The hottest Church-state Substack posts right now

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Top Faith & Spirituality Topics

The Christian Conservatives Who Don’t Want Prayer Time in Schools

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 384 implied HN points • 11 Mar 26
⛪ Faith & Spirituality Church-state
  1. Most Texas school boards have rejected creating official prayer periods during the school day, even though they were required to vote on the question.
  2. Some conservative Christians say personal faith should stay private and not be turned into a formal part of the school schedule.
  3. Religious practices still happen informally in communities—like student-led prayers at football games—even when boards decline to add prayer time to the school day.

How the Bible Helped Smash the Crown

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1465 implied HN points • 23 Dec 25
⛪ Faith & Spirituality Church-state
  1. The American Revolution rejected earthly kings and said people’s equality comes from God, not from who holds political power.
  2. Freedom of religion was a radical founding idea that rejected religious uniformity and trusted different faiths to live side by side and thrive.
  3. The flourishing of biblical faith helped ground the nation’s idea of equality, and public cooperation between different religious leaders showed religion would play a central, pluralistic role.

Jesus as MAGA Cudgel

Slack Tide by Matt Labash • 237 implied HN points • 09 Feb 26
⛪ Faith & Spirituality Church-state
  1. Christianity shouldn’t be used as a political cudgel; Jesus’ message of love and compassion clashes with the divisive, hateful tactics tied to MAGA.
  2. Celebrity displays of faith can come off as inauthentic or embarrassing when they’re part of partisan spectacle, so a Jesus stanza in a performance doesn’t prove genuine belief.
  3. Holding politicians and public figures accountable for mixing faith with offensive or divisive actions is important, because hypocrisy undermines Christianity’s moral witness.

December 21, 2025

Letters from an American • 31 implied HN points • 22 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Church-state
  1. The United States was not founded as a Christian nation; the Constitution’s First Amendment forbids the government from establishing or favoring a religion.
  2. Founders like Madison, Jefferson, and Washington argued that separating church and state protected individual conscience and was essential to preserving representative government.
  3. Efforts to fuse government with a particular religion — from Confederate rhetoric to later amendment movements — have repeatedly threatened democracy by allowing a religious minority to try to impose its will.

Thoughts on Megachurches and Taxes

I Might Be Wrong • 11 implied HN points • 30 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Church-state
  1. If the government gets to decide which groups count as "real" religion, it gains dangerous power to reward or punish beliefs, so religious neutrality is essential.
  2. Tax-exempt status for churches and nonprofits is messy because "doing good" is a vague category that can be gamed, and strict enforcement would force the government to make value judgments it shouldn’t have to make.
  3. A more consistent tax approach would be to tax individuals rather than organizations, but shifting taxes onto people would be politically unpopular because it removes the hidden costs voters currently accept.
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