Litigation Update: Legal Developments Surrounding Tithing and Religious Donations

The 2025 Wheatley Institute Seminar on Religion and Politics provided an excellent opportunity for political science and sociology graduate students from around the country to explore the role of religion in society. The seminar explored the history and current landscape of religious identity, influence, pluralism, and its impact on American politics and culture. Students also explored quantitative and qualitative methods and experiential wisdom in studying religion and politics from leading faculty in the field. Learning areas included how to explore data sources for research on religion, how to classify religious groups for more accurate measurements in surveys, how to measure religious behavior and belief, and how to study specific religious traditions.

Wheatley Institute partnered with the BYU International Center for Law and Religion Studies to host the 2025 Religious Freedom Annual Review. This year's theme was Religion, Peace, and Human Flourishing: Understanding the Whys of Religious Freedom. The Annual Review brought a broad array of perspectives to this issue, with religious, media, academic, legal, and thought leaders. These exerts addressed several questions. What role does religion play in building peace and fostering human flourishing? How does religious freedom’s respect for both individual choice as well as the human dignity of all increasingly matter in a fractious world? Experts on religious freedom and peacemaking explored the interconnections.

Wheatley Religion Fellow Samuel Wilkinson co-authored an article for the Deseret News on the history of the relationship between psychiatry and religion. Despite longstanding negative assumptions from early psychiatry, many modern studies have found strong links between religious attendance and lowered risks of depression and anxiety.

Wheatley Family Fellow Jenet Erickson was quoted in a New York Times article covering recent discussion on federal family legislation. Erickson, who previously co-authored an essay in 2021 with Vice President JD Vance emphasizing the importance of stay-at-home parents, reiterated the natural capacities of mothers to bond with their children.

Wheatley Institute Constitutional Government Director, James Phillips, wrote a blog post for The Federalist Society analyzing Mahmoud v. Taylor oral arguments heard last week in the Supreme Court. The case involves claims of religious liberty and parental rights brought by parents in Montgomery County, Maryland schools over elementary and pre-K school curriculum regarding sexuality and gender issues.