Center for the Study of Law and Religion |

On August 1st, the Center for the Study of Law and Religion welcomed our new executive director, Whittney Barth, to Emory's campus. In her new role, Barth will manage CSLR daily operations; recruit and lead staff, post-doctoral fellows, visiting scholars, and student fellows; create and support research projects; build new alliances across campus; and organize events, including celebration of the Center’s fortieth anniversary in the 2022-23 academic year.

We sat down with Whittney to learn more about her path to Emory and plans for the future.

On August 15th, the Center for the Study of Law and Religion welcomed Matthew P. Cavedon to Emory's campus as he began a three-year Robert Pool Fellowship. As CSLR Faculty Director John Witte, Jr. describes: "Matthew Cavedon came to Emory from Harvard as a strong JD/MTS candidate and quickly demonstrated his scholarly excellence, rhetorical and analytical skills, and deep commitment to building an excellent academic community within the Center and the Law School. We admire his meteoric professional rise after law school, commitment to providing high quality criminal defense, recent clerkship, and efforts to retain and build strong new ties to church, family, and academy. We are grateful for his service as an ambassador in the broader world of law and religion. And delighted that CSLR can now help him pivot and integrate his work as he prepares for a distinguished academic career."

Whittney Barth as New CSLR Executive Director

The Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University is delighted to announce the appointment of Whittney Barth as Executive Director, effective August 1, 2022. In her new role, Barth will manage CSLR daily operations; recruit and lead staff, post-doctoral fellows, visiting scholars, and student fellows; create and support CSLR-sponsored research projects and programs; build new alliances with other interdisciplinary units on campus; and organize events consistent with the Center’s mission, including celebration of the Center’s fortieth anniversary in the 2022-23 academic year.

CSLR Director and Woodruff Professor, John Witte, Jr. calls Whittney’s appointment “transformational.” “Whittney brings to the job a brilliant mind, rich academic experience, a learned pen, a generous heart, superb organizational strengths, and the refined legal skills needed to navigate bureaucratic complexities.” Barth will work with Witte and a small governing board to strategize for the Center’s future and then play a leading role in implementing that vision.

The Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University is proud to announce the publication of Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment (5th edition) by John Witte, Jr., Joel A. Nichols, and Richard W. Garnett from Oxford University Press.

This accessible and authoritative introduction tells the American story of religious liberty from its colonial beginnings to the latest Supreme Court cases. The authors analyze closely the formation of the First Amendment religion clauses and describe the unique and enduring principles of the American experiment in religious freedom - liberty of conscience, free exercise of religion, religious equality, religious pluralism, separation of church and state, and no establishment of religion. Successive chapters map all of the 240+ Supreme Court cases on religious freedom - covering the free exercise of religion; the roles of government and religion in education; the place of religion in public life; and the interaction of religious organizations and the state. The concluding reflections argue that protecting religious freedom is critical for democratic order and constitutional rule of law, even if it needs judicious balancing with other fundamental rights and state interests.

The Center for the Study of Law and Religion (CSLR) is pleased to announce the appointment of Terri Montague as McDonald Distinguished Senior Fellow at CSLR, and Senior Lecturer at Emory Law School.

Terri Montague is a multi-disciplinary scholar, attorney, and leader who joins Emory following a seven-year tenure in the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), where she served as program counsel for federal housing and community development grant programs and closed on $1.14 billion in federally-assisted and FHA-insured residential, mixed-use, and healthcare transactions. Most recently, Montague helped HUD develop guidance and tools to systematically embed an equity framework and redress inequities in HUD policies and programs, pursuant to the President’s Executive Order 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”

Online course dates:  January 18 — February 22, 2022.

Description: Loyalty is at the center of human life – and often death. It defines families and friendships, philosophies and faiths. It also creates enemies, divides nations, and inspires people to kill and die for their country or creed. The nature and force of our loyalties to different people, ideas, and things shapes virtually every aspect of our lives. In this course, Professor Mona Siddiqui explores the polyvalent meanings of ‘loyalty’ in Christian and Islamic thought. You will learn about: religious believers who resisted repressive governmental authorities and paid with their lives; the challenges facing countries where new forms of diversity conflict with dominant cultures; pursuing the ideals of beauty, joy, and truth in unjust societies; living out ancient religious traditions in modern situations; and more!

In the Fall of 2021, Dr. Philip L. Reynolds – a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Medieval Christianity, and Aquinas Professor of Historical Theology at Candler School of Theology – retired. For almost four decades, Reynolds has taught and published extensively in the field of historical theology. CSLR recently asked Dr. Reynolds to reflect on his career and life as a scholar. What led him to the field of historical theology? What did he learn along the way? What advice does he have for scholars who are at the early stages of their careers? Reynolds – who plans to devote his retirement to writing, gardening, and exploring rural landscapes in his native England – responded with characteristic insight, erudition, and wit.

We sat down with Jeffrey B. Hammond to learn more about his time at CSLR and his advice for current students. This interview is part of a new series of discussions with distinguished CSLR alumni working at the intersections of law and religion in academic, legal, and religious professions. Professor Hammond is an Associate Professor of Law at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law at Faulkner University. His research interests include law and religion, especially Christian theological intersections with Anglo-American law and Free Exercise and Establishment Clause theory, health law, and law and bioethics, especially end-of-life issues.

CSLR sat down with Dr. Allen Calhoun to talk about his newest book: "Tax Law, Religion, and Justice: An Exploration of Theological Reflections on Taxation."