Politics and Public Life

Meeting God as an American

Many Americans experience this country’s social, cultural, and political scene as an unremitting dumpster fire. Our society is torn between competing visions of the good life. Our cultural institutions are increasingly dysfunctional and unable to inspire confidence. As a result, many find it easy to lose hope in the American experiment. To read the rest [ Read More ]

What Hath Christianity To Do with Politics? (Pt. 5: Political Thought and Christian Character)

In our current American context—fraught with social and cultural division, competing visions of the common good, and vitriol towards those with whom we disagree—it is incumbent on God’s people to carve out a faithful path for Christian political involvement. If we are able to do so, we will be “salt and light” for our society; [ Read More ]

What Hath Christianity to Do with Politics? (Pt. 3: Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, Black Church)

Out of the Catholic and Orthodox traditions emerged newly-formed streams of Christianity. Those traditions both drew upon, and reacted against, the other traditions. In this installment, we will explore briefly some of the main distinctives of these traditions as they sought to formulate the proper approach to the political sphere. We will begin with the [ Read More ]

What Hath Christianity To Do with Politics? (Pt. 3: Catholic and Orthodox Traditions)

In the wake of Augustine’s magisterial City of God, and the ensuing weakening of the Roman Empire, the church continued to reflect upon, and develop its approach toward politics. After the schism that resulted in the formation of an Eastern Orthodox church distinct from the Roman Catholicism, some differences of approach emerged. In this installment, [ Read More ]

What Hath Christianity To Do with Politics?: (Pt. 2: Augustine and the Roman Empire)

The early church forged its thinking about politics from Scripture and in the context of a decadent pagan Roman Empire. It grappled with how best to further the Christian mission in such a context. Should it withdraw from the political sphere, given its persecuted minority status within the empire? Conversely, should it expend the majority of [ Read More ]

In Defense of Private Christian Schools

Every year, private schools across the nation commence for graduation ceremonies. Yet, if many of today’s progressive educators are to be believed, the ceremony they participate in ought to be abolished or sent underground. They wish for public schools to be the primary—and in some activists’ view, exclusive—vehicle for educating our youth. Indeed, whenever the idea of [ Read More ]

Expressive Individualism: Our Twenty-First Century American Ba’al

During the middle of the twentieth century, the great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that the Western world was a “world come of age,” by which he did not intend a compliment; he meant that Westerners had learned to manage life without reference to God and that life without God is deeply unhealthy for individuals [ Read More ]

How politics has replaced religion in America

America has always been more religiously devout than other Western democracies. But now, like them, it has begun to secularize rapidly. And, as religion has declined, political ideology has intensified, society has fragmented, and cultural common ground has disintegrated. As a result, politics is increasingly divisive and existentially fraught. For over three decades, debates about [ Read More ]