Friday, June 26, 2026. That is a day we all should remember. In many ways it is as important as July 4, 1776, when the nation first expressed its founding principles.
On the above date (that is, last Friday), the government published via the DOJ Commission on Religion, the new approach to government’s relationship with religion. The report is some 225 pages and is a reaffirmation of the role of religion in the public life. In short, it turns the old “wall of separation” on its head. Now the government must prove some overwhelming reason to interfere with any expression of religious faith. Jeff Childers writes about it quite a bit in today’s column of Coffee & Covid. Read it, if for nothing else than for the links where you can make public comment on the new doctrine. Know that the Far Left will certainly attempt to trash it with their comments.
Is this merely “let Christians pray freely.” or is it a proposed national enforcement architecture?
I’ve already seen new religious direction by the gov “leaders”, it appears to be createing a protected class, Israel.
Study H.R.6090 (not passed as law) , Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023, look at how the “Religious Liberty Commission” which was created to defend religious liberty removed one of its own members after she challenged the political boundaries being drawn around antisemitism, Israel, and Zionism.
The chair called it a hijacking; she called it being silenced. Either way, the body showed how quickly “religious liberty” becomes conditional when a commissioner crosses the protected political line.
This is a recent example, consider the second church schism?
Ever study what preceded the Supremacy Act?
A few things gave it teeth before it existed, once it did exist what did it mean to be Catholic in England?
At that time there was an oath required, how is it we don’t see that oath as forced worship the same as:
?
You think if things keep progressing the way they are all Christians going to find themselves the same as Catholics did during that time?
You should look harder at this Israel thing.
IMO there’s a strong third schism in the works right now, before calling this merely a “new approach,” study the East/West Schism.
It was not only leavened versus unleavened bread, Rome/Constantinople, rulers whose alliances turned church disagreements into political conflict.
That is what concerns me. Once civil power claims a friendly role in defining religion’s proper public place, deciding boundaries, or settling which beliefs are acceptable, the dispute no longer remains spiritual or friendly tolerance of differences.
What exactly is missing from the protections we already have that requires DOJ to enter that territory?
There’s a real line between “religious liberty” and a federal office deciding which theology gets protected and which gets managed. Your alarm bell is the conditional part.
The minute the state starts naming protected religious outcomes, sorting acceptable speech, or policing where belief can show up in public life, it stops being simple neutrality and starts looking like an enforcement framework with a friendly label. The historical parallels you pulled are the right ones.
England didn’t jump straight to a clean, polished persecution machine; it built pressure with oaths, test lines, and civic requirements that turned doctrine into compliance. Once worship-adjacent loyalty tests get baked into civil life, the state doesn’t need to ban the faith outright to control it.
That’s why the Israel / antisemitism / Zionism boundary gets people spun up so fast. If a commission starts treating some religious or political positions as beyond scrutiny while calling the whole thing “religious freedom,” then it’s already doing boundary enforcement, not just protection.
The strongest counterpoint is that some of this may just be bureaucratic overreach, not a grand national church scheme. But overreach is how these things usually arrive: one commission, one definition, one “safe” line at a time.
Oh, Robert. I would guess you didn’t read the column. You should. Childers is a lawyer, so he explains the significance much better than I can.
Simple fact. Since government and religion must exist within the same society, there is absolutely no escape that there will be interaction. In my understanding, what this policy says is that what we have had for at least the last 70 or more years is the absolute opposite of what the Founders thought religion’s place was. We have had that old sawhorse, the “wall of separation” used on us as a cudgel to force us to comply with governmental rules. The Dems have then taken this phrase to justify NOT allowing religious freedom, but instead demanded compliance with governmental rules. Covid is a great example.
Of late SCOTUS has been undoing this long trend. They have, among other things, said that it is now OK to have a coach lead his team/school in prayer. You can’t possibly be against that! No one if forced to pray - or even acknowledge the prayer, but those who wish to now can. And an adult is allowed to lead the kids in prayer. That to me is altogether appropriate.
