When Shrugging is Not an Option
- May/June 2025
- April 30, 2025
The Church State Council has more than a milestone anniversary to celebrate this year. It’s also celebrating a legal sea change for people of faith in America’s workplaces and its role in making that happen. (Photo: Students from Pacific Union College join staff from the Church State Council at the California State Capitol for one
READ MOREOne body in Christ? For America’s pastors, ministering across the political divide brings exhaustion—and opportunities. Pressure is building for pastors in America to be overtly political. In today’s polarized environment, a diminishing number of church members are content for religious leaders to keep their politics private. For many Christians the 2020 presidential election was not
READ MOREToday there is a national political leader who is deliberately and strategically draping his political aspirations in religious imagery in ways that are, frankly, sacrilegious. He has implied that his quest for power has the stamp of divine approval. His language, at times, is messianic. As national elections approach, he’s exploiting emotionally powerful tropes about
READ MOREA Rabbi, a Reverend, and the Power of Bipartisanship An interview with the chair and vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (Photo: USCIRF commissioners meet with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Commission is charged with advising Congress, the U.S. Secretary of State, and the President on religious freedom concerns abroad.)
READ MOREThe Supreme Court’s “History and Tradition” Approach to Religion Cases The lines between religion and state are about to get even more chaotic. With its June 2022 decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court overturned more than 50 years of precedent under the establishment clause (without acknowledging it was doing so) and
READ MOREAn interview with filmmaker Dan Partland. The documentary God & Country, currently showing in theaters, has split opinions among American Christians. It’s a 90-minute, emotionally intense exploration of one of today’s least understood and arguably most subversive political movements, Christian nationalism. It features 18 high-profile Christian thinkers and leaders—from David French, a New York Times
READ MOREThere’s more than enough hypocrisy to go around whenever questions of free speech come before the U.S. Supreme Court—and I include myself in that indictment. When the facts of a case involve speech that fits with my own religious or political convictions, my commitment to First Amendment free speech principles is unwavering. But opinions or
READ MOREOn what ground should the Christian stand in public life when Christianity is so often invoked for unchristian ends? In a time in which everything seems contestable, and the sacred so quickly turns profane, how should Christians approach politics? From criticism of “Christian nationalism” to concerns about a “secular surge,” there is great angst among
READ MOREThe pressures of war strain religious freedom norms. As the conflict in Ukraine enters its third year, faith communities are enduring harsh conditions, with more than 500 churches, mosques, synagogues, and other religious buildings destroyed or damaged by the Russian military. A recently proposed national law, however, raises a new challenge and highlights Ukraine’s complicated
READ MORE