Informing faith communities about legal issues
ELCA Legal staff to host free webinar: “Legal Checklist for Congregations.” Tom Cunniff, General Counsel to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Aja M. Favors, ELCA Associate General Counsel will host a free webinar on February 21, 2019, at 1:00 p.m. E.S.T. Register here. The presentation is geared for ELCA leaders and volunteers. Download the checklist here. Here’s the description:
Continue reading “ELCA Legal staff to host free webinar: “Legal Checklist for Congregations””
“Pastor Sues to Access Homeless Encampment” Religion Clause covers the story here.
“Budget Calendar: Traditional or Fiscal?” Church Finance Today has an infographic showing that most churches end their budget year on December 31 here.
In an decision by Chief Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana dismissed a lawsuit challenging Indiana’s Charter School Act as an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The court determined that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit. The decision is here.
“U.S. Supreme Court wedding cake case could affect St. Cloud couple’s suit against Minnesota: Both sides in Minnesota will be watching Tuesday when the justices in Washington hear arguments in a parallel case from Colorado.” The (Minneapolis) StarTribune reports here.
“Lexington church members take pastor, wife to court over spending, salaries,” The Lexington Herald-Leader reports here.
“DC Archdiocese Sues Over Rejection of Christmas Season Bus Ads” Religion Clause reports here on Archdiocese of Washington v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, (D. D.C., filed Nov. 28, 2017).
“The Christian Legal Army Behind ‘Masterpiece Cakeshop’ A special investigation into the rise of Alliance Defending Freedom.” Sarah Posner has this report in The Nation.
[podcast src=”https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/5989964/height/90/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/c30000/” height=”90″ width=”100%” placement=”top” theme=”custom”]Before Martin Luther became a monk, he was a rather successful student whose father encouraged his path into the study of law. Informed in part by his brief stint in law school and other encounters with lawyers in his day, he developed a distaste and distrust for the profession as a whole. Derek Nelson, coauthor of Resilient Reformer: The Life and Thought of Martin Luther, helps explain what a lawyer did in sixteenth-century Germany, what studying the law would have been like, and what Luther thought about the law. Continue reading “1747 Law in Luther’s Day”
“Sacristan’s Suit Dismissed On Ministerial Exception Grounds” Religion Clause reports here on Vosney v. Archdiocese of Hartford, (Conn. Super., Oct. 13, 2017).