Church and State

Reclaiming chaplains who understand themselves first as chaplains, and not merely as decorative functionaries would be one way of retrieving Christianity in the public square.

The Christian challenge is to identify a role for good government to restrain evil alongside other God-given institutions while at the same time establishing robust means to check the evil of government.

After traveling through Europe in 1947—including to Scotland, Amsterdam, and Switzerland—Reinhold Niebuhr wrote some reflections, including on state churches, the Truman Doctrine, Christian political parties, and more.

For American Protestants used to the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom, integralism—the doctrine that the state should publicly support the Catholic Church and protect that faith—sounds strange.

Christians in the midst of the reality of global migration have both a responsibility and an opportunity.

In this piece, originally published in Christianity and Crisis on March 22, 1943, N.S. Timasheff notes that the godless policy of the Communist party didn’t indicate an irreligious populace.