Church State Council News

May 20, 2025

Groff v. DeJoy case settles for $1 million. Church State Council President Alan Reinach represented Gerald Groff in his religious discrimination case against the United States Postal Service, which went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The Court unanimously ruled in favor of Groff, establishing a new standard for "undue hardship" under Title VII, which significantly strengthens the law for people of faith. On remand, the district court ruled that it was a disputed fact as to whether the Postal Service would experience undue hardship if it granted Groff an exemption from working on Sundays. A trial was set to start on Aug. 19. On May 13, 2025, the parties reached a settlement agreement.
Is the Trump Administration destroying what remains of the wall of separation between church and state? “We’re bringing back religion in our country,” Trump said at a recent Rose Garden event, on the National Day of Prayer, when he announced the creation of the Religious Liberty Commission. “We must always be one nation under God, a phrase that they would like to get rid of, the radical left.” “But others, including some Christians, are alarmed by these acts — saying Trump isn't protecting religion in general but granting a privileged status to politically conservative expressions of Christianity that happen to include his supporters.”

“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) initiated a compliance review of a hospital to investigate the hospital’s compliance with Federal law that safeguards conscience rights in health care – a Federal conscience protection statute known as the Church Amendments. OCR opened the review based on information that ultrasound technicians employed by the hospital allegedly faced potential termination because they have religious objections to conducting ultrasounds in abortion procedures.” Anthony Archeval, Acting OCR Director said that “Health care professionals should not be coerced into, fired for, or driven out of the profession for declining to perform procedures that Federal law says they do not have to perform based on their religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

“Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a lawsuit Monday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on behalf of a Christian summer camp seeking to uphold its religious and commonsense beliefs about biological sex. The camp is challenging a recent Colorado Department of Early Childhood policy update that forces licensed resident camps to allow campers to use private facilities of the opposite sex.”

Brian Kaylor writes about Esther, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who fled the deadly civil war in the DRC and was given asylum in the United States. Esther is now seeking to bring her daughter to the U.S., but under the Trump Administration’s suspension of refugee resettlement programs Josephine is unable to come. Meanwhile, however, in a controversial and some say hypocritical move, the administration is resettling white refugees from South Africa.

In his opinion piece, “Trump can’t stop schools from teaching the truth,” A. Scott Bolden writes: “Ironically, while denouncing indoctrination by the left, the Trump administration seeks to subject students to its own right-wing indoctrination, filled with false claims about an America without flaws — an America that has never existed.”

Upcoming Events

Save the date! On October 5, 2025 at 10 am, a Religious Liberty Brunch, sponsored by the Northern California Conference in partnership with the Church State Council, will take place in Roseville, California. Pastors, church leaders, and religious liberty leaders are invited to join us for a thought-provoking panel discussion we’re calling Finding Religious Liberty In a World of Counterfeits + Is It Time to Re-Think Separation of Church and State? We’ll ask, what is religious liberty? and explore how Bible prophecy informs our outlook on topics like the separation of church and state. Panelists include: Aaron Brieno, Gene Sagaral, Judy Iversen, Jose Marin, and Steve Allred, moderated by Andre Watkins.

“Is a fully state-funded Roman Catholic charter school constitutionally permissible? Until recently that question would have seemed laughable. Today the U.S. Supreme Court isn’t laughing…The guiding principle for the current Court seems to be teleology rather than fidelity to traditions and modes of constitutional interpretation.” Read more from Liberty magazine.

Is it time to shout "fire" on free speech? Join Church State Council President Alan Reinach and Liberty editor Bettina Krause on Just Liberty in this excellent and informative interview of Aaron Terr, attorney and Director of Public Advocacy at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression). “Almost every presidential administration in America's history--from John Adams to Joe Biden--has tried to push the constitutional limits when it comes to controlling or discouraging speech it dislikes. So what's different now? And why are so many free speech advocates sounding the alarm?”

Should Christians seek political power to enforce their theological agenda on society? What do history and the Bible tell us? In this sermon, Steve Allred, Director of Government Relations for the Church State Council, explores these questions and more.

Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom - “Chronicling the history of the struggle for religious freedom from the early Christian movement through the seventeenth century, Robert Louis Wilken shows that the origins of religious freedom and liberty of conscience are religious, not political, in origin.”

The Church + State Dispatch is a monthly Substack with insights and inspiration at the intersection of church and state. Subscribe here: