U.S. Supreme Court Rules Religious Outreach Qualifies as Religious Activity

The following is a press release from Alliance Defending Freedom:

Thursday, Jun 5, 2025

The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch regarding a decision Thursday from the U.S. Supreme Court in Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission in which the court unanimously overturned a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that said Catholic Charities was not a religious organization because the way it served the poor and needy was not religious enough. ADF attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of By the Hand Club for Kids, an Illinois ministry, in support of overturning the Wisconsin court ruling:

“Government has no business second-guessing the way a faith organization lives out its ministry. When the government distinguishes among religions based on theological differences in their provision of services, it unconstitutionally entangles church and state—at the expense of ministries that live out their faith, at least in part, through serving their communities. The U.S. Supreme Court rightly struck down the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling that would have allowed government officials to inevitably favor religious views and activities they are familiar with, while excluding those that are either unfamiliar or disfavored. Religious ministries that aid a diverse range of people outside their congregations are still engaged in religious activity, and we applaud the court for upholding these core First Amendment freedoms unanimously.”

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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Politics on Sunday Morning: Guest Column

Talk to the average critic of the evangelical church—perhaps someone who has “deconstructed” and now resents their religious upbringing—and one of the first complaints they have is that Christians are too political. Especially since 2016, it has become common to smear conservative Christians for being more interested in “making America great again” than in making disciples.  

This perception of evangelicals (that their churches are too political) is so strong that sociologist Christian Smith cited it in his recent book, Why Religion Went Obsolete as one of the main reasons for the long-term decline in church attendance.  

Here’s the irony: Evangelical churches aren’t in fact that political by the typical definition of the term, nor do their members want them to be. That public perception is basically a myth.  

Summarizing several recent and large surveys, statistician Ryan Burge showed that “very few houses of worship are talking about political issues on a regular basis,” and even the recognizable pastors on social media doing a lot of culture warring are “outliers.”  

In its 2022 Health of Congregations Survey, the Public Religion Research Institute asked regular church attenders how often their pastors talk about a variety of issues. 90% said their clergy never or rarely talk about election or voter fraud. 92% said their churches never or rarely talk about President Trump. Only 9% said their clergy often bring up abortion, while 58% said the topic never or rarely comes up.  

The most frequently discussed “political” topics across all congregations were poverty and inequality, with 66% saying their churches sometimes or often bring up these subjects. But that could just be from reading the Gospels!  

Looking specifically at evangelicals, the popular wisdom that they idolize politics doesn’t hold up. Only 9% said that their church is more divided by politics today than it was five years ago—lower than the number of non-evangelicals and Catholics who saw such division in their churches. And just 14% of evangelicals agreed with the statement, “I wish my church talked more about political division in this country,” compared with 86% who disagreed.

Far from rallying their political tribe, most evangelicals appear to prefer their pastor stick with preaching the word of God. Burge remarked:

I get the very clear sense from this data that any pastor who chooses to speak up about political division in the United States is going to anger a whole lot of their flock. … You just don’t see a lot of church going folks who are keen on their pastor talking about what is going on in the world of politics, just the opposite. 

When compared with surveys of how the unchurched perceive Christians, the disconnect is glaring. It turns out quite a few non-churchgoing Americans have no idea what goes on inside churches. As Burge concluded: 

Doing a lot of public-facing work on religion has taught me that a significant number of people who aren’t religious or don’t attend church on a regular basis have a misperception about what happens on a Sunday morning. The vast majority of pastors aren’t talking about politics on a regular basis. 

This raises a couple of interesting questions. Should we be talking more about politics from the pulpit? And if so, what qualifies as “politics”? 

As I said recently on Breakpoint, there’s a clear difference between pastors commenting on foreign policy and being willing to oppose the killing of unborn babies. One is nuanced and requires great expertise while the other is a very clear-cut moral issue. Not all issues that get labeled “political” are created equal. 

But on a deeper level, maybe we should rethink what counts as “political.” In the sense that loving our neighbors, exercising dominion over God’s world, and stewarding our citizenship are earthly duties of Christians, Christianity could be called deeply and unavoidably “political.”  

Without ever bringing up candidates, debating elections, or drawing up tribal battle lines, pastors and teachers who do their job by telling the whole story of redemption are saying a few things in no uncertain terms: that Christ is sovereign over all of human existence, that this world and the way we choose to live in it matter to Him, and that He intends His gospel and its effects to permeate society, culture, and government. That sounds political, by any reasonable definition.  

None of this means evangelicals who answered this survey are wrong for wanting to focus on the Word of God, or that we should spend every Sunday culture-warring and discussing the latest headlines. Far from it! What it does mean is that Christianity has unavoidable implications for the here and now, and that even as we keep the main thing the main thing in our churches, we should never forget that our worship has implications beyond them. Otherwise, we’ll be just as mistaken as those who say we worship politics.

Copyright 2025 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

Arkansas Schools Can Offer Released Time—Here’s How

Recently we have written about released time programs at Arkansas’ public schools.

Legally, public schools may set aside released time during the school week for students to voluntarily attend religious classes off-campus.

Released time makes it possible for students to be excused from school so they can attend Bible studies or other religious classes during normal school hours.

Thanks to federal court rulings, released time programs have been in operation for over 100 years across the U.S. — although some states have chosen to enact laws officially recognizing released time and outlining school policies authorizing it.

Unfortunately, Arkansas has no law concerning released time at public schools. So how can public school students in Arkansas utilize released time?

In 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court case Zorach v. Clauson affirmed released time programs in America. In a 6-3 decision, the Court found that released time did not violate the First Amendment. As long as these programs are voluntary — with written parental consent — privately funded, and operate off school grounds, they are constitutional.

Generally speaking, released time in Arkansas requires three components:

  1. A church or other organization that wants to fund and conduct a released time program off-campus.
  2. School board approval for a policy authorizing students to leave campus for released time during school hours.
  3. Parental consent for the student to participate in the program.

Once a church or other group properly plans and prepares to operate a released time program, they can go to the local school board to seek approval and then collaborate with the school district to set the best time in the day for a released time program.

As long as the program meets off-campus, obtains parental consent, and is privately funded, then the school board may authorize the program. 

The private entity that oversees the released time program is encouraged to work with the local school district and school board to set up a mutually agreeable schedule that benefits students.  If planned correctly, released time programs generally do not conflict with a student’s core courses like math or English.

Students can already participate in multiple programs during the school week that are extracurricular, including activities that are not on school grounds. These can include pursuing career and technical programs, participating in academic clubs, student governments, the arts, and volunteering in community work. In that regard, released time is no different from many other extracurricular activities.

Family Council hopes to work with state and local policymakers in the future to promote released time programs and help pass a law formally recognizing released time in Arkansas. If you are interested in starting a released time program in your community, you are welcome to contact our office at 501-375-7000 for more information.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.