Recent News & Columns
Here are recent columns and news items from the Baptist Joint Committee. Visit our blog and read our monthly magazine, Report from the Capital, to stay current on all religious liberty news. You can also read our press releases online.
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U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear cases involving religious school funding, parent rights to opt out of grade school curriculum
In the last two weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a pair of religious liberty cases, one of which is a closely watched case in Oklahoma that may reshape the landscape of church-state law surrounding government funding of religion, and the other involves parents’ challenge to a school district removing their ability to opt out of reading curriculum assignments that they object to on religious grounds.
BJC urges federal appeals court to reject Louisiana law requiring public school classrooms to post the Ten Commandments
H.B. 71 represents a dangerous step toward the entangling of our civic and religious institutions. It chooses a particular version of a text sacred to Christians, picking sides and improperly expressing a preference in long-standing religious debates among and between religious denominations.
Protecting religious liberty in 2025 requires all of us to work together
As BJC Executive Director Amanda Tyler wrote, “The response we need in this moment of crisis for many of our neighbors and our country is a recommitment to involvement in our democracy by every person.”
White House announces strategy, action plan to counter Islamophobia
“Religious freedom must be for everyone, and this initiative encourages a deeper understanding of and accommodation for religious practices.”
Injunction halts New Jersey constitutional provision barring taxpayer funding for building or repairing houses of worship
“The ‘play in the joints’” historically afforded to states between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause “seems to be over,” writes a judge in New Jersey.
With battles in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, public school classrooms are a troubling religious liberty hotspot
A public school classroom should be a place where all students feel welcome regardless of their religious perspective. Instead, it is quickly becoming a laboratory for activists seeking to promote a Christian nationalist agenda.
Voters soundly reject school voucher initiatives in multiple states
In this year’s November election, voters once again said “no” to school vouchers in ballot initiatives across three different states. The results send a clear message: Americans do not want taxpayer dollars to fund private schools, including religious schools, especially not at the expense of public school funding.
New book from BJC’s Amanda Tyler offers concrete solutions to generational problem of Christian nationalism
A new book from BJC Executive Director Amanda Tyler tackles the gravest threat to religious liberty in the United States — Christian nationalism — and explains what can be done about it.
Oklahoma’s regulations leave little choice but to purchase specific Trump-endorsed Bible for public schools
The Bibles-in-classrooms directive already raises significant church-state issues, and now Oklahoma’s request for bids to satisfy the requirement is so specific that it seems to leave only one option for which Bible the state can purchase: the controversial “God Bless the USA Bible” recently promoted by former President Donald Trump.
In new lawsuit, religious nonprofit targets Johnson Amendment in order to endorse political candidates without losing tax-exempt status
The Johnson Amendment protects nonprofits from being entangled in electoral politics, and in turn it protects taxpayers from unwittingly providing tax exemptions to an agent of a political campaign.