Israel is a political issue. It is not a religious one. Yes, it is mostly Jewish in composition, but when you allow ALL discussion of religious to hinge upon Israel and Jews (and antisemitism) you have basically let the Israelis win. It would hardly be a surprise that they wish what’s best - for them. So muddying the waters with antisemitism and religion is a legitimate goal of Israel. But WE don’t have to allow them to control the terms of debate. Not everything is a Jewish subterfuge. Sometimes things are simply what they are.
The Weaponization Working Group, Bondi’s February 2025 order required quarterly reports to the White House and named Jack Smith, the Mar a Lago search, January 6 prosecutorial tactics, the FBI’s Catholic memo, the Garland school board memo, FACE Act cases, and whistleblower retaliation as subjects for review, where are the completed, public resolutions for each of those named matters?
Do we need to discuss Epstein?
The DOJ doesn’t actually do justice, so I sure don’t trust them to do religion.
Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, Zionism, settlements, war, foreign aid, territorial claims, and Israeli state policy are political matters. They should be open to the same scrutiny, criticism, and opposition as the conduct of any other government.
That is why I do not want DOJ or a Religious Liberty Commission drawing lines around Israel, Zionism, antisemitism, theology, and speech.
DOJ should prosecute actual threats, violence, vandalism, unlawful discrimination, and civil rights violations against any person. That is its job.
It is not DOJ’s job to become a religious caretaker, a theological referee, or a political shield for a foreign state. If Israel is political, then political criticism of Israel must remain political criticism unless there is actual evidence of unlawful conduct against a person.
Religious liberty protects Jews, Christians, Muslims, and everyone else from coercion by government. It does not require government to place a foreign government or political ideology inside a religious protection framework.
Can you see this yet?
That makes the issue much worse IMO, why do you think these words exist?
Woe is a warning, I’ve had attorney’s suggest I take the bar, if given only two choices between being a lawyer of joining the Hells Angels MC I’d joint the Hells Angels MC first, not because I don’t like the law, I do very much, and of course like to ride but …I digress
Verily means truly, truly publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.
What do lawyers do?
Protect the law?
Or guard secrets?
Zohar/Kabbalah?
Sure, not all lawyers know all fields of law, but not all MC’s deal crank or run guns, does it change the average Joes perception?
So a lawyer talking religion doesn’t impress me any more that the DOJ keeping it safe, the ceremony remains in every age in altered dress: robes, oaths, seals, formal language, prescribed motions, titles, raised benches, official rooms, ever compare a court room to a Catholic church?
Rows of pews where the people may sit, stand when directed, an area you can not cross without invitation, a man with a black robe, sacred texts, and a gold fringed flag, you think that flag meets US code?
4 USC Ch. 1: THE FLAG
§1. Flag; stripes and stars on
The flag of the United States shall be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; and the union of the flag shall be forty-eight stars, white in a blue field.
Find me the gold
What’s the secret?
Who mentioned Jews?
The Catholic Church has a lot of Jewish cermony itself, why?
Was Jesus, were the His disciples not Jewish?
With so much in common, so much similar, how do you discern one from another?
You mistake Israel as synonymous with Jews, as you see the Star of David?
The modern State of Israel did not design its flag from scratch in 1948. It adopted the banner already used by the Zionist movement.
At the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897 ,The Zionist movement was a modern political national movement, mainly late 1800s onward, seeking a legally recognized Jewish homeland in Palestine. It was not the same thing as Judaism, and not all Jews agreed with it. It included secular nationalists, religious Zionists, socialists, liberals, and later hard right currents.
?Do you not trust the DOJ on principle or because you think it’s corrupt despite Trump’s attempts to rectify it. ?Do you not trust Tulsi’s work as DNI. I would generally NOT trust a DNI, but I think Tulsi has done exemplary work.
Seems to me Trump has mostly done the right thing since his re-election. There have been gaps, missteps, some obfuscation, but in truth I don’t know just what pressures and threats he is dealing with and what his current priorities are. Seems he is necessary everywhere and we know he can’t BE everywhere at once.
It has taken us at least 90+ years to get here. Some might even argue it goes all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt - certainlyWilson which would make it >100 years, mebbe even 125 years. We cannot expect ALL of it will be undone in two years - at least not without exposing the nation to total chaos.
