When you hear the phrase “payday loans,” what words and ideas come to mind? Helpful? Useful? Timely? Or words with a more negative connotation like harmful, predatory, and immoral? These are some of the responses given by a group of Christians that took part in a recent survey titled American Views on Payday Loans. The …
Continue...The First Amendment is a fundamental protection granted in the U.S. Constitution. It secures the right to the free exercise of religion, and “it protects the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” In a recent court case called …
Continue...We, who are pro-life, are those that value and seek to protect life at all stages, from conception (womb) to natural death (tomb). And as culture has taken particular aim at the womb and the tomb—preborn children and those nearing life’s end—pro-life efforts have risen to the occasion, advocating tirelessly for these vulnerable populations. In …
Continue...Racism is an inescapable fact embedded in America’s historical narrative. Long considered the “original sin” of the United States and the American colonies, racism and racial prejudice have plagued the hearts and minds of citizens and churchgoers for centuries, and inflicted lasting wounds on whole people groups. It was and is a sin of epidemic …
Continue...Everywhere we look, it seems that many of our long-held freedoms are being challenged. Whether it’s a preborn child’s right to life, an employee’s right to receive religious accommodations at work, or the right of everyone to exercise free speech, new lawsuits are filed daily that threaten to chip away, or eliminate altogether, a subset …
Continue...In his Gettysburg address, President Abraham Lincoln described the American system of government as a “government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people”—a unique experiment in world history. But it’s an experiment founded on the understanding, as John Adams and James Madison both articulated, that the people of whom, for whom, and …
Continue...Every year for the last three decades, Open Doors has released the annual World Watch List, a report ranking the top “50 countries where Christians suffer very high or extreme levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith.” In a country like the United States where the free exercise of religion is enshrined in its …
Continue...In recent years, no other issue has been more heavily scrutinized, more thoroughly debated, or more embroiled in controversy than abortion and its legality. The abortion discussion in the United States reached a fever pitch this summer when, nearly 50 years after its passage, Roe v. Wade (along with Planned Parenthood v. Casey) was overturned …
Continue...When you think about the political moment we find ourselves in, what thoughts and images come to mind? What emotions bubble to the surface? What motivations drive your political activity? How we answer these questions has significant implications for how politics is done in this country and how healthy we are as a body politic. …
Continue...“I don’t think the average Christian is nearly political enough.” For Christians paying any attention to political developments in the United States, these words may seem ill-conceived at best, or just plain crazy. Just think, in 21st-century America, the term “evangelical” has been so co-opted by politics that it describes a demographic increasingly viewed as …
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