Brett G. Scharffs is Director, International Center for Law and Religion Studies and Rex E. Lee Chair and Professor of Law, BYU Law School[1]

As the global pandemic has raged on — shutting down businesses, cancelling events, and isolating loved ones—we’ve sadly realized that so much of the good in life happens when we are closer than six feet apart. And yet, times of crisis also provide an opportunity for innovation, adaptation, and reflection.

The Coronavirus Stress Test

As I noted at the beginning of this webinar series, Covid-19 is a kind of stress test — and it’s a test that many of our U.S. institutions have been failing.

As for Congress and the President, I have to give them very low marks. Congress has managed to pass several sizeable appropriations, but otherwise seem missing in action. The President has mostly wanted to move beyond the crisis.

The media has also performed poorly, bifurcating into the predictable anti- and pro-Trump camps that distorts everything. I doubt there is any American institution that will have more difficulty regaining trust and credibility than the media. Even legacy providers such as The New York Times and CNN have been deeply tarnished. (more…)

Pasquale Annicchino is Senior Research Associate Cambridge Institute on Religion & International Studies and Visiting Researcher Institute Religious Studies-Fondazione Bruno Kessler

COVID-19 has been a massive socially disruptive fact that has forced all of us to confront unforeseen challenges in our personal and professional lives. During this webinar series we have discussed many of these challenges through the interactions we have fostered with our speakers and participants. Here I will focus on the legal, technological, and epistemic dimensions of the relationship between the pandemic and religious freedom.

Global Human Dignity

Only a few days after the skyrocketing increase of the contagion, Yuval Noah Harari published an article in the Financial Times highlighting the challenge that the diffusion of the pandemic was bringing to the world. I think that the two main challenges to which Hariri pointed remain valid now, a few months after the beginning of this terrible journey. (more…)