Prior to the American Revolution, American churches enjoyed a remarkable degree of freedom by the standards of Europe at the time. Pastors from the pulpit criticized governments, policies, and other matters. They defended their own theological positions, often using extremel language in criticizing opponents. In particular, many Protestant groups criticized the Roman Catholic Church.

During the American Revolution, pastors played an important role, and many served in Washington’s army. As an example, in 1774, two full years before the Declaration of Independence, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts stated:

“…we cannot but acknowledge the goodness of Heaven in constantly supplying us with preachers of the Gospel whose concern has been the temporal and spiritual happiness of this people…and do therefore recommend…that they assist us in avoiding that dreadful slavery with which we are now threatened…” [1]

Jonas Clark, Pastor of the Church in Lexington, Massachusetts, was a case in point.  He actively authored many papers recording the town’s position on liberty.  Without him, there may have been no “shot heard round the world!” [2]

The Danbury Letter.

As mentioned last week, when North Americans gained their freedom from Great Britain, during the time of the Articles of Confederation and the adoption of the Constitution, many feared that various states might adopt a “State Religion,” limiting the religious freedom of other groups. The First Amendment responded to that fear.

In 1801, the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson, complementing him on his election to the president presidency. In the letter, they expressed their views of the importance of religious liberty to the nation. In the letter, they expressed their hope that Jefferson would express his views as to the importance of religious liberty to the nation.[3] Jefferson, who was himself a deist, responded to the letter defending religious liberty:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. [4]

Several points in this response stand out immediately. Jefferson speaks of “natural rights.” Jefferson aligns with the Enlightenment version of the natural law tradition, believing that human nature yields certain rights applicable to all people. This is why, in the Declaration of Independence, he speaks of human beings as endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.[5]  Jefferson strongly believed that freedom of religion and speech were inherent natural rights belonging to all people, and that the government should not interfere with them. Second, this means the government should not suppress matters of faith and worship or the public expression of views. Third, the government still has the authority to enact laws and ensure people follow them for the benefit of society.

The Purpose of the Phrase “Wall of Separation”

The phrase Wall of Separation” used by Jefferson in his reply has been the source of much controversy. It is important to read carefully what Jefferson said and intended. Jeffersons reply says:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.[6]

Jefferson clearly states that “should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” In other words, the phrase “a wall of separation” was not intended to mean that religion should not influence opinions on issues. The “Wall of Separation” protects religious people’s freedom to practice their religion. In our society, the phrase is too often used to deny religious people the right to speak about their views in public life. Unfortunately, in the hands of modern courts, it has come not to protect religious profession and expression but to limit them. How that came about is a sad and complicated story.

Jefferson and John Adams exchanged a series of letters in their later years (primarily from 1812 to 1826), after reconciling their friendship following years of political estrangement. While their correspondence covered a wide range of philosophical, historical, and personal topics, they also touched on the U.S. Constitution’s role and its implications for future generations, often in the context of governance, aristocracy, and the passage of time.

Jefferson tended to emphasize generational sovereignty—the idea that one generation should not impose binding obligations on the next—echoing his earlier views expressed to James Madison in 1789. Adams, by contrast, stressed institutional continuity, learning from history, and safeguarding their era’s fragile achievements against future threats. Interestingly, both agreed that the free exercise of the Christian religion in particular was important to the success of what has been called “The American Experiment” in free self-government.[7]

In his first Inaugural Address, Jefferson urged his fellow countrymen to put the bitterness of the past campaign to rest and protect the hard-won gains of the American Revolution. He urged a return to reason and the avoidance of political intolerance, which is just as dangerous as religious intolerance. He urges an enlightened religious participation in politics with these words:

Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter — with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people?[8]

Jefferson in his inaugural address was not advocating a purely secular society, but a society characterized by a virtuous and tolerant citizenry.

In a famous letter to Jefferson, Adams proclaimed:

The general Principles, on which the Fathers Atchieved Independence, were the only Principles in which, that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen9 could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their Address, or by me in my Answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all those Sects were United: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities Sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.[9]

Once again, in this letter, Adams, a deist, was recognizing the importance of faith and moral principles in a seccessful democratic republic.

I’ve taken time to introduce the relationship between church and state, hoping to make the following principle clear: The First Amendment was not designed to protect the state from the church or to shield non-religious people from hearing religious opinions. Rather, it was intended to protect religious people’s right to make their faith known in public life. It was not meant to prevent churches from expressing their views, even when addressing political issues. It was intended to protect that right.

The Wall of Separation in Modern Jurisprudence.

The wall-of-separation argument entered post-World War II Supreme Court jurisprudence in Everson v. Board of Education of the Township of Ewing.[10] In this case, a New Jersey law authorized local school boards to reimburse the costs of transportation to and from schools, including private schools. Nearly all the private schools that benefited from this law were Catholic schools. Everson, a taxpayer in Ewing Township, filed a lawsuit alleging that this indirect aid to religion violated both the New Jersey state constitution and the First Amendment. After losing in state courts, Everson appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on purely federal constitutional grounds.

Justice Black, writing for the majority, upheld the law and concluded that the division between church and state had not been breached, stating, “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. New Jersey has not breached it here.” In reaching that conclusion, the court noted that the statute required reimbursements to be given without regard to religious affiliation to any religious group that qualified for the assistance. In other words, it did not establish your religion.

The majority decision in Ewing met with vigorous, well-reasoned opposition. Justice Jackson focused on the nature of parochial schools and the religious education students inevitably receive there. He dodges the fact that the New Jersey Statute specifically did not establish any religion (the constitutional barrier) and treated all religions equally. Justice Rutledge, in his dissent, makes the point that I want to bring my own analysis upon:

The Amendment’s purpose was not to strike merely at the official establishment of a single sect, creed or religion, outlawing only a formal relation such as had prevailed in England and some of the colonies. Necessarily, it was to uproot all such relationships. But the object was broader than separating church and state in this narrow sense. It was to create a complete and permanent separation of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority by comprehensively forbidding every form of public aid or support for religion. [11]

The phrase “It was to create a complete and permanent separation of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority by comprehensively forbidding every form of public aid or support for religion.” This is not what either the Constitution or the relevant textual history would indicate. This is the importation of what political philosophers call “Sphere Sovereignty” into the Constitution.[12]

Let us remind ourselves of the exact wording of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;….” There was nothing in the New Jersey Law that forced anyone to worship in any particular way or to refrain from worshiping in any way. It neither established a religion nor forced any one to cease worshiping their God. This is the only “Wall of Separation” contained in the Constitution.

At this point, I want to suggest a different way of looking at the issue of the relationship of Church and State and interpreting the First Amendment. The purpose of the Amendment was simply to prohibit the adoption of a mandatory state religion. The reason was not to create a Wall of Separation but to protect religious people and groups from government interference in their religion. There was no notion of protecting the sovereignty of a secular state or of establishing a “Naked Public Square” walled off from interference by religious groups.

