Director's Reflections

These pages contain reflections by Paul Rasor, the Joan P. and Macon F. Brock Jr. Director of the Center, on current issues touching religious freedom and the work of the Center.

• The State of Religious Liberty
  (from the Center’s Spring 2012 newsletter)
• The Supreme Court's Erosion of Religious Freedom
  (from the Center's Fall 2011 newsletter)
• Religious Illiteracy and Religious Freedom
  (from the Center's Spring 2011 newsletter)
• Supreme Court Decides Two Church-State Cases
  (from the Center's Fall 2010 newsletter)
• New Report Details Global Restrictions on Religious Freedom
  (from the Center's Spring 2010 newsletter)
• Marriage and Religious Freedom
  (by guest columnist K. Hollyn Hollman, from the Center's Fall 2009 newsletter)
• Immigration and Religious Freedom
  (the text of the Director's talk at the Jewish Museum and Cultural Center, Portsmouth, VA, March 29, 2009)
• Religious Monument Raises First Amendment Dilemma
  (from the Center's spring 2009 newsletter)
• The Shifting American Religious Landscape
  (from the Center's fall 2008 newsletter)
• Misunderstanding and Confusion about Religious Freedom
  (from the Center's spring 2008 newsletter)
• Virginia Enacts Religious Freedom Law
  (from the Center's fall 2007 newsletter)
• Intelligent Design: Religion or Science?
  (a feature column in Religious Studies News, published by the American Academy of Religion, May 2007; a shorter version of this piece appeared in the Center's spring 2007 newsletter)
• The Earliest Religious Freedom Law
  (from the Center's fall 2006 newsletter)
• Faith, Freedom, and the First Amendment: A Liberal Perspective

  (the text of the Director's talk at the ODU Friends of the Library Annual Author Dinner, March 29, 2006)

• Conflict and Confusion Around Church-State Separation

  (from the Center's spring 2006 newsletter)

• "What Now for the Center for the Study of Religious Freedom?"

  (the text of the Director's inaugural address, October 6, 2005)

• Public Displays of the Ten Commandments

  (from the Center's fall 2005 newsletter)

• Pledging "Under God"

  (from a column in The Virginian-Pilot, August 14, 2005)

Principles such as religious freedom are not self-defining. They carry only the meaning we give them. - Paul Rasor, Center Director