Churches, start your engines

OPINION:

Park City, UTAH — West Virginia, for the third year in a row, scored dead last in the 2025 “Religious Liberty in the States” survey conducted by the Center for Religion, Culture and Democracy. West Virginia, the state that’s voted for the Republican candidate for president since 2000 — and for Donald Trump, not Kamala Harris, by a margin of 70 percent to 28 percent. West Virginia, the state where Republicans just won the governor’s office, retained both House seats and a Senate seat that had been considered safely Democrat.

Meanwhile, in this same survey, Illinois claimed the number three spot in terms of protecting religious liberty.

The takeaway is that religious persecution knows no political bounds.

Republican controlled states, while seemingly on the side of religious liberties, aren’t always coming through in the clinch.

This is why churches need to step up, step out of their comfort zones and get more involved in politics and culture. Just because Donald Trump won the White House and as such, reeled in many of the insanities of the Democrat Party — the transgenderism, the open borders, the taxpayer funding for issues that are contrary to the conscious of Christians and conservatives — doesn’t mean that America is chugging along a smooth and easy path toward long-lasting freedom.

America is only as free as its church community is strong.

Americans can only retain their liberties so long as their religious leaders are engaged in culture, and teaching their congregations to likewise engage — and fight, fight, fight.

Top ten on this state rankings are, in order, Florida, Montana, Illinois, Ohio, Mississippi, Arkansas, South Carolina, Washington, Utah and Tennessee. The bottom ten are, in order, from 41-through-50, Wisconsin, South Dakota, California, North Carolina, New York, Vermont, Nebraska, Michigan, Wyoming and West Virginia.

But none scored perfectly.

None ranked above 74.6 percent — Florida’s score — on a list of dozens of criteria used to determine a state’s protection of religious liberty.

This is subpar. No state has bragging rights.

In a land of citizens who take their rights and liberties from the Creator, the fact that the best states can offer in terms of protecting religious freedom — which is the basis of God-given individualism — is a 74.6 percent, well then, there’s work to be done. Trump in the political world may be taking care of much that has bothered both conservatives and Christians for years; decades even. But it’s up to churches and up to Christians in the church community to take on more of a role in ensuring the long-lasting protections of individual rights and liberties for all Americans.

God-given rights and liberties cannot last if those who know God best — the believers — don’t actively fight against the growing secularized culture and ensuing corrupt government. Abandoning politics and failing to engage in culture are not biblical teachings — not truthful ones, anyway. And Christians who say the Bible teaches to live in this world but not of this world as a matter of dismissing any involvement in culture and politics are wrong. Letting the wicked have their way only breeds more wickedness. Who’s left to protect the innocent?

Who’s left to fight for God’s glory?

If America is supposed to be the shining light on the hill for all the world to see as an example of freedom and justice and liberty — then Americans of faith must get involved in all of society. Christians should take these years of Trump not as a time of rest, but as a time to push harder and for more.

If it’s not God-given, it’s government-granted. And if it’s government-granted, then freedom certainly falls.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.