In fact, there can be no “Wall of Separation,” which in recent years the majority of the Court has recognized, or should there. Citizens are embodied persons, mind body, soul and spirit, and their religious views and their political views are not separate domains. What is needed is a “Public Sphere of Tolerance” religious people, their moral, political and other views, a Public Sphere of Tolerance into which the government cannot “establish a religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof.” In this Public Square of Tolerance, all views are weighed and considered as part of the great public project of creating a harmonious and just society.

More to come.

Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Verna M. Hall, Christian History of the American Revolution, (Chesapeake VA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1976), 402 found at https://heritageministriesky.com/2019/01/17/pastors-inspired-the-american-revolution-3/ (downloaded March 7, 2024).

[2] Id.

[3] Letter of the Danbury Baptist Association to Thomas Jefferson, (after October 7, 1802).

[4] Thomas Jefferson, “Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists The Final Letter as Sent” (January 1, 1802), downloaded from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html (March 7, 2024).

[5] Declaration of Independence (US 1776).

[6] Danbury Letter, Footnote 4 above.

[7] In his first Inaugural Address, George Washington referred to the preservation of the “republican model of government” as an “experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people”, and later remarked that it was the “last great experiment for promoting human happiness”. George Washington, First Inaugural Address (1789).

[8] Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1801. He concludes, “Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.” Neither Adams nor Jefferson believed that religion should be banished from the public square.

[9] Letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1813). Both Adams and Jefferson were deists, not committed to a narrow version of the Christian faith or its implications for public life.

[10] Everson v. Board of Education of the Township of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1 (1947).

[11] Id, 32-33.

[12] “Sphere Sovereignty is a term used by Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). Kuyper was an influential Calvinist thinker and also the Prime Minister of the Netherlands for a time. In 1880 he gave an important address in which he suggested a mechanical order of sovereignty in which each sphere, secular and sacred had an independent sovereignty which related to each other in a mechanical way. “Now in all of these spheres or circles the cogwheels engage one another, and it is precisely because of the mutual interaction of these spheres that there is an emergence of that rich, many-sided, multi-formed human life; but in that life there is also the danger that one sphere may encroach upon the neighboring sphere; thus causing a wheel to jerk and to break cog upon cog, and interfering with the progress of the whole.” This is not the place to discuss Kuyper’s theory in detail, which I promise to do, God willing at a later time. Abraham Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty” tr, George Kamps (Public address delivered at the inauguration of the Free University, Oct. 20, 1880). It goes witboug saying that Kuyper has internalized the common mechanical view of reality that has its limited application in both science and law.

Last week’s post began a series on the First Amendment, and I’m excited to continue this week by sharing more about it, focusing on religious liberty. When I first started writing these constitutional blogs years ago, I wanted to explore the First Amendment and the challenges society faces with both freedom of speech and religion. Throughout the 20^thcentury, people strongly supported protecting these rights, especially through popular culture. However, as we moved into the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, we’ve seen attacks on religious freedom from both the left and the right. It’s quite surprising and concerning because it points to a breakdown in our national political culture. That’s why I believe this series of blogs matters, and I wish I could do an even better job explaining how vital these issues are to all of us.

Religious Freedom and the First Amendment

The First Amendment begins by protecting religious rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;….”[1] On its face, the First Amendment provides two mechanisms by which religious freedom is to be protected:

1. Congress cannot establish a religion
2. Congress cannot create laws that would prohibit the free exercise of religion.

Today, because of the 14^th Amendment, states are similarly prohibited from establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion.[2] Taken together, these two provisions prevent government from prohibiting a particular religious view or establishing one as normative within its jurisdiction.

In recent years, the Court has made many decisions on the Establishment Clause in various areas, including religious education. Applying the amendment today is difficult because of the vast social differences between America today and America in 1789. In 1789, the United States was mostly Protestant Christian. There were, however, Catholic minorities and, in Maryland, a Catholic majority. Finally, there was a Jewish minority that no less a person than George Washington indicated was protected by the First Amendment, and that their rights should be protected by the government.[3]

With the emergence of the United States as a world power and the center of the global economy, citizens from nearly every nation in the world have moved to the United States, resulting in the presence of various religious minorities within the United States. In addition, the emergence of a form of secularism that takes the form of a religious devotion in many people has created yet another group that claims a religious right to practice the religion of second or humanism. Finally, there are even groups that worship Satan and other entities that claim the right to their religious freedom. It should be obvious that it’s unlikely the founders even thought about these possibilities, and if they had, it’s doubtful they would’ve reached the same conclusions that modern people are likely to reach about the extent of the First Amendment.

Nevertheless, it’s helpful to consider the religious context and the likely intentions of the founders in adopting the First Amendment. In 1789, a majority of the population could trace their roots to England. England had an established church. Originally, that church was Roman Catholic, and later Anglican, in the form of the Church of England. Various groups that made up the original inhabitants of the United States left England because they were persecuted by the government and the established church. This included Baptists, Puritans, and others. Virginia was primarily an Episcopalian state, and for a time it seemed Episcopalians would be Virginia’s established religion.

Baptists, Presbyterians, Moravians, and others viewed this with a degree of fear. They had not left their homes for the wilderness and fought for their freedom only to end up in the same situation they had been in England. With this brief summary of the relevant history in mind, one can see that the Establishment Clause was designed to prevent the national government, and by incorporation through the 14^th Amendment, any state government, from establishing a religious sect to which all citizens were required to belong. It is worth remembering that in Europe, people who did not belong to the established religion were discriminated against in various ways. The amendment was meant to prevent that from happening.

Similarly, various religious groups who came to the United States came partly because they were restricted from exercising their religious beliefs in their country of origin. In the course of English history, for example, Puritans, Anglicans, Pilgrims, and others had been prohibited from practicing their religion/ THis was true not only in Great Britain, but in most European nations.  Put simply, the Free Exercise Clause was designed to prevent government action that would prohibit an individual from exercising their right to worship. This is the essence of the Free Exercise Clause.

The question of which kinds of state action can trigger a violation of the Establishment Clause has been a difficult one for the Court to answer. The important case of Lemon v. Kurtzman involved Pennsylvania and Rhode Island (two states with substantial Catholic populations) and programs that used taxpayer money to supplement teachers’ salaries and buy materials for teachers instructing secular subjects in private, mostly Catholic schools. The Court decided that the funding was unconstitutional because it caused excessive government entanglement with religion. In its ruling, the Court enunciated what became known as the Lemon Test. For a state program to pass muster under Lemon:

1. The statute must have a clear secular (non-religious) purpose.
2. The main effect of the legislation must neither advance nor inhibit religion.
3. The legislation must not foster excessive government entanglement with religion.

As is often the case, after issuing its decision, the court faced repeated legislative attempts to finance various programs in ways that met the Lemon test. The limit test has obvious problems: any legislation with a financial effect on a group advances that group in some way, and any failure to finance it inhibits the group. Second, whether government entanglement is excessive is purely subjective and has proven impossible to apply neutrally. Ultimately, the Court abandoned the Lemon Test.[4]

The COVID-19 Cases

The Free Exercise Clause can embroil the Court in political disputes involving both religious groups and society at large. A recent example involved various states’ responses to COVID-19. The problem in these Supreme Court cases is that, while the Constitution ceded certain limited powers to the federal government, including foreign affairs and interstate commerce, all other powers not expressly given to the federal government remained with the states, including the “police power” to protect the health, safety, and morals of the people. That is why the states still have primary jurisdiction over public health. On the other hand, the First Amendment prohibits the government from limiting freedom of religion and assembly.

In Tandon v. Newsome, the Court considered whether California could enforce COVID-19 restrictions on private gatherings as applied to applicants’ at-home religious exercise.[5] The state’s restrictions on private gatherings contained “myriad exceptions and accommodations” for secular activities comparable to religious ones, triggering strict scrutiny for Free Exercise Clause violations. The Court clearly sensed that more was at stake than public health. California was using COVID-19 as a pretext to regulate religious observance.

Tandon v. Newsome was one of several cases that reached the Court on vaccinations, mask mandates, and regulating public gatherings, including religious services. The justices’ opinions naturally focused on how much deference to give to both state rules and federal mandates aimed at safeguarding public health. The decisions explored how much discretion the government should have in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially given the freedoms the Constitution guarantees.

The decisions also examined the appropriate response to situations where it could be argued that religious institutions were not being treated with the same fairness afforded to other groups. Across the opinions, we see growing concern about how state restrictions might be affecting personal freedoms.[6] Personally, I feel the Court ultimately believed that states like California and New York went too far in restricting religious liberty, especially given the public debate over whether mass immunization, mask mandates, and the closure of public facilities were in fact successful in controlling the disease.

It is concerning that the Court’s COVID-19 decisions were decided almost entirely along a divide between the more liberal members, who backed state regulation in the name of religious freedom, and the more conservative members, who were more sensitive to individual rights. These decisions illustrate the growing division between those who believe the Constitution has an original meaning that can be determined from its text and by examining sources, and those members of the Court who believe the Court can interpret the Constitution as it sees fit under Living Constitution theory. The growth of the power and influence of the Federal government, and the concomitant growth of the willingness of secular members of the Court to allow infringement on religious liberties, should be a matter of concern across the religious divide in America.

Conclusion

This week ends with COVID-19 cases that highlight two sad truths about our current situation. First, tension always exists between different freedoms and societal needs. During COVID-19, for instance, people debated religious freedom versus government health mandates. This shows why wise leadership matters—some mandates have proven ineffective or even unwise. We need both elected and appointed leaders who love people, have broad experience, and use common sense. Second, religious communities must remember that religious freedom isn’t absolute and must sometimes give way to other urgent public demands. Whether we agree with how things were handled during the COVID crisis or not, the reality is that both the national government and the states had a responsibility to act, whether or not their actions were wise. Third, unfortunately, the COVID cases demonstrate the deep division in our politics. During the various COVID-19 proceedings, the Supreme Court’s composition changed, and so did its legal rulings in this area. Some people applauded that change; others were horrified.

A nation that does not seek to solve problems wisely and with compassion for all sides of pubic disputes, overreacts, and demonizes those who disagree is unlikely to survive over the long run. The First Amendment is one area where the growth of a radical secular component in our society, and a misunderstanding of what the “Separation of Church and State” actually entails, has caused, and continues to cause, issues within our political community. Next week, I intend to examine three theories the Supreme Court has used to interpret the Establishment Clause, and how it has been misapplied and misunderstood.

Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] US Constitution, Amendment 1.

[2] Cantwell v Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940); Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947).

[3] Sarah Skeire, “George Washington’s Letter to the Jews” (September 20, 2016), https://fee.org/articles/george-washingtons-letter-to-the-jews/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21607921915&gbraid=0AAAAADkIVmffqZzOoTPuNW13gUUsJ_YUN&gclid=CjwKCAjwoaLWBhAWEiwAnyitu4Tq6tkf9t6Yp6bR0UqW3rqN1OzHzGNPD2lX2wfYlre9tAiBztduixoCnFcQAvD_BwE, downloaded October 9, 2026).

⁴ Kennedy v Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. 507 (2022) held that the free exercise and free speech clauses of the First Amendment protect an individual engaging in a personal religious observance from government reprisal; the Constitution neither mandates nor permits the government to suppress such religious expression. In my view, this case is a good example of unnecessarily overturning a precedent. A dissenting opinion argued that the action had the implicit effect of establishing a religion since it was a coach praying. Nevertheless, it would’ have been possible to decide the decision on the narrow ground that the First Amendment right involved was absolute, notwithstanding any risk of establishing a religion, which was slight, at best.

[5] Tandon v. Newsome, 593 U.S. 61, 141 S. Ct. 1294 (2021). It should be noted that the case involved the

[6] For an exhaustive review of the cases in view of the entire history through similar and distinguishable emergencies, see Timothy C. MacDonnell, “The Supreme Court Du9ng Covid19: Keeping its Head When Those About It Were Losing Theirs” 79 South Dakota Law Review (2025) found at Washington and Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1884&context=wlufac, downloaded October 6, 2026.

When the Constitution was adopted, a few states hesitated to ratify it unless it included a Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, believed it was a mistake not to add a Bill of Rights from the start. Overall, those wary of a powerful national government felt that a Bill of Rights was important. In the end, those who felt a Bill of Rights was needed prevailed.

Justice Story, in his Commentaries, put it this way:

It has been already stated, that many objections were taken to the constitution, not only on account of its actual provisions, but also on account of its deficiencies and omissions. Among the latter, none were proclaimed with more zeal, and pressed with more effect, than the want of a bill of rights. This, it was said, was a fatal defect; and sufficient of itself to bring on the ruin of the republic.2 To this objection several answers were given; first, that the constitution did in fact contain many provisions in the nature of a bill of rights, if the whole constitution was not in fact a bill of rights; secondly, that a bill of rights was in its nature more adapted to a monarchy, than to a government, professedly founded upon the will of the people, and executed by their immediate representatives and agents; and, thirdly, that a formal bill of rights, beyond what was contained in it, was wholly unnecessary, and might even be dangerous.[1]

Jefferson was serving as ambassador to France when the Constitution was drafted and debated, but the language of the First Amendment can be traced directly to the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which Jefferson wrote. James Madison drafted an initial version of the speech and press clauses, which was introduced in the House of Representatives on June 8, 1789. After some rewriting and expansion by the House and Senate, the Amendment was adopted with almost no opposition.

The First Amendment to the Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The amendment protects five freedoms: religion, speech, the press, public assembly, and petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. These five freedoms form the foundation of our Constitutional system of government. Although religion is first among the five, I chose to start this series of blogs with freedom of speech.

Throughout most of our nation’s history, the First Amendment has been a cornerstone of American democracy, cherished for protecting our fundamental freedoms. Recently, however, the intellectual landscape has shifted. The rise of a nearly unregulated Internet and media space, the challenges traditional media giants face in maintaining control, and the changing influence of political elites have sparked new debates about the First Amendment. Many voices are now calling for increased regulation. As I’ve discussed before in these blogs, the First Amendment has been interpreted to include the right of corporations and others to make campaign contributions, a decision many believe was mistaken.[2] Across the political spectrum, many people believe this was a significant mistake and that it’s time to revisit what free speech really means.

The Colonial and European Experience

It is sometimes difficult for Americans to remember that freedom of speech was not universal, or even common, throughout most of human history. The Founders, for example, knew that seditious libel (criticizing the government) was a crime in England. Generally speaking, the king, and today the government, was beyond public criticism, and one had to be careful about what was said or written in public. The American colonists were familiar with these laws, and many came to America to escape them. In some respects, the First Amendment was intended to eliminate seditious libel from the American continent.

American media companies also enjoyed a kind of press freedom unknown in Europe when America was formed. Generally speaking, it required a license from the government to run a newspaper. These licenses were designed to prevent criticism of the ruling party, usually a king. Another reason for the First Amendment was to prohibit this kind of governmental restriction on the press.

In Whitney v. California, Justice Brandeis eloquently defended the reasons for the First Amendment:

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law — the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.[3]

In this passage, Justice Brandeis outlines the reasons why the founders felt that the amendment was necessary:

1. To create the conditions in which human beings can flourish.
2. To create a society based on discussion and dialogue rather than brute force.
3. To protect fundamental human freedoms, even though contract theory gave the state certain powers.
4. To create a public forum where political truth could be discovered and acted upon by those in authority.
5. To guarantee the right of like-minded people to gather together without interference by the state.
6. To create a stable government based on the rights of those who feel wronged to make public their disagreements with prevailing wisdom.
7. To protect minorities against the tyranny of majority views, thus allowing unpopular views that may ultimately be proven true to have a place in the public forum.

Justice Brandeis’ list of reasons for the amendment shows that the amendment’s main purpose was to safeguard certain basic human freedoms, including freedom of political speech. However, the Court has also protected other types of speech. Not everyone agrees with this view. For example, Judge Robert Bork believed only political speech deserved First Amendment protection, and he felt the court shouldn’t expand that protection beyond the right to oppose the government and other parties’ political views.[4]

Limits on the Right

From the start, people understood that freedom of Speech was important. However, they also knew it would probably have limits because of real-world practicalities. As Justice Story put it,

The next clause of the amendment respects the liberty of the press. “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” That this amendment was intended to secure to every citizen an absolute right to speak, or write, or print, whatever he might please, without any responsibility, public or private, therefor, is a supposition too wild to be indulged by any rational man. This would be to allow to every citizen a right to destroy, at his pleasure, the reputation, the peace, the property, and even the personal safety of every other citizen. A man might, out of mere malice and revenge, accuse another of the most infamous crimes; might excite against him the indignation of all his fellow citizens by the most atrocious calumnies; might disturb, nay, overturn all his domestic peace, and embitter his parental affections; might inflict the most distressing punishments upon the weak, the timid, and the innocent; might prejudice all a man’s civil, and political, and private rights; and might stir up sedition, rebellion, and treason even against the government itself, in the wantonness of his passions, or the corruption of his heart. Civil society could not go on under such circumstances. Men would then be obliged to resort to private vengeance, to make up for the deficiencies of the law; and assassinations, and savage cruelties, would be perpetrated with all the frequency belonging to barbarous and brutal communities. It is plum, then, that the language of this amendment imports no more, than that every man shall have a right to speak, write, and print his opinions upon any subject whatsoever, without any prior restraint, so always, that he does not injure any other person in his rights, person, property, or reputation; and so always, that he does not thereby disturb the public peace, or attempt to subvert the government. It is neither more nor less, than an expansion of the great doctrine, recently brought into operation in the law of libel, that every man shall be at liberty to publish what is true, with good motives and for justifiable ends. And with this reasonable limitation it is not only right in itself, but it is an inestimable privilege in a free government. Without such a limitation, it might become the scourge of the republic, first denouncing the principles of liberty, and then, by rendering the most virtuous patriots odious through the terrors of the press, introducing despotism in its worst form.[5]

Story understands that freedom of speech cannot be absolute and does not give people the right to use public speech to defame character, exact private vengeance, or undermine another person’s life. Consistent with those who believe the original intent was limited, Story limits the right to express one’s opinion on matters of public importance without prior restraint, so long as it does not injure another person’s reputation. It does not give the right to disturb the peace or subvert good government. It is a liberty to publish what is true in a way that does not injure other people. Nevertheless, the Court has granted great leeway in interpreting the text and, in many ways, has expanded the right beyond the mirror, protecting political speech.

Justice Story ends his analysis with a warning that is important in this particular moment in history: without limitations on this right that prevent liable, deliberate statements of fact and the undermining of the constitutional form of government we have, the amendment becomes a tool for those who would incite violence or overthrow our freedoms. One can make a fairly good case that we are at a moment in which the enemies of freedom are using the Constitution for a purpose it never had.

Conclusion

While the idea of absolute free speech can be quite appealing, it’s important to recognize that in reality, some boundaries are necessary to prevent harm to others. Finding a balance is tricky, especially when considering whether restrictions should only apply to political speech. For example, it’s often challenging to draw the line between political expression and artistic expression. Even if placing a Cross in a glass of urine seems offensive and culturally provocative, an artist might argue that it’s a way to comment on the influence of Christian faith on American society and politics. This example shows how a matter of free expression can sometimes be framed as a political speech issue. That’s why the Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amendment more broadly, protecting not just political speech but a wide range of expressive activities.[6]

Despite the need for protections against the misuse of the First Amendment, it’s important to recognize its centrality in our political system. Current attempts to limit freedom of speech and censor views that dominant groups deem inadequate directly threaten our democratic system. It should be obvious, but those in power decide when to use the courts to limit speech, and they use them to protect their own positions and authority.

