Political, not Religious
- July/August 2004
- July 1, 2004
During Jefferson's eight-year term in office, and in the ensuing eight-year tenure of James Madison, religion and the churches managed not only to survive but even to multiply on a grand scale. Neither president worried about the growth of religion, but only about maintaining its freedom. For example, in 1802 Jefferson explained in the draft
READ MOREEditor: Did it ever cross your mind that you might one day be chaplain of the U.S. Senate? Black: I never thought about being the Senate chaplain. One of my favorite Bible verses is Ephesians 3:20, which says that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or imagine according
READ MOREWilliam Wilberforce's legacy was possible for two reasons. First, he was a committed Christian. Second, he was also a member of the British Parliament. Because of the first, he had a burning passion against the institution of slavery. Because of the second, he was perfectly placed to do something about it. For seventeen straight years
READ MOREIn the summer of 1954 Senator Lyndon B. Johnson had a problem: what to do about powerful anti-Communist organizations that threatened his Senate reelection. The answer proved amazingly simple. On July 2, as the Senate considered a bill to revise the tax code, Johnson offered a floor amendment to ban all nonprofit groups from engaging
READ MOREIn recent years a number of church leaders have been pressing public claims that the United States has been a Christian nation since its beginning. Their argument is that the Founders of the nation were Christians, and that they wrote their Christianity into the Constitution and intended for this to be a Christian nation. Here
READ MORESeparation of church and state means a lot of things. But it does not mean that the faithful have no voice in the public square. It certainly does not relieve believers from urging government to act with wisdom, justice, and righteousness. And it clearly should not bar personal involvement in matters of law and public
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