Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Worship as a Political Activity
Worship as a Political Activity
Nov 12, 2025 3:59 PM

Today many Christians in America will engage in the political activity of voting. But as Peter Leithart reminds us, worship is the leading political activity of Christians:

Christians are engaged in political action just by being part of the church. Worship is the leading political activity of Christians. In worship, we sing Psalms that call on God to judge the wicked and defend the oppressed, and God hears our Psalms; we pray for rulers to rule in righteousness; we hear the word of God that lays out our alternative way of life, and we sit at the table where we who are many are formed into one body, an alternative Christian polis, by sharing in the one loaf. The problem is that in many churches those things don’t happen. Churches don’t sing Psalms, and especially don’t sing the hard Psalms that call on God to judge the wicked. More churches are having weekly Eucharist, but in evangelicalism that is still more the exception than the rule. The first political agenda for American Christians is to get worship more into line with Scriptural requirements.

Read more . . .

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Hobby Lobby Reaction Speaks to Future of Religious Liberty
Regarding the Hobby Lobby decision and the Supreme Court, I believe the National Review editors summed it up best: “That this increase in freedom makes some people so very upset tells us more about them than about the Court’s ruling.” I address this rapid politicization and misunderstanding of religious liberty and natural rights in today’s mentary. The vitriolic reaction to the ruling is obviously not a good sign for religious liberty and we’re almost certainly going to continue down the...
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places
In the latest video blog fromFor the Life of the World, Evan Koons reads abeautiful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins over some striking visual imagery. Watch it below: Hopkins begins by highlighting the wondrous and mysterious pulse of nature, moving eventually to the acts of we “mortal things,” prone to appease the self, and bent on crying, “Whát I dó is me: for that I came.” But he doesn’t stop here, for surely man was neither created nor destined to...
Net Neutrality and Religious Advocacy
Yesterday, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) held a Senate hearing on his proposed bill, the Online Competition and Consumer Choice Act of 2014. The bill, reading at just four pages, serves as a tool bat “paid prioritization” in the network traffic business in an effort to maintain petition in that market. This idea, known as net neutrality, as explained by Joe Carter, assumes “that a public information network should aspire to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally” as well as...
China’s One-Child Policy Creates Human Trafficking Plights
China’s one-child policy and a cultural preference for boys means that the world’s most populous country has a severe shortage of women. That means a severe shortage of brides. And that means a human trafficking crisis. Kiab, a Vietnamese girl who had just turned 16, was told by her brother that he was taking her to a party. Instead, he sold her as a bride to a Chinese man. The ethnic Hmong teenager spent nearly a month in China until...
Religious Liberty, Charles Carroll, & Hobby Lobby
Bruce Edward Walker, recently wrote a column for the Morning Sun that relates the recent Supreme Court decision on Hobby Lobby with America’s Founding and Samuel Gregg’s latest, Tea Party Catholic. The piece begins by discussing the Declaration of Independence and one of its signers, Charles Carroll, “a successful Maryland businessmen,” Walker says, “who was also Roman Catholic and thus denied voting rights and the freedom to hold government office under British colonial rule. In other words, Carroll had a...
What Christians Should Know About Comparative Advantage
Note: This is the latest entry in the Acton blog series, “What Christians Should Know About Economics.” For other entries inthe series seethis post. The Term:Comparative advantage What it Means:The ability of an individual or group of individual (e.g., a business firm) to produce goods or services at a lower opportunity cost than other individuals or groups. Why it Matters: There is a story of the distinguished British biologist, J.B.S. Haldane, who found himself in pany of a group of...
American Freedom: Is It Overrated?
We Americans will celebrate 238 years of freedom this Friday. In 1776, the 13 colonies unanimously declared: When in the Course of human events, it es necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare...
Radio Free Acton: Walter E. Williams, Frederic Bastiat, and American Political Culture
It’s time again for another edition of Radio Free Acton, and we think this one is well worth the listen. Today, Paul Edwards talks with scholar, author, economist, occasional guest host of the nation’s largest talk radio showand all-around great guyDr. Walter E. Williams about Frederic Bastiat’s classic The Law and the insights into modern America by reading that classic defense of limited government, authentic justice and human freedom. Williams wrote the introduction for the latest edition of Bastiat’s work,...
Why the Hobby Lobby Decision Makes Liberals Worry About Single-Payer Health Care
For those on the left side of the political spectrum, single-payer health care — a system in which the government, rather than private insurers, pays for all health care costs — is one of the most popular policy proposals in America. But the recent Hobby Lobby decision is reminding some liberal technocrats that giving the government full control over health care funding also gives the government control over what medical services will be funded. As liberal pundit Ezra Klein explains:...
Charles Carroll and Independence Day
This weekend marks another celebration of America’s birthday of Independence from our colonial rulers. It is typical to praise the founding fathers for what they did in 1776 and the subsequent years to lay down the foundation for this country. Very often, when people talk about the founding fathers they are referring to Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, or one of the many currently well-known statesmen of the Revolution. This year though, when people sing the praises of the Founding Fathers,...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved