An unusually disappointing religious freedom ruling from SCOTUS
Plus, some recommending reading
If you’ve been following my writing for a while, you know that I tend to be bullish about the United States Supreme Court’s approach to religious freedom issues in the 21st century. The Court’s conservative majority, buoyed by an aggressive strategy from legal advocacy groups, has yielded decision after decision1 in favor of expanding protections for religious exercise.
This week, though, the Court issued a (relatively) disappointing decision on this front. Specifically, it held that an inmate could not sue prison officials in their personal capacity for violating his rights under the Free Exercise Clause.
The case, Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, involved a Rastafarian inmate who had maintained a head of long, braided hair during his incarceration. Following a transfer to a different prison he presented officials with documentation supporting an exemption from the prison’s typical hair policy. Nevertheless, the prison’s warden ordered Landor’s head shaved.
Landor sued the prison officials under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA),2 a 2000 federal law that expanded protections for religious groups and incarcerated people. However, in a decision on Tuesday, a 6-3 Court held that while the law does allow inmates to sue state prison systems, they cannot sue the officials themselves.
To be clear, this is a narrow decision. It deals with a very specific question and does not seem to move the needle one way or another on substance. However, given the Court’s recent RLUIPA decisions (especially Holt v. Hobbes and Ramirez v. Collier, both of which yielded favorable outcomes for religious freedom), the decision was nevertheless disappointing.
I wrote about the Landor ruling and its implications for Christians in Christianity Today, which you can find here.
Recommended Reading
What Does ‘Rural’ Even Mean? (The Dispatch)
However much we collect and analyze demographic and geographic data, condensing “rurality” into a neat sentence or even paragraph will always flatten the particular texture of places. Definitions are good because they provide a meaningful baseline one can use to assess similarities and differences. For your own understanding, though, nothing beats approaching places and people on their own terms—in all 50 states.
Millennials Tried Being Angry. It Didn’t Work (Digital Liturgies)
Project Hail Mary is an insightful meta text on the cultural mood. Ryland Grace feels like a failure, insufficient for the work of saving the world (he seems like the kind of Gen-Zer who probably doesn’t even want to drive). Grace does not exemplify confidence or even determination. He goes methodically from one task to the next, often hitting the wrong button or making the wrong move. His chief virtue is that he has no choice but to keep moving forward. What pushes him hardest toward sacrificing everything is his friendship with the alien “Rocky.” Rocky sparks in Grace what scientism, guilt trips, and altruism could not. The point is made clear by another character: “You just have to find someone to be brave for.”
Ben Sasse Is Teaching Us How to Die—And Live—Well (The Dispatch)
For Sasse, politics is just one way of many to serve your neighbor and one more way to redeem the time. For now, it’s something we have to care about because we are residents of both the City of Man and the City of God.
“In Augustinian theology, there’s the phrase about ‘the already and the not yet.’ We’re already in the kingdom, and yet the kingdom is not yet,” Sasse says, referring to ideas in Augustine’s City of God, which expounds on how Christians are residents of both an earthly city and a heavenly city. “And so redeeming the time seems to me to be a prudent way to acknowledge our finitude and our humility—when I’m mostly not accomplishing anything, I’m just being saved, and then once you’re saved, you get a chance to work it out by loving your neighbor. But don’t ever become hubristic to think that that’s an enduring project.”
Consider Hosanna-Tabor, Trinity Lutheran, Hobby Lobby, Fulton, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Our Lady of Guadalupe School, Kennedy, and Mahmoud, to name just a few — all decided within the last 15 years.
The acronym is pronounced “R-Loop-Uh”