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Tools to help you exercise your First Amendment rights and advocate for more just solutions to our social crises
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Discover the best ways to keep abreast of important issues and make your voice heard in the public square.
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Designed by The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations and its Department of Faith Formation, this free guide is designed to help us bridge the divides that keep us from moving forward.
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A 4-part mini-series designed to help Christians learn how to carry out our faith through action.
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Go to the Common Cause website
Protection under the law
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects us when we practice political theology
We have the right of free exercise, or practice, of our religion. We can speak freely in public. The press has protection to report on elected representatives and issues of the day. As important, Americans and residents can gather to peacefully petition or ask the government to change laws and policies.
The Anti-Establishment Clause
Congress cannot form a supreme federal religion. Americans call this “the separation of church and state.” However, we cannot achieve a strictly separate church and matters of state, or politics. Life does not work that way. As a result, all aspects of our lives have overlapping interests. This includes our faith practice and society’s political realities. For instance, when we sit in the pew, where is our voter self? It sits there within us. When we go to the voting booth, where is our worshiper self? Again, we carry it with us into the booth to make our election choices.
This concept of the separation of church and state is an ideal. Before our constitution, nothing like our First Amendment existed in the history of the world. Allowing free exercise of religion and other freedoms has another name, “the American Experiment.” Consequently, experiments succeed, and experiments fail. Trial and error accompany any new venture. Striking a balance almost always involves resolving tension between the separation of church and state and free exercise of religion.
I am not advocating for establishing any religion. I advocate for all people of faith, not just Christians, to join in the public debate to find just and inclusive solutions to our social crises.
Framing our theological discussions
Unfortunately, we usually react to an opposing theological understanding. Instead, we must frame our theological discussions. For example, Jesus told Peter to “Feed my sheep, feed my lambs, feed my sheep,” after Jesus rose from the grave. What does feeding Christ’s lambs and sheep look like today?
Caging children and infants fails to feed or nourish them. Detaining refugees indefinitely does not constitute caring for them. Consequently, when we engage in political theology, we offer the public another viewpoint to consider. It is not about getting into big arguments with opponents, because the foundation of a democracy is a free exchange of ideas.