On the other side of the equation, it has long been recognized that the First Amendment should not be used as a cover for brutality, slander, and the destruction of people with whom you disagree, among other aspects of what I have called “politics as war.” The public arena can become a place of unmitigated, unrestrained speech with very little rational content. One need only look at the comment sections of many social media sites to see how often responses are nothing more than cursing or screaming in print. Our constitutional system was not designed to protect the public from their own base instincts.

Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

¹ Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the U.S. (1833), Sec. 1852, 830 found at Story: Commentaries on the Constitution of the U.S. (1833) Page 837 © Copyright 2003, 2005 Lonang Institute (downloaded July 27, 2026), hereafter “Story.” I have not modernized Story’s language, which can be fairly cumbersome and difficult to understand. He wrote in another era.

[2] Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 US 310 (2010).

[3] Whitney v. California, 274 US 357 (1927), 375-376 (Justice Brandeis concurring).

[4] Robert Bork, Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems, 47 Ind. L.J.1, 28 (1971).

[5] Story, Section 1874, at 837.

[6] Erin Chemerinsky, Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies 3^rd ed (New York, NY: Aspen Publishers, 2006), 927. This book has been an important source on this issue and will remain so in future blogs.

This is the sixth and final week of a multi-week look at a uniquely Christian measure of success as presented in Pete Scazzero’s new book, Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus.[1] Emotionally Healthy Success is the latest in a series of books that Pete Scazzero and his wife, Geri, have written on emotional health and on emotionally healthy pastors and congregations. The underlying thesis is simple: Many Christians (including many pastors) cannot become the disciples and leaders they are called to be for Christ because of emotional blockages from their childhoods. Therefore, the church of Jesus Christ needs to undertake this work to remedy the problem. The remedy involves bringing to bear on our discipleship programs and leadership both the insights of modern psychology and the most ancient insights of the Christian church. It’s a worthy undertaking.[2]

You can pre-order Emotionally Healthy Success on Amazon and other retailers. I am attaching links to all the blogs in the series. However, these blogs are not a substitute for the book, which contains much more information and anecdotes than I can provide. Please purchase the book and sign up for training in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship,which describes what this movement is about. You can find a lot of additional information on the Emotionally Healthy website at https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/.

One of my favorite Bible passages concerns Moses and the people of Israel. As they completed their time in the wilderness, Moses set before the people the blessings and curses involved in the decision to follow and asks the people the most important question they would ever be asked:

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lordyour God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).

All too often, we read this passage as a relic of the past—a reminder of the choices Israel faced and the consequences of failing to remain faithful to God after entering the Promised Land. However, we must remember that we are also citizens of God’s heavenly city. We to have entered our own Promised Land through our commitment to be faithful to Christ and to be members of this Church. We can’t expect our churches, families, or other communities to thrive if we don’t honor the promises we’ve made.

As pastors, priests, church leaders, and members of a local congregation, we have to answer a fundamental question: Will I continue living by culture’s faster, louder standards, or will I choose God’s slower, truer way?[3]Unfortunately, our churches are full of leaders who teach or lead proclaiming one definition of success week after week, but in fact, live by a completely different and culturally conditioned definition of success. Every leader, including myself, has been tempted to live by the world standard of success, while preaching Jesus’s standard of success from the pulpit. Every church leader who has led more than one congregation, or has any long-term experience with multiple congregations, has seen firsthand the damage caused when a church or its leadership imitates the world.

, many years ago, I learned of a tragic situation in a large corporate-style church. The pastor and senior leadership had adopted an extremely centralized corporate model of church management. Unfortunately, they made poor decisions, some of which were financial. Over time, they lost the congregation’s trust, and during an economic recession, the church was badly damaged. It took years to recover—and the leadership’s reputation was permanently damaged by this failure. The failure ultimately stemmed from following this world’s standards instead of Jesus’.

I’ve shared before some words from my mentor, Dave Schieber, who, early in my career, warned me not to seek success or become too involved in church politics. “Everyone who does eventually comes to a bad end,” he advised. I’ve seen the truth of that advice play out in churches, intermediate church bodies, and even in national church bodies. It is easy to fall into the trap of emulating the world in our Christian leadership and in how we structure and manage our churches.

The Slow and Humble Way

If we are to be the church leaders God calls us to be, we must choose a humbler, secret, almost invisible, and slow way of leadership. Today, we look at the American Church and see a magnificent edifice in decline. Throughout church history, the church has emerged from persecution and insignificance into leadership, only to return to insignificance as it became proud, losing the gift of humility.

We should not be surprised at this because, throughout scripture, God warns us that he builds his people slowly and incrementally. He does so through the activity of people who were unknown to the world at large. The great empires of the ancient world probably did not know  much of anything about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or probably even David. It’s almost certain that Ceasar Augustus never heard of the little baby born in a manger in Bethlehem in Judea at the fringes of his empire. If he had known, he probably wouldn’t have cared.

David gives us a great example of what happens when we lose our willingness to humbly wait upon God. In his early career, he was a great success despite persecution. Then came pride and the lust pride brings. In his relationship with Bathsheba, he undid much of what he had accomplished and brought a curse upon himself and his whole household. The apostle Paul, who was not always patient, seem to recognize by the time he wrote First Corinthians that his individual leadership was not the essential point. He planted the church and then Peter, Apollo, and others made visits. All of them together, built the church (1 Cor. 3:5-6).

One of my friends, who is not a pastor but an attorney and a Roman Catholic, once advised me to remember that “we are all interim pastors.” Even if we’re the founder of the church, it doesn’t belong to us, just as the church of Corinth did not belong to Paul. Even if we’re the best preacher in the history of the church, the church does not belong to us, just as the Corinthian church did not belong to Apollos. Even if we are a great leader of the church, the church does not belong to us, just as the Corinthian church did not belong to the apostle Peter. We are all servants with a small part in advancing the kingdom of God. Someday, our time will pass and someone else will take over.

When we come to realize this, we can be liberated from the fallen standards of our world. We can see ourselves as servants of Christ, called to a particular task, large or small, in confidence that God will continue the work through other hands. America is a relatively new country, and it is hard for us to see the world through the eyes of one for whom 1000 years is like the passing of the night. God is building his church even when we see failure. It may be that we will see failure all the days of our life. But from God’s perspective, the work we are doing, however small, is of infinite value to God.

Trusting God

I’ve probably preached 100 sermons on faith and trusting God, and I’ve heard just as many on the same subject. It’s easy to talk about trusting God, but it’s harder to trust God and let God work without referring to our timetable. Pete Scazzero offers three basic principles to guide us in taking the Longview and trusting God:

1. Do the internal work of maintaining a close relationship with God before the external work of building the church.
2. Remember that small things may end up being very big and that big things may end up being very small. Concentrate on discipling the people at hand and trust God for growth.
3. Finally, be faithful and trust God during the long middle time between the beginning and the end of a pastorate or project.[4]

Everyone who knows me knows I struggle with all these anchors for ministry. I tend to be hyperactive and would always prefer to be in action rather than sitting still and waiting on God. I love to begin new programs with a splash. I resist the very small task of being present to the person across the table from me right now. Finally, it can be difficult for me to put up with the boring time between the exciting beginning and the exciting end of any project. Yet success or failure lies in our spiritual life, in being willing to be small, in trusting God, and in continuing on through the depressing time between the exciting beginning and the glorious end of ministry.