I think the current policy, as set forth in this report, is a step in the right direction. I see it not as any definition of what is a religion (although we have gone through those kind of steps before - check Utah’s application for statehood) as much as a declaration that the DOj will not mix itself into questions of religion. Religion is guaranteed us in the 1st Amendment. The Democrats turned that on its head, using T. Jefferson’s comment in a private letter to then justify intruding into what and where you can practice religion as you see fit. To me this only resets the relationship as it once was when the nation was founded.
Religion has always been important to Americans. This would allow it to return to that place of respect and importance. There is one other aspect to consider. While 1A allows you to worship as you choose it does not allow you to impinge upon others, nor to perform criminal acts in response to religion. Islam is still on thin ice IMM.
Your perspective on the DOJ’s role in religious freedom is interesting, especially regarding the First Amendment.
The idea that the DOJ should not interfere with religious practices aligns with the foundation of religious liberty in the U.S. It’s true that the historical context of governmental intrusion into religious matters has evolved significantly over the past century.
The balance between freedom of worship and the responsibility not to infringe upon others’ rights is crucial. This reset you mention could pave the way for a more respectful relationship with faith in public life.
What specific aspects of the DOJ’s new policy do you see as most impactful moving forward
You’re almost 80 correct? So you’ve seen a good nation, what made the nation good that existed then that does not exist now?
For most of the last ninety years, America did not become weaker because government left religion alone; it became weaker as religious belonging, church attendance, family formation, and the authority of inherited moral limits all thinned out.
Gallup found membership in a church fell from 73% of adults in 1937 to below half by 2020, while Pew reports that Christian identification fell from about 90% in the early 1990s to roughly two-thirds today.
This problem is not solved by lawmakers of any sort, it’s solved by disciples.
In 1960, roughly one child in ten was not living with both married parents. By the latest Census measure, it is roughly one child in three.
We do not need the state to manage religion. We need to stop building conditions that make fathers optional. A child learns duty, restraint, worship, protection, and responsibility chiefly through lived example in the home. When a father is absent, detached, or reduced to a payment source, the child loses one of the ordinary channels through which those things are shown. Church cannot simply be replaced by a federal office, and faith cannot be repaired by government proclamation. The home must again become a place where a child sees a man submit himself to truth, duty, and God.
A father does not replace God, but he gives the child a living example of ordered authority: he is under God, and therefore responsible to lead, provide, protect, correct, and surrender himself to truth. Likewise, the Church needs real shepherds.
The dispute to whether Christ gave the whole flock one visible universal father in Peter’s succession, or whether He gave local shepherds under His direct headship without a single earthly head is the same example, make it easy to have no father, no head, but determine for yourself, i.e. no delegation of authority, and therefore a downward spiral.
So, lets think this through
Here is the operative word do not miss it, commanded
a porter does what?
has charge of the gate, and combine with the keys
So the Church of England became the national break from Rome, and from that break came one of the most influential Protestant streams in the English speaking world. Its founding act was not merely a dispute over doctrine. It was a king taking the visible governing authority of the church in his realm and attaching it to the crown.
The king as in civil order took over as moral compass for so many people, the same war as is in the home, no father.
Let me digress a bit, we don’t fight the visible fight
High places,
power of the air
Jovis pater
pater as I’ve shown before PIE root *pəter- “father” (source also of Sanskrit pitar-, Greek pater, Latin pater, Old Persian pita, Old Irish athir “father”)
hence Jupiter = god father, but Jupiter, in Latin, was associated with “the air or heavens,” and the name is explained as Jovis pater—“Father Jove.” The first part, Jov- or Iov-, points to the bright sky or heavenly realm; -piter is related to Latin pater, Greek patēr, and English “father.” Jupiter was therefore Rome’s supreme sky-father: the divine ruler of heaven, thunder, oaths, law, and the state.
So way the f back greeks/romans worshipped whom do you figure?
Then came a man who was killed by this civil system, that man was most impressed by what type of faith?
delegation of authority.
