When Law & Religion Meet - Audio

Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, of Emory Law, addresses the responsibility of church and community in protecting vulnerable children.

Rather than examine the topic of law in the Gospel of Matthew in order to locate the legal perspectives of the historical Jesus, or to put Matthew in contention with a supposedly "lawless" Paul, Senior Fellow Dr. Luke Timothy Johnson, shows how a patient examination of Matthew on its own terms reveals a rich and complex understanding of the ways Torah and the figure of Jesus intersect.

Professor John Witte Jr. Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, outlines to what extent Islamic and other religious communities have the freedom to develop their own internal religious laws governing sex, marriage, and family.

Michael Perry, Senior Fellow and Robert W. Woodfruff Professor of Law at Emory University, analyzes the modern controversies surrounding same-sex marriage and the Catholic Church’s stance from the perspective of the constitutional right to religious freedom.

Michael J. Broyde, professor of law and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, highlights several morally difficult questions created by advances in modern science, including genetic cloning in humans and plants, and offers a Jewish law response as well as religiously informed public policy recommendations.

Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, tackles bringing to life the universal right to religious freedom in a world of diversity.

As the first openly gay bishop in a mainline Christian denomination, the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson assured other gays and lesbians that they are not “abominations,” despite the persecution they may have experienced.

The Most Rev. Wilton Gregory, the Archbishop of Atlanta, spoke about the Catholic Church's revised statement about the death penalty, especially regarding the case of Troy Davis, a death-row inmate in Georgia who appealed to Pope Benedict XVI for clemency and has attracted international attention.

Mona Siddiqu,professor of Islamic studies and public understanding at the University of Glasgow and a scholar of classical Islamic law argues that Great Britain has given little thought on how to deal with the religious beliefs of the Muslim minority within the country’s larger civic and legal systems despite an increasing suspicion of Islamic law and culture.

Irwin Cotter, Canadian Parliamentarian and former Canadian Minister of Justice warns against the increasing threats of a nuclear Iran.