Being before doing, being willing to be small, and trusting God in the middle are not techniques that can be taught. They involve forming character and living a lifestyle. They begin with prayer, the meditative study of Scripture, time alone in contemplation, a rule of life to keep one centered, and the patience to do things God’s way rather than the world’s way. In Emotionally Healthy Success, Pete outlines many small techniques and habits any pastor can develop to cultivate the character and lifestyle of Jesus.

I like the way Pete ends his discussion of these three principles:

As I look back over these three anchors—doing the work before the work, learning to see small and big differently, and trusting the long middle—I’m struck by how unremarkable they sound. And yet these three truths have steadied me through decades of loss, mountaintops, and long stretches in which nothing seemed to change. They have taught me that the deepest work of God is rarely rushed, rarely obvious, and almost never completed on our timetable.[5]

Once again, before signing off, I want to remind people that I have only covered a small part of the richness of Emotionally Healthy Success related to these three principles. Pete offers many important examples and suggestions that have changed how I view success and leadership.

I’m concluding my review of this book with this blog post. I haven’t had a chance to delve into the details of the various appendices. When I first reviewed the book and spoke with someone from Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, I noted that I found the appendices among the most valuable parts of his writings. He outlines a clear path for a local church to become an emotionally healthy congregation. He also discusses church succession as a way to validate an Emotionally Healthy Church. Additionally, he provides a brief overview of church history and explains how the monastic movement, which underpins many rules of life, changed the world. Finally, he offers a Rule of Life for Emotionally Healthy Leaders—a Ruule of Life I wholeheartedly endorse. In outlining the specifics of this Rule of Life, he discusses practical ways to weave it into a busy schedule and even suggests a simplified version for those who find a longer rule daunting. If you remember my critique of Protestant Rules of Life, you’ll recall my concern about the lack of discipline and community accountability. In one appendix, he addresses that specific issue.

Here are all the links to the past blogs:

1. Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus: https://wp.me/p4CzBH-1av
2. A Deep Dive into False Metrics: https://wp.me/p4CzBH-1aC
3. Jesus’ Four Great Reversals: https://wp.me/p4CzBH-1aF
4. A New Scorecard: https://wp.me/p4CzBH-1aP
5. Structuring a Life for Christ-like Success: https://wp.me/p4CzBH-1aSChoose the Way of Life

Good luck, readers, and if you need help or clarification, please let me know.

Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs,  All Rights Reserved

[1] Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus  (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2026. I was given the opportunity to review an advance copy of the book, which I recommend to interested readers. The basic ideas for this blog are found in Chapter 7 of Emotionally Healthy Success.

[2] Scazzero’s thesis is set out in a series of books and programs that a local congregation can adopt. See Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003, 2010). Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). For those who wish to read all of his books, see Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, updated ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), and The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). All the blogs in the series are worth reading, but if you have no prior experience with the materials, start with Emotionally Healthy Success, then read Emotionally Healthy Discipleship.

[3] Emotionally Healthy Success, 141.

[4] Id, at 144.

[5] Id, at 161.

Anyone who wants to follow Christ needs to create a positive plan and build meaningful practices into their daily routine to achieve their goal. Simply having a little self-awareness, setting a goal to be more like Christ, and attending church once a week or giving some money during the offering isn’t enough. Growing in faith takes much more effort and commitment.

In 1992, shortly before graduating from seminary, I did an independent study on mystical theology. As part of that study, I read the Rule of Saint Augustine for the first time. For my semester project, I constructed a rule of life incorporating certain aspects of the Augustinian rule.[1] Less than five years later, I had a spiritual director who was a Benedictine monk in an Anglican order. At that time, I became interested in the Benedictine rule as it has been applied from time to time. When I became interested in Centering Prayer, I joined a group at a local Episcopal Church. Interestingly, this church had a lawyer as a prominent member who had drafted a highly modified, almost non-binding Benedictine rule that he used for his life and suggested for others. During this time, on and off, I tried to follow a rule of life, generally some modification of the rule I worked on in seminary.

I would like to report success in my endeavors, but the truth is that the story of my rule of life is a story of half-hearted attempts followed by periodic failure. In the process, however, I learned a great deal and formed three opinions:

1. It is easy to draft a personal rule of life.
2. It is hard to follow it.
3. In monastic and other orders, it can be done because regular accountability makes it possible.

The conclusion of my struggles is simple: If you want to have a workable rule of life to keep you and your ministry centered in Christ, don’t try to do it alone. It is simply too hard in our culture to follow a rule of life consistently without some degree of accountability. Personal rules unconnected to a group of people who are attempting to follow it are too likely to fail to produce the kind of deep spiritual change most pastors need and want.

Embracing a Rule of Life Strong Enough to Hold Your Calling

When I began learning about and teaching Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, I eventually merged some of Pete Scazzero’s ideas with my own to create a rule of life that integrates his general framework into my Augustinian forma.[2]I’ve shared it from time to time with a small group of people and at least once in this series of blog posts. Still, I struggle to make it meaningful. What is needed is a community committed to the rule. Therefore, it is not surprising that Pete has encouraged pastors to adopt a rule of life in Emotionally Healthy Success and has attempted to create a public rule of life that churches and leaders can use to foster an emotionally healthy culture in their churches.[3]

Here is what Pete says in Emotionally Healthy Success:

The truth is, Geri and I are still learning too. After more than three decades, we’ve come to see that every pastor and ministry leader needs both a clear Rule of Life rooted in emotional health and a community of those also committed to living it out together. Conferences and intensive cohorts are valuable, but they can’t provide the kind of ongoing formation and mutual support we all need to sustain deep transformation.[4]

I like the way he puts it: Christian leaders need a rule of life strong enough to support our spiritual life as we seek to help form the spiritual life of others.

The Crisis of American Spirituality

I’ve told people many times that I feel lucky to have entered the ministry after a professional career and after many years as a Christian leader, serving as an elder, Deacon, Sunday School teacher, and endless committee member in a very good church. I was accustomed to maintaining my Christian faith under stress. In my first ministry, I served a small church that desperately needed to grow spiritually and numerically. Although our seminary did not offer classes in spiritual formation, I did an independent study on Reformed spirituality and the ancient Catholic practices. That study left me better prepared than most students for the pressures of ministry. Then, with another local pastor, I had a monastic Spiritual Friend, with whom I could share and who gently encouraged me to maintain a healthy spiritual life. For a time, two of my congregations had a trained counselor and spiritual director on staff. It helped a great deal.

