Church and State

May 23, 2023

Don’t Divinize the State

One consequence of what Italian philosopher Augusto del Noce calls our present “age of secularization” is the paradoxical modern tendency of atheists to divinize politics and the state. What the Church once undid, ideology would rejoin. Continue Reading...

February 02, 2022

Religious freedom must be protected even from the religious

These are strange times in the United States. We are now living under the second consecutive presidency whose legitimacy is disputed by a significant proportion of the American people. The typical debates about taxation and foreign policy have been eclipsed by arguments about identity politics. Continue Reading...

January 03, 2022

As SCOTUS mulls Maine religious discrimination case, anxious parents wait across the U.S.

Earlier this month the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Carson v. Makin. The appellants in this case, co-represented by the Institute for Justice and my firm First Liberty Institute, are parents and students in Maine who have been denied a state benefit available to residents of rural areas unable to support publicly funded secondary schools. Continue Reading...

December 21, 2021

Take recent polls about COVID hastening the demise of American religion with a grain of salt

The latest Pew Research Center survey on American religion reflects a familiar trend in recent years: declining levels of Christian affiliation and growing numbers of religiously unaffiliated (the “nones”). Almost 30% of those surveyed told Pew that they identify with no particular religion, compared to 16% in 2007. Continue Reading...

December 06, 2021

Religion in the public square strengthens public discourse

Religious expression in the public square is currently challenged by two competing concerns. On the left, some worry that religion is an anti-rational monolith, quietly subverting legitimate expressions of democracy. Others, on the right, worry that religious diversity destroys cultural cohesion, which they see as necessary to democracy. Continue Reading...

November 17, 2021

Lutherans are on the front lines of the battle for religious liberty

If there’s something Lutherans are known for other than great hymnody and potluck dinners, it’s keeping their heads down. Lutherans typically are a staid bunch, not big on “revivals” or drum kits in the sanctuary. Continue Reading...

November 16, 2021

“Political Catholicism,” liberalism, and the myth of neutrality

On Twitter and in essays at The American Conservative, Sohrab Ahmari has argued that the debates about liberalism, post-liberalism, and integralism are “exhausted,” and that what he calls “political Catholics” are taking “these battles in other, more concrete dimensions.” Continue Reading...

October 12, 2021

School choice is in jeopardy in a case before the Supreme Court

The difference between a “Christian organization” and an “organization that does Christian things” might seem like a distinction without a difference. But it is precisely this difference that is at the heart of the question presented to the U.S. Continue Reading...

September 29, 2021

For religion to be national, it must first be personal

What does it mean for a nation to be Christian? Does the United States of America fit the description? At its founding, the United States was undoubtedly a Christian nation. To foster a society of religious freedom and pluralism, the Founding Fathers intentionally did not establish a national religion and took care to separate the domains of church and state in the founding documents of our country. Continue Reading...

September 21, 2021

Should morality be legislated?

Should governments legislate morality? It depends on how we define our terms. If “legislate morality” is simply defined as “making laws that are moral,” then it is obvious that we should legislate morality. Continue Reading...

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