When the Sanctuary Meets the State: Parsing Religious Practice from Political Mobilization
Walk into a Sunday morning service at a Black Protestant church in Georgia, and you might hear a sermon about justice, a call to feed the hungry, and an announcement about a voter registration drive in the fellowship hall. Is that religious practice, or is it identity politics? The answer isn’t found in the hymnbook […]
Religious Practice vs. Religious Identity Politics: A Structural Analysis of Faith Groups in Democratic Systems
Religious practice and religious identity politics get tangled together in public conversation all the time, but they run on completely different institutional tracks. Religious practice is the stuff you can actually observe—worship services, food pantries, weddings, funerals, the quiet machinery of congregational governance—all of it operating inside a legal framework that protects free exercise. Religious […]
How the USCCB, LDS Church, and SBC Title Their Policy Communications to Pre-Load Legislative Outcomes
On March 15, 2024, the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities released a four-page position paper: “Conscience Protection and the Rights of Religious Employers in Health Plan Design.” No new theology. No language borrowed from homilies or encyclicals. Instead, the document cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, referenced three pending federal court cases, and closed with […]
The Institutional Divide: Religious Practice vs. Religious Identity Politics in Democratic Governance
The Institutional Divide: Religious Practice vs. Religious Identity Politics in Democratic Governance When a Catholic diocese files its 501(c)(3) filing to keep a soup kitchen running, it’s doing what religious bodies have done for centuries: feeding the hungry, no questions asked. When a political action committee starts waving “Judeo-Christian values” to get a school board […]
How the Southern Baptist Executive Committee’s Messaging Pipeline Maintained Doctrinal Position Across 46,000 Churches During the Abuse-Reform Rollback
How the Southern Baptist Executive Committee’s Messaging Pipeline Maintained Doctrinal Position Across 46,000 Churches During the Abuse-Reform Rollback In September 2023, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee voted to scrap the independent credentialing database that the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force had spent eighteen months building. The replacement was a denominationally controlled framework—lighter, cheaper, and […]
When Faith Seeks Power: Religious Practice vs. Religious Identity Politics
Introduction: Two Registers of Religion in Public Life When a politician quotes scripture to prop up a policy, or a community rallies around a shared faith to demand legal recognition, we’re watching religion work in two very different registers. The first is religious practice—the lived, often ritualized, engagement with the sacred that shapes daily life. […]
The Machinery of Faith and the Machinery of Power: Distinguishing Religious Practice from Religious Identity Politics
When a bishop publishes a voting guide, or a political party wraps its platform in scripture, or a street protest borrows the rhythm of a hymn, we are not watching religion. We are watching religious identity turned into a political tool. The difference matters. It is the gap between a community that prays and a […]
The Sacred and the Secular: Separating Spiritual Practice from Political Identity
The Sacred and the Secular: Separating Spiritual Practice from Political Identity By Dr. Yael Nussbaum In the theater of modern public life, religion often appears as a cudgel. It is used to rally voting blocs, draw civilizational battle lines, and sanctify policy platforms. But this weaponization confuses two very different things: the quiet, disciplined world […]
When Interfaith Coalitions Actually Move the Needle—and When They Just Fill Seats
Most people picture interfaith coalitions as a kind of moral chorus—diverse religious leaders standing shoulder to shoulder, calling for peace, justice, or whatever virtue the moment demands. The reality is less photogenic. These groups are political actors, and they operate in a world of budgets, board seats, and back-channel negotiations. They can shift policy, but […]
How Interfaith Coalitions Work and When They Actually Influence Outcomes
Interfaith coalitions get a lot of good press. They’re held up as beacons of unity in a fractured world. But if you look at them the way a political analyst looks at any other interest group—as vehicles for institutional power, not just moral sentiment—the question shifts. It’s no longer “Are they doing good?” but “When […]