The truth is, as I’ve mentioned before, our seminaries often don’t do enough to nurture spiritual growth. I believe most seminaries do a decent job of encouraging pastors to study the Bible beyond lesson planning, to pray, and to participate in other spiritual practices. The key word here is encouragement. There is a noticeable difference between encouraging people and simply training them. Unfortunately, many professors have little hands-on experience in ministry.

From my own experience, the most well-known professor at my seminary had only a three-year pastorate before pursuing a doctorate. Thereafter, he worked in academia. He ever again served a local church. In my view, three years isn’t quite enough time to fully develop as a pastor. For example, in a small church, those three years often just cover the honeymoon phase, without encountering and overcoming the real pressures that follow. In addition, what is most important is that the pastor face and successfully survive those pressures. Finally, the challenges pastors face do not always fit neatly into a three-year timeline. My professor was a wonderful person and a brilliant scholar, but I recognize that his understanding of pastoral ministry was somewhat limited.

It is fair to compare modern pastor training with how Timothy, for example, was trained by Paul. They were partners in ministry for an extended time. They lived together, worked together, and traveled together. Timothy saw Paul handle difficult situations. Paul sent Timothy on short-term trips to solve problems in churches he had planted. He then had an opportunity to talk about what had happened during the visit. In other words, Timothy’s spirituality was not formed in a classroom but right onsite, next to an established and experienced evangelist.

In a similar way, when a novice joins a monastery, they don’t take a class on spirituality. They begin living the spiritual life together with older, more experienced monks. There might be some amount of teaching, but there’s a large amount of imitation, day-to-day correction, and modeling. We can’t really escape the problems with pastoral formation in America until we get ourselves accustomed to the notion that it’s primarily the job of existing pastors to train future pastors, whatever help is received from seminaries, colleges, graduate schools, or a host of other institutions.

ete Scazzero puts the problem this way:

We’ve minimized the spiritual formation of leaders by rushing them into ministry before their inner life has been anchored in God, essentially bypassing the slow, hidden work required to sustain a lifetime of rooted, fruitful service. We prioritize theological information over spiritual formation when we need to do both. We offer conferences that inspire and cast vision but lack the ongoing relational structures and depth necessary for lasting fruit. We assume that calling plus gifting plus opportunity equals great leadership for God.[5]

Adapting Monastic Rhythms for Contemporary Ministry

In Emotionally Healthy Success, Scazzero does a wonderful job of showing from Church history how the monastic movement arose to meet a need for greater and deeper Christian spirituality among leaders. He also does a good job of dealing with the fact that most church leaders are not monks. We have spouses, children, extended family, a network of friendships, and, of course, a local congregation of which we are a part. We don’t have the same ability to have the kind of structured life that a monastery provides. Furthermore, most of us don’t even desire to have that kind of structure. We need something else. So did Pete and Geri Scazzero.[6]

As the structure of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship emerged, the Scazzero’s realized they needed a way to incorporate some of the ancient church’s wisdom into a new approach to encouraging spiritual growth and emotional maturity in the conditions of the 21^st Century. The result has been the slow development of a new way of looking at a rule of life for emotional and spiritual health today.[7] This rule of life centers around our need for prayer, rest, relationships, and meaningful work. Scazzero helpfully includes a practical chart that helps readers work out for themselves what that means for their particular life.

Here is how Pete describes the results over time:

I won’t pretend that following any of these four rhythms is easy, much less quick or popular. In fact, living by this Rule of Life will challenge everything our culture believes about leadership and success. It will slow you down so you can listen deeply. It will make you appear less productive while making you more fruitful. It will lead you to surrender outcomes and find a deep, holy freedom in doing only what God asks. But here’s what I’ve discovered after decades of living this way: It works. Not according to the metrics of a performance-driven model, but in ways that bear fruit that lasts. Those who embrace this Rule of Life don’t just survive—they flourish.[8]

Becoming Part of a Group

Remember when I mentioned my doubts about whether I and most people I know can stick to a rule of life without outside help? I think Pete and Geri Scazzero feel the same way. That’s why they’re offering churches and pastors a chance to be part of something bigger. They’ve started the “Order of Emotionally Healthy Leaders,” a movement dedicated to living by a rule of life that fosters emotional and spiritual growth and to sharing that vision within the churches they serve. This movement provides the kind of order and discipline I think is necessary for pastors to maintain spiritual maturity. It’s probably not the only way, but it’s one way. It is worth checking out.

I suggest that every religious leader who reads this blog consider, once again, reading, exploring, and getting the kind of training that will enable them to bring this movement into their own local congregation. I wish I had discovered this many years earlier. I’m retired now, but I also wish that I had been part of this kind of movement to give me better support in my often-on attempts to live by a rule of life that would allow me to be an authentically balanced Christian leader in our home and in the churches I served. I might have avoided many mistakes and failures.

Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] In a prior blog, I gave a brief outline of that Rule of Life, a version of which I still follow. For a rendition of that rule, see “Adopting a Rule of Life for Healthy Spirituality” July 18, 2023, July 18, 2023 ChrisScruggs at www.gchristopherscruggs.com.  

[2] Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003, 2010). Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). For those who wish to read all of his books, see Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, updated ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), and The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). All the blogs in the series are worth reading, but if you have no prior experience with the materials, start with Emotionally Healthy Success, then read Emotionally Healthy Discipleship.

[3] Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus  (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2026. I was given the opportunity to review an advance copy of the book, which I recommend to interested readers. Pete has advised me that Emotionally Healthy Success can be preordered. If you pre-order today, you can start reading chapter 1 immediately. Hopefully this offer is still available.

[4] Id, 134.

[5] Id, 118.

[6] I’ve been aware that I’m not giving Geri Scazzero full credit for her role in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. Geri’s encouragement and insistence led Pete to begin his journey toward emotional maturity in ministry. She has also been active in the emotionally healthy ministry throughout its existence. In addition, she wrote The Emotionally Healthy Woman, which is a course in its own right. See The Emotionally Healthy Woman: Eight Things You Have to Quit to Change Your Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005). She was an active leader in the various teaching sessions Kathy and I attended during the leadership course.

[7] Emotionally Healthy Success, 125.

[8] Id, 133- 134. Once again, I have summarized many pages that readers need to digest on their own.

This is the fourth look at Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus by Pete Scazzero.^[1] You can pre-order the book on Amazon and other sites. If you pre-order today, you can start reading chapter 1 immediately. I recommend that all interested readers do so. You will not regret time spent reading the book.

