Recognizing the appropriate role of government in our lives, alongside other institutions like families, businesses, schools and churches, how can we also support, in a distinctive way, those in our congregations who are called to labor in the political arena? And what might that look like? In this article, Jim Talen, a Kent County Commissioner, reflects on his experience with this in his own congregation.

How can we, as Christian citizens, train ourselves in the necessary theological, historical, and practical foundations we will need to engage the very difficult topic of immigration?

Dr. Kevin den Dulk explores the ways that our most prominent educational frameworks reproduce rather than meet key challenges to citizen formation in the current age.

How can the church prepare its disciples to follow Jesus into a divided and traumatized world? Matthew Kaemingk offers compelling answers his article that explores the political nature of worship.

How can the church form disciples for lives of public faithfulness and a politics of solidarity and justice? Jonathan Chaplin responds to that question in this article with a rich theological exploration of the dynamic summons of biblical justice.

Stephanie Summers, CEO of the Center for Public Justice, recently spoke with James K.A. Smith about his newest book Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology, the culminating book in his acclaimed Cultural Liturgies project. Summers and Smith discussed a wide range of ideas including the deformative powers of culture on us as Christians, our society’s move away from a sense of a shared life together, and how the church can be a community of political formation in which worship is central.

As we support a robust role for faith-based institutions and affirm the good role of government in providing for the well-being of our communities, Stanley Carlson-Thies and Chelsea Langston Bombino argue for an understanding of the limited, yet positive, task of government.

This wide-ranging conversation with James Skillen demonstrates how vital the work and vision of CPJ continues to be in challenging how most Americans, particularly Christians, think about political life today.
 

Over the years, CPJ has responded to the changes in understanding of religious freedom in the United States by being a key actor in engaging groups across difference around a number of issues and promoting both individual and institutional rights and responsibilities.

Christian views of political life have been shaped in a variety of ways over time, with differing understandings of the role and responsibilities of government and of how Christians citizens ought to exercise their earthly citizenship. In this article, William Edgar considers these currents in the context of thinkers such as Augustine, Aquinas, Locke, and others, and outlines the theological and philosophical context for CPJ’s distinctive approach to political life.

The current political climate is not something that has sprung up unexpectedly; rather, it is laying bare already existing fears, tensions, and confusion about the prospects for our common life in the United States and beyond. What is a disciple of Christ to do in this climate of division, fear, cynicism, and confusion?

We must continue to address this form of presidential speech without being sidelined by it and without being deterred from the great and substantive causes of justice...

While the advancement of human flourishing is a sacred call which many of us take seriously, we often fail to clearly define what we mean by it or how we measure something as all-encompassing and elusive as human flourishing.

Communities that have churches pouring into them are more likely to thrive than those without. 

We need not expect to be entirely at ease in a world where we live side by side with others who are really rather different than we are, but neither should we expect to be at war, either metaphorically or for real.

Social change should not be seen as a trick-down effect from the church, but a comprehensive change effected by God through his common grace as well as his special grace.

Simply calling for people to be more civil is not going to heal the deep racial wounds born by our country, nor is it going to smooth over fundamental disagreements about what it means to be human