hero default image

Along the Journey  |  

What Comes Next: Addressing Politics as the Church

In the 19th century, the Church made a bad bet, a bet that started at Columbia Theological Seminary.

During this time, the Southern Presbyterian Church was in the middle of difficult times—thinking about how to engage slavery and the treatment of African Americans.

And so, at that time, it decided the best thing to do would be to not talk about it at all, to develop what it called a spirituality of the Church movement, in which the Church spoke of spiritual things and avoided talking about political things.

But we can’t NOT talk about political things.

Politics makes its way into the Church, and the Church makes its way out into society. So when we tried not talking about political things, we ended up talking about political things badly.

There’s a better way to go forward now, to talk about politics wisely, faithfully, and hopefully productively, in a way that may increase the light and decrease the noise.

What Comes Next: Addressing Politics as a Church is a path forward when faithfully discussing these matters.

The online resource includes a range of workshops and interviews that we have created on various topics related to thinking about and engaging political issues in and beyond the Church, whether

The workshops are presented by Columbia Seminary faculty and leading scholars from around the United States, allowing participants to see and think about doing politics better.

The workshops come with curriculum and can be used in an adult Sunday school class or a small group study. I also interviewed scholars and activists about voting rights and how to discuss them or discuss matters such as race.

The resource material weighs in on many things, but I want to be clear about what this course is NOT; it is not an avenue to shape any particular partisan perspective.

These workshops and interviews are neither for Republicans or Democrats, for the left or the right. They are for persons of faith trying to think about being faithful in a world where we must engage in politics.

That’s it, that’s all.

When we engage in politics well, we’re following the great commandments that have been given to us by God.

We need to love God, who is at work even in political systems and love our neighbors with whom we share political positions and differences.

As we learn to love God and love our neighbors, we better approach faithful, thoughtful, and hopefully productive political systems that we might all be better off for.

Click HERE to gain access to the online resource through June 2025.


~Mark Douglas, J Erskine Love Professor of Christian Ethics at Columbia Theological Seminary

Along the Journey