Last week, we set the scene for the U.S. Supreme Court’s hearing of a religious freedom case involving a Texas death-row inmate.

This week, we summarize the mixed response justices gave in that inmate’s case.

Christianity Today’s Daniel Silliman lays out the plot aptly:

If you give a man in a Texas execution chamber the right to a prayer, is he entitled to two?

Can he ask for candles?

Or Communion?

If the United States Supreme Court says a condemned man has the religious right to have his pastor touch his foot while the state injects a lethal dose of chemicals into his veins, then will the court also have to allow a pastor to touch a man’s hand, his head, or even the place where the needle pierces the skin?

The justices quizzed attorney Seth Kretzer about the slippery slope of death penalty prayer on Tuesday morning, as they weighed whether the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), passed by Congress in 2000, give 37-year-old John Henry Ramirez the right to have his pastor lay hands on him and pray aloud when the state of Texas puts him to death.

The high court was skeptical of the inmate’s “demand that his pastor be allowed to pray out loud and touch him during his execution,” according to The Associated Press’ Jessica Gresko.

Justice Clarence Thomas raised concerns “about inmates ‘gaming the system’ by asserting dubious religious claims that served to delay their executions, notes the Wall Street Journal’s Jess Bravin.

The court “seemed divided,” explains the Washington Post’s Robert Barnes, who produced a “deeply reported and evocative” advance piece on the case, reporting from Corpus Christi, Texas.

See more insightful coverage from the New York Times’ Adam Liptak, the Texas Tribune’s Jolie McCullough and the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas.

A ruling isn’t expected for several months.

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. How Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin won more of the evangelical vote than Trump did: “The most explicitly evangelical candidate in the modern Virginia party since World War II” — that’s how one source characterizes Youngkin in this revealing post-op by Washington Post religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

Bailey details how Youngkin’s focus on critical race theory and public education resonated with White evangelicals.

2. Inside a Muslim community’s effort to rein in the FBI: I’ve mentioned this before, but the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas has developed a strong niche covering religious freedom.

“In FBI v. Fazaga, the Supreme Court is taking a closer look at government surveillance,” Dallas notes in this narrative piece, which opens with the compelling scene of an FBI informant infiltrating a Southern California mosque.
3. For Christian birdwatchers, aka ‘ornitheoligists,’ religion takes flight: “For many, the relationship between birds and Christianity does not stray farther than seeing a dove carrying an olive branch on a banner at church,” Religion News Service’s Jessica Mundie explains. “However, for Christian birdwatchers, this link is alive.”

This story is deeper and filled with more theological insight than I expected when I clicked the link. That’s a compliment.

CONTINUE READING: “Prayer In The Death Chamber: Supreme Court Questions Texas Inmate's Demand” by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.