The United States is undergoing a marked change in its attitude toward religion, and Christians here face new challenges. When a blogger named Marc Yoder wrote about “10 Surprising Reasons Our Kids Le...
By many accounts the first Muslim in America was Estevancio of Azamor, a Moroccan guide for a Spanish expedition in 1528 that landed in Florida. A couple of centuries later, as many as a third of the ...
ALL SINGING: (America the Beautiful, first verse) O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grac...
When Frederick Douglass asked his famous question, “What to a Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” he didn’t simply ask a question about the United States of America . He asked a question about Amer...
Matthew 5:1-48, Matthew 6:1-34, Matthew 7:1-29, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Romans 15:4, Isaiah 55:11, Hebrews 4:12-13, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 24:35
After a sojourn in the United States where he experienced the vibrancy of Black churches, Dietrich Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1931 to teach at the University of Berlin. His pastoral ministry co...
Have you heard the old spiritual “Down to the River to Pray” or “The Good Old Way”? It is most famous in popular culture because of Alison Kraus’s version of the song recorded for the movie O Broth...
Leader: Thank you for this country, Lord. People: Thank you for the freedom to worship without fear. Thank you for the freedom to preach and teach your word. Leader: We pray for our b...
Modern Language Version Almighty God, who has given us this good land for our heritage: We humbly ask that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of your favor and glad to do your will. Bles...
The responses in bold may be omitted. O Lord our Governor, bless the leaders of our land, that we may be a people at peace among ourselves and a blessing to other nations of the earth. Lord, keep t...
Acts 16:25-34, Genesis 45:1-15, Mark 2:1-12, Psalm 46:9, Isaiah 61:1
Gracious God of love–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We are grateful that You’ve revealed yourself to us, telling us that each of us are loved by You as children, each precious in Your sight, each a refl...
Lord of families, tribes, peoples, nations and all the world: it’s for freedom You’ve set us free from sin, guilt, and judgment; free to do what is right and just, what is compassionate, gracious and ...
The truth is that, as the saying carved in granite on the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C., declares, “Freedom is not free.” This means not only that blood is the price of defending freedom abr...
Acts 4:29-31, 2 Corinthians 4:7-12, Exodus 16:, Luke 10:25-37, Mark 1:29-32
God of all mercies, Father Jesus and our Father–You know us intimately ... and you still love us immensely. Therefore, we come confident of your welcoming embrace, your gracious attention and your lov...
Pastor: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. People: Amen. Pastor: We gather today to offer praise and worship to our God, People: who offe...
In short, contrary to the founders-and in ways they do not realize themselves-Americans today are heedlessly pursuing a vision of freedom that is short-lived and suicidal. Once again, freedom without ...
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
Matthew 5:20, Romans 14:17, Luke 17:20-21, Matthew 28:18-20, Philippians 2:14-15
T. S. Eliot once described the current human endeavor as that of finding a system of order so perfect that we will not have to be good. The way of Jesus tells us, by contrast, that any number of syste...
In 1843, a twenty-one-year-old Massachusetts scholar was doing research on the American Revolution and what led up to it. Among those he interviewed was Captain Levi Preston, a Yankee who was seventy ...
Micah 6:8, Exodus 22:21-22 , Isaiah 58:6-7 , Matthew 22:37-39, James 2:1-9 , Psalm 103:6
We cannot have true justice unless it is motivated by love, just as God’s greatest act of justice, sending Jesus to die for us, was motivated by love. Years ago, before the emancipation of slaves, Fre...
God of freedom, whether we like to admit it or not, we do not treat everybody with equality. We silently judge others based on appearance, social status, and even race. Please give us the courage to m...
Ephesians 2:14-16, Mark 5:1-20, Galatians 5:1, John 20:19-21, John 14:27
Go in the love and peace of Christ, claiming your freedom to live victoriously in Christ’s love, and in harmony with our brothers and sisters who have been reconciled by Christ’s grace. Amen.
For a start, freedom always faces a fundamental historical challenge. Although glorious, free societies are few, far between and fleeting. In the past, the high view of human dignity and independence ...
O Lord Jesus Christ, who has established your church as the bulwark of true freedom, and has committed to all believers the ministry of reconciliation, continue your work of reforming and cleansing wi...
Freedom of religion is one of the greatest gifts of God to man, without distinction of race and color. He is the author and lord of conscience, and no power on earth has a right to stand between God a...