfeld” episode, “The Opposite,” George Costanza laments during lunch his terrible instincts and their resulting life choices. Hearing this, Jerry Seinfeld observes, “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” Inspired,…
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NY Times: ‘Woodstock’ for Christians — Revival Draws Thousands To Asbury University In Kentucky
New York Times: ‘Woodstock’ for Christians: Revival Draws Thousands to Kentucky Town, by Ruth Graham: For two weeks, tens of thousands of people have made a pilgrimage to a tiny Christian college, about 30 minutes south of Lexington, for what some scholars and worshipers describe as the nation’s first major spiritual revival of the 21st…
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Inazu: What The Left And The Right Get Wrong About The ‘He Gets Us’ Super Bowl Jesus Ads
John Inazu (Washington University; Google Scholar), Misplaced Outrage Over a Super Bowl Ad: [O]ne of the most commented parts of this past Sunday’s Super Bowl was a series of ads called “He Gets Us.” As CNN reports, the Super Bowl ads are part of a larger media campaign that launched last year on television, billboards, and social media. CNN describes…
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WSJ Op-Ed: Character Counts In The Super Bowl (And In Life)
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: Character Counts at the Super Bowl, by Mike Kerrigan (Hunton Andrews Kurth, Charlotte, NC): Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts and Chiefs running back Jerick McKinnon gave examples of selfless and sportsmanlike conduct. … With less than two minutes to go in the game and the score tied, Jerick McKinnon of the Kansas City Chiefs faced every…
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A Glimpse Into Faith At Pepperdine Caruso Law: Dean’s Bible Study
The Graphic, A Glimpse Into Faith at Caruso Law: Dean’s Bible Study: The Dean’s Bible Study offers Caruso School of Law students a time to worship and opens a space to share faith with one another. Attendees of the the two-hour Dean’s Bible Study service gather in community, listen to sermons and pray. The Dean’s Bible Study offers Caruso School…
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NY Times Op-Ed: The Astonishing Moral Beauty Of The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth And The Black Church
New York Times Op-Ed: The Astonishing Moral Beauty of the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and the Black Church, 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)): The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, a pastor in Birmingham, Ala., in the 1950s, was called by the…
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NY Times Op-Ed: There Is Glory And God In Our Struggles
New York Times O-Ed: There Is Glory and God in Our Struggles, by Esau McCaulley (Wheaton; author, Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope (2020)): Every February, Black History Month, Americans engage in a futile attempt to squeeze into 28 days the history of a people whose tribulations, contributions and successes are on…
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David Brooks And Michael Gerson On Depression And Faith
In a moving New York Times op-ed, David Brooks reflects on a dear friend's suicide after battling depression for three years. Brooks had struggled with how to best serve his friend during this period and said the most useful thing he did was sharing the video of Michael Gerson's beautiful 13-minute sermon at the Washington…
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NY Times Op-Ed: The Rationality And Danger Of Spiritual Experimentation
New York Times Op-Ed: Be Open to Spiritual Experience. Also, Be Really Careful., by Ross Douthat: [T]he dissolution of the old order of American religion — the decline of churches and denominations and the rise of deinstitutionalized spirituality — means that more and more religious lives are lived in between worldviews, in experimental territory where…
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Aprill & Mayer: 21st Century Churches And Federal Tax Law
Ellen P. Aprill (Loyola-L.A.; Google Scholar) & Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer (Notre Dame; Google Scholar), 21st Century Churches and Federal Tax Law: Federal tax treatment matters to churches, the term the IRS uses for all types of religious congregations, including synagogues, mosques, and temples. The federal tax provisions most significant for churches and certain entities closely…
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Two Perspectives On How Far Employers Must Go In Providing Religious Accommodations To Employees
New York Times Op-Ed: The Latest Crusade to Place Religion Over the Rest of Civil Society, by Linda Greenhouse: Federal civil rights law requires employers to accommodate their employees’ religious needs unless the request would impose “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.” Congress didn’t bother to define “undue hardship,” so 46 years…
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David French: Faith, Not Politics, Can Heal Lonely Hearts And A Nation
David French, Can More Church Heal What Ails the Lonely Heart?: [I want to talk about] the decline in church attendance, deaths of despair, and the necessity of community for hope and purpose. Last week, my little corner of the online world lit up with people sharing a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper…
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NY Times Op-Ed: The Americanization Of Religion
New York Times Op-Ed: The Americanization of Religion, by Ross Douthat: In September the Pew Research Center modeled four potential futures for American religion, depending on different rates of conversion to and disaffiliation from the nation’s faiths. In three of the four projections, the Christian percentage of the U.S. population, which hovered around 90 percent in the…
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WaPo Op-Ed: Think America Is A ‘Christian Nation’? George Washington Didn’t.
