Global Church and Home Church in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints


Jennifer C. Lane is Dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University–Hawaii.

As a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had attended three-hour Sunday Church meetings for most of my life (a year ago these became two-hour meetings). As an adult, I had worshiped in and officiated in nearby temples almost weekly. Then the prophet asked me to stop.

In March 2020 around the world, our centralized Church, headquartered in Salt Lake City sent out the word that no one was to attend Sunday meetings, temple service, or any in-person Church activities. And we all stopped. Many are commenting on the degree of centralization that characterizes our faith. We meet together in geographically organized “wards” and those who have attended our Sunday meetings in different countries are struck by the shared structure and curriculum of the meetings.

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Russian Orthodox Symphonia in the Time of Coronavirus

Mikhail Antonov is a Professor of Law associated with the Law Faculty at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (Saint Petersburg)

 

In “The Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,” adopted at the Sacred Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church (the ROC) on August 14, 2000, the Church referenced the medieval conception of Symphonia to describe the church’s ideal relationship with the Russian state in terms of “body” (state) and “soul” (church): “it is in their linkage and harmony that the well-being of a state lies.” According to the Social Concept, the ROC affirms the general principle of separation of church and state, which is that they shall be distinguished by their competences or spheres of authority, and that cooperation must be based on “mutual support and mutual responsibility without one side intruding into the exclusive domain of the other” (section III.4).

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Freedom of Religion or Belief—Creating the Constitutional Space for Fundamental Freedoms: A New Book on Religious Freedom and its Protection from the Perspective of Several Jurisdictions

Neville Rochow QC is an Austrialian Barrister,  Associate Professor (Adjunct) at the University of Adelaide Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the International Center for Law and Religion Studies.

It is a genuine pleasure to accept the invitation to contribute this introductory essay to the blog series on the constitutional space for freedom of religion. “Constitutional Space for Freedom of Religion” has been a project that culminated in the book of essays which Paul Babie, Brett Scharffs, and I edited: Freedom of Religion or Belief—Creating the Constitutional Space for Fundamental Freedoms (Edward Elgar 2020).  (more…)

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