So two things, Father authority is important and cloned, has been a long time, why clone, simple, copy what works, why attack, simple, attach what works.
in 90 we’ve picked up speed, but this has been ongoing much longer, much longer and many fronts, but the gates of hell shall never prevail, win over some recruits, absolutely, but not prevail.
So then is it
?
What can I say, I simply don’t trust these powers, maybe John Kay for president
I think what the Founding Fathers meant by “freedom of religion” was the freedom to chose any moral system which prohibits robbery, murder, marital infidelity, and false testimony. I think they would have agreed that a human legislator has no authority to permit these where G.d has already prohibited them.
In their recent history, pilgrims had been refugees from Old World persecution of their beliefs. Rather than choose one church and start the Old World process over again, they saw a few faiths peacefully coexisting in the colonies, and sought to preserve that culture of peace built on faith and strength. This, I believe, is what they codified as the First Amendment.
At the start of our nation, atheism was a fringe. The norm was some form of Protestant Christianity, or thus-influenced Deism. Thus the reliance on oaths of office mentioning G.d, and the faith-based invocations of legislative sessions still practiced today. Not insignificantly, America is one of the few countries which invoke G.d on our currency - in the context of a motto of unity under Him.
I think what the DOJ is doing here is likely positive, inviting G.d back into the public sphere. Our nation needs to believe in absolute moral standards again. These are being attacked incessantly in “higher” education, and moral nihilism is infiltrating K-12 now as well.
If there were an official push to make the people convert to some particular faith, of course that would run afoul of 1A. On the other hand, protecting the faithful of a particular faith which is most often targeted for religious violence is entirely in the spirit of protecting freedom of religion.
Anti-zionism clothes itself in political terms, but its intensity, its bias against one particular nation, and its tropes show that it’s just old Jew hatred dressed up in new clothes.
True. But some time had passed between then and 1791 when 1A was ratified. I think we had learned from history, since 1A would make that sort of persecution illegal.
It’s the same in both cases, ways and means to keep us separated
It goes down the same as the thousand before
No one’s getting smarter, no one’s learning the score
Your never-ending spree of death and violence and hate
Is gonna tie your own rope, tie your own rope, tie your own…
The constitution originally only kept the Federal government from imposing a religion on the states. Massachusetts constitution already had a state-imposed religion; that didn’t change until significantly after the ratification of the constitution. So 1A did NOT protect the INDIVIDUAL RIGHT to worship as desired. It only kept the feds from imposing a religion on all states.
The original colonies consisted of two main groups of religious beliefs - the North were from North Umberland and Protestant, the South were cavaliers from West Essex and generally Presbyterian. Those two groups did not see eye-to-eye on religion. Indeed, there was a planning meeting before the Declaration, of North & South and they couldn’t agree who would give the benediction over the lunch!
1 A fights went on through much of the 19th century, with the 14th incorporating the BOR as individual rights. So what you know as “freedom of speech” and " freedom of religion " were hard-fought victories at SCOTUS level. 2A is only going through that crucible today. If you look at the history of 2A litigation you find it very scarce - until recently.
Your take on the First Amendment is thought-provoking. The historical context you provided highlights the complexities of religious freedom in early America.
It’s true that the original intent seemed more focused on preventing federal imposition rather than guaranteeing individual rights outright. The evolution of those rights through the 14th Amendment and SCOTUS rulings really underscores how hard-fought they were.
It’s interesting to see how the Second Amendment is now undergoing a similar journey. What do you think are the most significant challenges facing 2A rights today compared to the past
Getting SCOTUS TO RECOGNIZE individual supremacy on weapons. We have for too long been under the totally misguided Democrat sense that firearms should be “regulated”. We are way over-regulated as it is - on all manner of things.
The push for SCOTUS to recognize individual supremacy on firearms is definitely a hot topic. It’s frustrating when regulations seem to pile up, especially when they feel disconnected from the original intent of the Second Amendment.
The conversation about individual rights versus government regulation is crucial. Many believe that the current regulatory environment stifles personal freedoms.
What specific changes do you think would make a difference in how we approach gun rights
but …I digress
