RealClearReligion Articles

In February 1777, Thomas Jefferson helped establish an evangelical church. What? Yes, that Thomas Jefferson. It was called the Calvinisitical Reformed Church of Charlottesville. And it met in the local courthouse. Why, that’s enough to give the ACLU apoplexy. This was less than a year after he wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. It’s important to understand that the early Thomas Jefferson was much more faithful to his professed Christian faith than we are led to believe. Yes, he harbored serious doubts later in life. But the...

Just in time for America’s 250th anniversary, Bunni Pounds and the team at Christian Engaged are gearing up for a massive Scripture-based event this spring — “America Reads the Bible.” I spoke with Bunni Pounds for a radio segment about this upcoming event. She told our listeners:  “On April 18-25, we’re going to be in Washington, D.C. We’re going to have 475 of our national leaders reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation over the course of seven days.”  These leaders will include actress Candace Cameron Bure who said that the...

The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness (1898) by Briton Rivière, a British-born artist, prominently hangs above my home office desk. I bought the print after encountering it in a daily Lenten devotional, Born of Fire, written by Father Innocent Montgomery, CFR, and published by the Knights of Columbus. To me, the scene elicits conflicting emotions: guilt and loneliness, but gratitude and joy. More importantly, the work captures the heart of Lent: rediscovering our true identity. After his baptism by John the Baptist, Jesus Christ was “full of the Holy Spirit, returned from...

Quite honestly, I don’t follow sports. In fact, I was leading a church service during the Super Bowl. We all have different tastes, but when it comes to watching sports games on TV, I’m like the bank examiner in “It’s a Wonderful Life!,” who said in a different context: “Well, they do those sort of things, I suppose.” But even I couldn’t escape news of the anti-American halftime show at the Super Bowl with Bad Bunny versus a patriotic counterpart put on by Kid Rock, et al. for the late Charlie Kirk’s group, Turning Point USA. It was Bad...

Serving overseas in the Foreign Service, I heard many questions about the United States, some prompted by headlines, Hollywood, or social media. Asked about religion and religious liberty, I found that the common mantra, “in America we have separation of church and state” did not answer earnest questions from local counterparts. So in conversations — or in classrooms — I often told stories. Here are three.  Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin remains an American classic, and I shared passages in his memoir. It was usually...

A few years back a Mr. Tom Scholl, who identified himself as a pastor of churches in Ohio and New York, as well as holding positions in several ecumenical organizations, wrote a 3-part article for our local newspaper, The Telegraph (Macon), entitled "What the Koran says about Christianity," which I found more than a little disappointing. It could have been an apologia about the charitableness of Islam using selective passages from the Koran and at least a bit philanthropic to many associated elements of Christianity. But his very prejudicial apologia went further than the expected arguments...

Minnesota is a Sanctuary State, meaning that illegal aliens can flaunt our immigration laws, even though every nation has to have borders to remain a nation. But as we all know, there was no sanctuary for those in the sanctuary of Cities Church in St. Paul a couple of weeks ago. Just last week, Don Lemon — a former CNN anchor who was present during the sanctuary riot — was re-arrested for his role in the chaos that erupted when belligerent protesters commandeered a Sunday morning worship service. Lemon claims he was just acting as an impartial journalist at the...

Ronald Reagan is remembered for many great speeches — from A Time for Choosing to his address at the Berlin Wall. In those moments, he spoke to the defining crisis of the generation: the struggle between American democracy and liberty and the Soviet Union’s “Evil Empire.” Yet a lesser-known speech Reagan delivered at the centennial celebration of the Knights of Columbus (KofC) — the world’s largest Catholic fraternal organization — on Aug. 3, 1982, in Hartford, Conn., speaks powerfully to today’s moral conflict: that the...

We are a month into one of the most significant years in our nation's history. In 2026, we celebrate an incredible milestone: 250 years of freedom, democracy, and unity in diversity. It is this unique combination of characteristics that has made the United States the greatest nation in the world. This country has a long, proud history of welcoming people who are committed to the common good and the flourishing of America, regardless of nationality or station in life. This is a rare and beautiful thing, and it has opened up opportunities for millions of people who otherwise may have been...

Over 160 years ago, John Stuart Mill described silencing opinions as a “peculiar evil”, a warning that speaks volumes to today’s belief that moral ills can be decreed out of existence. In Australia, that temptation has now taken legislative form and risks handing extremists exactly what they seek.In the wake of the attack on Jewish communities at Bondi Beach, the Australian government has rushed through the most intrusive hate speech laws in the Western world. They assert that by widening speech offences and the powers attached to them, regulators will be able...

They say the exception proves the rule. Thomas Paine was a founding father who later in life became a complete skeptic. Most of America’s founding fathers were professing Trinitarian Christians. Dozens of them had the equivalent of a seminary degree. Paine was an exception, not the rule. Thomas Paine was not a typical founding father. A former Quaker who came from England, Paine proved to be an excellent writer. He played a positive role in the American cause by writing “Common Sense,” which celebrates its 250th birthday this year. “Common Sense” was a...

With so much online today and more and more becoming accessible through our phones, kids and cell phone addiction has become a common problem. Recent studies have cited digital addiction among youth as a global concern, with 60% between the ages of 5-16 exhibiting behaviors indicative of technology dependency. When not intentionally addressed, excessive digital engagement can negatively affect our children in profound ways without them even realizing it. Here are five bad habits cell phone addiction can cause in kids, and five biblical solutions to help them...

“Top DOJ officials,” we are told in a Fox News report, “say they are looking into whether the agitators who disrupted services at St. Paul's Cities Church on Sunday violated the FACE Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act.” Cities Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota is Baptist, a strong proponent of marriage (“We believe that marriage joins one man and one woman in a single, exclusive, lifelong union and that God designed and directs sexual intimacy exclusively for one man and one woman married to each other), also regards sexual immorality as sinful and abhorrent...

A recent historian said that a line from the Declaration of Independence is the most important sentence in history. Well, certainly that sentence is exceedingly important, but I agree with those who counter-argue, “No, actually John 3:16 is the most important sentence in history.” Meanwhile, the great statement in the Declaration is: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The...

There are already plenty of pundits weighing in on polarization and division in American life. However, as a senior pastor for over 40 years, I can’t help but address one major problem that’s becoming all too bipartisan.  I’m talking about the meteoric rise in antisemitism, which has clearly infected both political parties. This age-old bigotry has expanded in both overt and covert forms, not just in the U.S., but around the world.  In the wake of the Tucker Carlson-Nick Fuentes controversy, anyone assuming that rising anti-Jewish animus in this country...

No U.S. President has written an extensive theological treatise on — or against — the Eucharist; but John Quincy Adams came the closest.  In April 1812, the future president criticized the doctrine of the Real Presence for cultivating “pernicious tendencies” that “enslave the human mind” to the “arbitrary dominion of the priesthood.” Though written more than two centuries ago, Adams’ objections — rooted in a misunderstanding of transubstantiation, Scripture, and the nature of freedom — remain emblematic of the divisions...

As the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) challenges the nature of art itself, a 3rd-4th century desert monk demonstrates the creative process’ efficaciousness to our souls — and the need to reinvigorate the transcendentals: the good, the true, and the beautiful.    Abbot Paul lived in a “vast” country — a seven days’ journey from towns or “inhabited districts,” as John Cassian, a 5th century monk and theologian, recounts in his history of the desert Fathers. Yet Abbot Paul had plenty to sustain himself: date palms, a small...

One of the good guys in the battle for celebrating America at 250 is PragerU, founded by the Jewish scholar and author Dennis Prager. But a state senator from Omaha, Nebraska, might not agree. Last week, Michaela Cavanaugh, upset at seeing historical displays outside her office at the State Capitol building in Lincoln, tore them down. She claims she tried not to destroy them as she yanked them off the walls. Her rationale for removing these things is that, supposedly, nothing should adorn the walls outside of those offices. Although she has since apologized,...

In the world of athletics, the pressure to prove is relentless. Athletes try to earn starting spots, coaches try to build winning programs and everyone hopes to earn respect from teammates, fans and parents. The message is loud and clear: Prove your value. Earn your worth. What if the most important things about us (our worth, identity and value) have already been proven? What would it look like if we competed, coached and lived not for love, but from love? Here is the good news: We are loved wholly and unconditionally by the One who created us. We don’t need to earn His love or chase...