The COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated inequalities, financial devastation, and loneliness. How can families observe a mindset of sacramentality in this time of uncertainty and loss?

In this episode of Interactions, Marguerite Spencer explores how the pandemic can be a “marker of growth” that can be “reflected upon with reverence”: a sacrament to be pondered over as much as water, bread, and wine. 

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Appeals to natural law have been seen as oppressive--or even backwards--by social progressives. But does natural law have something to offer feminist, queer, and antiracist movements?

In his Canopy Forum article, “A Natural Law for Queer and Racial Justice,” Dr. Craig A. Ford, Jr. argues that the abandonment of the natural law by progressives is misguided. "The natural law tradition does not speak univocally," he writes, "but rather is as polysemous as any other intellectual tradition, featuring both socially progressive and socially conservative strands."

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What happens when a criminal court in Ghent, Belgium finds the Jehovah’s Witness community guilty of discrimination for "disfellowshipping" its former members?

In his article for Canopy Forum, “The Right to Shun: Ghent’s Misguided Jehovah's Witness Decision,” Matthew P. Cavedon explores the practice of shunning among Jehovah’s Witnesses: its impacts on believers, but also its impacts on the freedom of religion and association.

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While homeschooling is largely seen as a White, middle-class, and Christian fundamentalist phenomenon, more Black families are choosing to homeschool. However, their perspectives are too often left out of conversations about homeschooling.

“Homeschooling advances the best interests of Black children,” write authors Cheryl Fields-Smith and Andrea L. Dennis. “But Black parents face challenges due to the predominance of White Christian homeschoolers in the movement.”

In their newest Canopy Forum article, Fields-Smith and Dennis explore the potential benefits, meanings, and challenges of homeschool from an African-American perspective.

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The United States already had the biggest prison population in the world. Then the pandemic struck. Not only has the virus disproportionately affected Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), but the COVID-19 Policing Project found that BIPOC are “2.5 times more likely to be policed and punished for violations of COVID-19 orders than white people.”

In his newest essay for Canopy Forum, Darrin Sims outlines how families can use participatory defense, a community organizing tool, to navigate the criminal justice system during the pandemic.

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How has the Christian legal movement responded to coronavirus regulations on religious gatherings, and how will the politics of this response affect support for religious liberty in general?

Find out in this reading of Andrew Lewis and Daniel Bennett's essay, “Church Closures, Religious Freedom, and the Coronavirus Pandemic: Assessing the Christian Legal Movement’s Response.”

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Matthew P. Cavedon, a criminal defense attorney who holds graduate degrees in both law and theology, asks whether death row inmates have a right to have a clergyperson or spiritual advisor present at the time of their execution.

Do those who are convicted of the most heinous crimes deserve spiritual consolation at the moment they are put to death?

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Today’s episode features Dr. Audra Savage, an expert in law, religion, and human rights, talking about what she sees as America's first religion - the religion of racism.

Though this talk was given by Professor Savage a little over a year ago at Emory University, her insights are relevant today amidst ongoing movements for racial justice.

For more, visit Canopy Forum.

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What does Jewish law and tradition teach about protecting individuals and communities during a pandemic? Rabbi Michael Broyde explains why religious communities should be treated fairly under quarantine restrictions, why religious practitioners shouldn’t disobey public health orders – even for pious reasons – and what role medical and public health experts should play in regulating religious observances. For similar topics visit our Covid series at https://canopyforum.org/covid-19/. And see more from Rabbi Michael Broyde's at www.broydeblog.net.

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