Washington Post Op-Ed: Think America Is a ‘Christian Nation’? George Washington Didn’t., by Jennifer Rubin: The Jewish community in the United States is as old as its democracy. In August 1790, George Washington sent a letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, R.I., thanking them for their well wishes. He wrote: “The Citizens of the…
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How A Person Of Faith Can Overcome Imposter Syndrome In Law School
David Grenardo (St. Thomas-Minnesota), How A Person of Faith Can Address Imposter Syndrome in Law School, 37 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol'y ___ (2023): Imposter syndrome makes people feel as if they are frauds and others will soon find out that they do not belong. Imposter syndrome typically affects high achievers, which includes…
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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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This Week’s Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
Legal Education: NY Times Op-Ed, What If Diversity Trainings Are Doing More Harm Than Good? Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Summary Of Changes To The Forthcoming U.S. News Law School Rankings Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), U.S. News Provides Additional Information On Forthcoming Law School Rankings Jerry Organ (St. Thomas), The Declining 2022 Law School Transfer Market Marcus…
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NY Times Op-Ed: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Last Sunday Sermon ‘Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution’
New York Times Op-Ed: The Kind of Revolution That Martin Luther King Jr. Envisioned, by Esau McCaulley (Wheaton): In 1968, four days before he was shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his last Sunday sermon at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. It was…
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David French: The Law Is Protecting Religious Liberty, But Christians Are Not Securing Integrity In Their Institutions
David French (The Dispatch), How A Progressive Judge Helped Preserve American Pluralism: The law is doing its part. Are Christians doing theirs? [P]reserving and rebuilding American civic associations is one of the most urgent tasks in American political and cultural life. As a matter of law, it is vital to respect the autonomy and independence…
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Christian Law School To Start Hiring Jewish Faculty
Inside Higher Education, Sea Change or Small Step Toward Interreligious Inclusion?: Belmont University, a private Christian institution in Nashville, Tenn., plans to break a long-standing tradition of only hiring Christian instructors by opening some faculty positions to Jewish candidates. University leaders recently announced they’re specifically recruiting Jewish faculty members to teach in three of its…
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Hofmann: The Politics Of Religion And Taxation: Keeping Church And State Separate
Mary Ann Hofmann (Appalachian; Google Scholar), The Politics of Religion and Taxation: Keeping Church and State Separate, 22 J. of Mgmt. Pol'y & Prac. 31 (2021): This paper discusses tax laws and federal court decisions relating to the taxation or exemption of religious non-profit organizations. In a democracy characterized by separation of church and state,…
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L.A. Times: Pastor|Professor Bridges Faith|Psychology
Los Angeles Times, Pastor Thema Bryant Bridges Faith and Psychology: The men’s choir had just brought down the house with the gospel classic “Miracle Worker” when Thema Bryant danced up to the lectern at First AME Church in South L.A. Rising to the full height of her slim, 5-foot-7 frame, the 49-year-old ordained minister and…
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WSJ Op-Ed: How Damar Hamlin Drove A Nation to Pray
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: How Damar Hamlin Drove a Nation to Pray: by Barton Swaim (Editorial Page Writer, Wall Street Journal): The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that a Bremerton, Wash., high-school football coach was improperly fired for praying with his players after games. That was only the most recent of high court cases…