Faith and Law

A body of moral principles derived from God’s natural creation, the “natural law” sheds light on right and wrong in human conduct. What does the natural law teach us about virtue? To what extent does virtue require, by its very nature, such supports as faith and community? Listen as natural law expert, Robert P. George, for an investigation into these timely questions.Dr. Robert P. George is McCormick Professorship of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.He has several times been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. He has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the President’s Council on Bioethics. He has also served as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. He was a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds the degrees of J.D. and M.T.S. from Harvard University and the degrees of D.Phil., B.C.L., D.C.L., and D.Litt. from Oxford University, in addition to twenty-one honorary doctorates. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Bradley Prize, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.His books include Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality and In Defense of Natural Law (both published by Oxford University Press).Dr. David Corey is the Director of Baylor in Washington and a professor of Political Science focusing on political philosophy in the Honors Program at Baylor University. He is also an affiliated member of the departments of Philosophy and Political Science. He was an undergraduate at Oberlin, where he earned a BA in Classics from the College and a BMus in music from the Conservatory. He studied law and jurisprudence at Old College, Edinburgh before taking up graduate work in political philosophy at Louisiana State University. He is the author of two books, The Just War Tradition (with J. Daryl Charles) (2012) and The Sophists in Plato’s Dialogues (2015). He has written more than two dozen articles and book chapters in such venues as the Review of Politics, History of Political Thought, Modern Age, Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, and the Cambridge Dictionary of Political Thought. His current projects, Rethinking American Politics, and Liberalism & The Modern Quest for Freedom, examine the loss of healthy political association in the United States and offer strategies for reform.Support the show

What are the most important lessons to learn from the pandemic? Listen as Chen Guangcheng and William Saunders discuss this question in light of the latest information from sources in China. Click here to view a transcript of Mr. Chen's talk.Chen Guangcheng is a Chinese civil rights lawyer and activist who has been a persistent voice for freedom, human dignity, and the rule of law in his native country. Working in rural communities in China, where he was known as the “barefoot lawyer,” Chen advocated for the rights of disabled people, and organized class-action litigation against the government’s violent enforcement of its one-child policy. Blind since his childhood, Chen is self-taught in the law. His human rights activism resulted in his imprisonment by the Chinese government for four years, beginning in 2006; after his release he remained under house arrest, until his escape from confinement in 2012, whereupon he came to the United States, where he was a scholar at New York University in 2012-13. Mr. Chen is a Distinguished Fellow at the Catholic University of America. William Saunders is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, who has been involved in issues of public policy, law and ethics for thirty years. A regular columnist for the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Mr. Saunders has written widely on these topics, as well as on Catholic social teaching. He has given lectures in law schools and colleges throughout the United States and the world. He is the Director of the Program in Human Rights for the Institute for Human Ecology.Support the show

On Friday, April 24th The Trinity Forum and Faith and Law hosted Senior Fellow and history professor Dr. Joseph Loconte to discuss the friendship and legacy of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Loconte highlights how their refusal to become disillusioned and disenchanted in the aftermath of World War I allowed for some of the greatest works of literature in modern history. Their example of resilience and imagination is especially inspiring for us in the midst of this pandemic. We were reminded of the surprising return of hope for those who look up—as Samwise Gamgee says “…in the end the shadow was only a small and passing thing. There was light and high beauty forever beyond it’s reach.”Support the show

During this talk, Ms. Anderson will examine how the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA)and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) specifically relate to paid family leave. She will discuss how this legislation is supporting families in the current COVID-19 crisis and building a foundation for a healthy post-pandemic society.Support the show

Dr. Os Guinness makes observations based on history and scriptures to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing Christians around the world in our current time of crisis.Support the show

During the presentation, the panelists will discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the Criminal Justice System.In preparation for Second Chance Month (April), Prison Fellowship’s Heather Rice-Minus will present 2019 Barna polling regarding Christian perceptions about crime, incarceration and second chances. A panel including will respond with theological and policy implications and action steps.Support the show

Listen as Dr. Catherine Ruth Pakaluk shares on the economic implications of the current crisis. Dr. Catherine Ruth Pakaluk is an assistant professor of economics at the Catholic University Busch School of Business and Economics. Her primary areas of research include economics of education and religion, family studies and demography, Catholic Social Thought and political economy. Dr. Pakaluk is the 2015 recipient of the Acton Institute’s Novak Award, a prize given for “ significant contributions to the study of the relationship between religion and economic liberty.”Support the show

What does Christian witness look like in an age of such stark division? How do we wield the influence of the Church in the political space without becoming captive to it? Dr Timothy Dalrymple is the President and CEO of Christianity Today, which recently published and responded to a provocative editorial regarding evangelicals and politics. He will offer lessons learned from the experience and thoughts on how Christians can help the country through a divisive election year.Dr. Timothy Dalrymple was raised in nondenominational evangelical churches in California. A national champion gymnast, he went to Stanford University where he suffered a broken neck his sophomore year. Then followed many years in academia, at Stanford, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where he made suffering a key theme of his research and teaching in modern western religious thought. Dalrymple helped to launch Patheos.com, an online marketplace of religious ideas, and pioneered many of the techniques that led Patheos to become the world’s largest platform for multi-religious conversation. In 2013, Dalrymple founded Polymath, a creative agency that serves businesses and nonprofits serving the world. In May 2019 he became President and CEO of Christianity Today, the flagship evangelical media ministry founded in 1956 by Billy Graham.Support the show

Many Americans feel like their religious freedoms are under attack and their beliefs will soon be punished as a form of bigotry. Others say these fears are overblown and Christians should stop complaining about imaginary persecution.In Free to Believe, leading religious freedom attorney Luke Goodrich challenges both sides of this debate, offering surprising insights on the most controversial religious freedom conflicts today—including gay rights, abortion rights, Islam, and the public square. Goodrich shows that threats to religious freedom are real—but they might not be what you think.As a lawyer at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Goodrich has won several historic Supreme Court victories for clients like the Little Sisters of the Poor and Hobby Lobby. Combining frontline experience with faithful attention to Scripture, Goodrich offers a groundbreaking book—full of clear insight, practical wisdom, and refreshing hope for all people of faith.Support the show

Many people say that America is as deeply divided as at any time since just before the civil war. But why? Is it the President? Is it is the social media? Is it the ‘coastals’ clashing with the ‘heartlanders’ or the ‘populists’ fighting the ‘globalists’? Guinness will argue that the real division is far deeper, and a crisis that goes to the heart of American freedom and to the heart of the relevance of the Jewish and Christian faiths.Os Guinness is an author and social critic. Great-great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer, he was born in China in World War Two where his parents were medical missionaries. A witness to the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949, he was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to Europe where he was educated in England. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford.Os has written or edited more than thirty books, including The Call, Time for Truth, Unspeakable, A Free People’s Suicide, The Global Public Square, and Last Call for Liberty: How America’s Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat. His latest book, Carpe Diem Redeemed: Seizing the Day, Discerning the Times, was published in September 2019.Support the show