church on Church and State

The coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church.

The wall Jefferson referred to is designed to divide church from state, not religion from politics. Church and state are specific things: the former signifies institutions for believers to congregate ...

Many people have misinterpreted the separation of church and state to mean that religious views shouldn’t play a role in public discussions and lawmaking. Someone might say, “We shouldn’t restrict abo...

The highest offices of the state and church resemble a pyramid whose top is accessible to only two sorts of animals-eagles and reptiles.

The Church, however, is a self-governing society, distinct from the State, having its officers and laws, and, therefore, an administrative government of its own.

When the Church tries to embody the rule of God in the forms of earthly power it may achieve that power, but it is no longer a sign of the kingdom.

We have the same biblical texts that earlier generations of Christians thought their way through, of course, but our reflections are shaped by six unique factors. (1) Especially in the Anglo-Saxon wo...

God built into the creation a variety of cultural spheres, such as the family, economics, politics, art, and intellectual inquiry. Each of these spheres has its own proper "business" and nee...

We can’t separate what we believe in the political arena from who we are in Christ and what obedience to God demands...That said, not every tenet of Christianity should become the law of the state. We...

Christians: The crisis is not that you are politically homeless. The crisis is that we ever thought we could make a home in politics at all.

Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.

Sunday observance of the Sabbath was the subject of forty-seven acts of Parliament and often debated by American legislators in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Two-thirds of the story of redemption is known to Christians as the Old Testament. Yet in the decades that I have been teaching Bible, I have found that most Christians, if allowed to answer honestly,...

Tom Clegg, a consultant with Church Growth Institute, states, "When visitors walk through the door, they will decide in 3 to 8 minutes whether they will take you seriously and whether they will r...

As the center of Christianity shifts from the West (North America and Western Europe) to the Global South, grinding poverty is on the front doorstep — and in the front pews — of the church of Jesus Ch...

The disastrous and widening cleavage between the Church and the Arts on the one hand and between the State and the Arts on the other leaves the common man with the impression that the artist is someth...

Preaching Commentary A Christmastide Community A recent podcast reminded me that there is no such thing as a “neutral” marking of our time—our minutes and our hours, our days and our weeks, our mon...

Pride, and its more serious cousin, narcissism, really shouldn’t have any place in leadership circles in the church. When I became a serious follower of Jesus at a teenager, Philippians 2 became one o...

Following the biblical pattern, the church has always assumed that God can communicate spiritual truths to people through their imaginations, especially through dreams and visions. Church history is r...

The Difference a Coach Makes Back in the days when Phil Jackson’s Chicago Bulls (and Los Angeles Lakers) were dominating the NBA, the joke was that all the coach needed to do was “roll out the basket...

The Text: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a The Body as Metaphor The text from 1 Corinthians is one of several in which the apostle Paul uses the imagery of the body to describe both the unity and diversity o...

The Text: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a The Body as Metaphor The text from 1 Corinthians is one of several in which the apostle Paul uses the imagery of the body to describe both the unity and diversity o...

Summary While we don’t think as much about it today, people throughout Biblical times were very interested in different kinds of spiritual creatures. Here in the book of Revelation, we see several de...

Preaching commentary Summary While we don’t think as much about it today, people throughout Biblical times were very interested in different kinds of spiritual creatures. Here in the book of Revela...

Followers of Jesus should not be in bed with any of the political parties. Even if one affiliates with a particular party, may we maintain a posture to collaborate, listen, hold accountable, and engag...

When I think of masterpieces, I think of art. But what is art? I like the way that Thomas Hoving, who was the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, put it: “Art happens when anyon...

Since 1991, the adult population in the United States has grown by 15%. During that same period, the number of adults who do not attend church has nearly doubled, rising from 39 million to 75 million—...

In this excerpt, author David Zahl challenges the common belief that religion is “in decline.” He argues that while Westerners, particularly younger generations, may be distancing themselves from the ...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Corinth: "Young, Scrappy, and Hungry" Corinth was an up-and-coming city with an up-and-coming attitude. The Romans had conque...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Corinth: "Young, Scrappy, and Hungry" Corinth was an up-and-coming city with an up-and-coming attitude. The Romans had conque...