In Emotionally Healthy Success, Scazzero continues his focus on the role of emotional health in the life of pastors, church leaders, church members, and religious groups.[2] These blogs are not a substitute for the book, which contains much more information and anecdotes than I can provide. Please purchase the book and sign up for some kind of training in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, which describes what this movement is about. You can find a lot of additional information on the he Emotionally Healthy website at https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/.

In my earlier blogs, I’ve explored some common misunderstandings about success that many Christian leaders might fall into, along with the misguided ways we often measure success and failure. Thankfully, Scazzero shares the key elements of a fresh, more meaningful scorecard that can help us assess our ministry more honestly. He also introduces two important steps that can genuinely help pastors follow Jesus more closely and disciple others as Jesus envisioned. The two movements are:

Movement 1:  Prioritize Personal Formation— breathing in the life of God by the Spirit of Christ. This is the inward work of cultivating your relationship with God and allowing God to deeply form your character.

Movement 2: Prioritize Culture Formation— breathing out the life of God by creating an authentic Christian community. This is the outward work of building community and bearing witness to Christ.[3]

These are two basic changes pastors must make to have an emotionally healthy impact.

Personal Formation in Christ

Traditional Christian leadership formation, especially among Protestants, often lacks an emphasis on personal spiritual formation, leaving pastors emotionally and spiritually ill-equipped to help individuals and the body of Christ in their personal lives. For Protestants, this is a failure of sanctification and intense discipleship, and it results in what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called a kind of unchristian discipleship born of “Cheap Grace.”

Bonhoeffer felt that the Christian church in the West has too often preached and offered what he called Cheap Grace. This perspective highlights his concern about the need for a more genuine and committed approach to faith. ^[4]  Bonhoeffer compared “cheap grace” with “costly grace.” Costly grace is the grace Christ speaks of when he says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). Cheap grace is the offer of forgiveness of sins in a way that costs a believer nothing and requires no faithful response. Bonhoeffer describes cheap grace as “preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. This was a terrible mistake. “Cheap Grace,” he said, “is the deadly enemy of our Church.” [5] Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”[6]

In terms of pastoral preparation, especially in what used to be called “mainline” churches in America, the emphasis was on preaching and on pastors as “theologians in residence,” as one of my seminary leaders put it. Unfortunately, this is not what Jesus had in mind, nor is it what the church needs. What the church needs is “Little Imperfect Jesuses in Residence.” Generations of pastors have been prepared and sent out to serve churches without developing the spiritual character needed to truly move people along the path of discipleship. The resulting devastation is all around us.

For about six years, I was either on or served as the chairman of a committee within the ministry of a local church body. During that time, I had the opportunity to help congregations recover from what I can only call pastoral spiritual malpractice. Many of these failed pastors were emotionally immature and brought that immaturity into the life of a local congregation in an unhealthy way. Occasionally, they also lacked fundamental pastoral skills and the emotional intelligence to get along with people. Mainline seminaries and the supervisory bodies that send people to seminary are responsible for failing to detect serious emotional problems before a person is admitted to seminary and for failing to provide every student with the spiritual and emotional tools needed to be successful.

In Emotionally Healthy Success, Scazzero outlines eight qualities from the life of Jesus that are necessary for an emotionally and spiritually successful religious leader:

1. Be with God. Jesus prioritized being with God before doing for God (Luke 3:21–23; 4:1–14; 5:15–16).
2. Listen to God. Jesus slowed down to listen for God’s voice before

making decisions (Matthew 26:36–46; Mark 1:35; Luke 6:12; John 5:19–20; 8:28).

3. Break Free of the Broken Past. Jesus broke free from family and cultural expectations to form the new family of God (Mark 3:20–22, 31–35; John 8:48–49, 59).
4. Embrace Holiness of Life. Jesus stewarded his sexual life (in his case singleness) as a prophetic sign of God’s love for the world (Matthew 19:11–12; John 10:30; 17:21–23).
5. Seek Emotional Wholeness. Jesus engaged the full range of emotions— from painful to joyful— as a doorway to God and deeper wisdom (Matthew 26:37; Mark 3:5; 6:6; 14:34; Luke 10:21; 19:41).
6. Be Present with People. Jesus was intentional about being fully present with others (Mark 5:25–34; 10:13–16; 10:21; John 3–4).
7. Learn to Communicate Honestly, Wisely, and Lovingly. Jesus cultivated honest relationships by engaging in difficult conversations when necessary (Matthew 16:23; 23:27; Mark 8:31–38; 10:17–22).
8. Live within Your Limits. Jesus joyfully received the gift of limits to fulfill God’s

will and purpose (Matthew 15:24; Mark 1:35–38; 4:38; Luke 5:15–16; John 5:19; 17:4).[7]

Community Formation in Christ

If seminaries do a poor job of personal Christian formation, they do just as poor a job in training pastors in the art of forming a Christian community. This is surprising on several levels. Fundamentally, it involves a failure to recognize that Jesus spent his entire ministry forming a community, training its future leaders, and creating what would become his church, which is to be the family of God or even the kingdom of God on earth. If we are to send representatives of Christ into local congregations, they need to be equipped and trained to do what Jesus did.

The reasons for the failure to adequately prepare pastors are complex, but fundamentally the church formed an early alliance with the Roman government that let it rely on external factors for its presence and importance in society. In America, where no church was established, there was still a cultural expectation that large numbers of people would attend church, and some would find meaning and purpose in providing Church leadership. Unfortunately, those days are past.

Churches today must take seriously the need to create leaders who can create congregations with a church culture that enables the growth of what is sometimes called “the provisional Kingdom of God,” that is, a healthy church that models for the world what God intends for human relationships and reaches out with the wisdom and love of God to transform its community.  Scazzero sets out eight marks that a local church is forming a culture in the Way of Jesus:

1. Divine Relationship. Jesus fostered a culture in which being with him came before doing for him (Mark 3:14; Luke 10:38–42).
2. Divine Listening. Jesus cultivated a culture in which decisions flowed from listening to God’s voice (Matthew 17:5; John 10:27; Acts 1:12–15; 13:1–4).
3. New, Healthy Community. Jesus formed a culture that enabled people to break free from unhealthy family-of-origin patterns and past emotional and spiritual wounds, so they could live freely in the new family of Jesus (Luke 9:57-62; 14:25-35).
4. Marriage and Singleness. Jesus formed a culture that equipped both married people and singles to live as prophetic signs of God’s love for the world (Matthew 19:4–6, 10–12; 22:29–32).
5. Caring Community. Jesus fostered a culture of honesty, love, and trust, in which people no longer needed to hide or pretend (Luke 6:35–37; John 13:34–35).
6. Personal Deep Discipleship. Jesus cultivated a culture that prioritized deep discipleship among the few and employed a layered strategy throughout his ministry (Matthew 28:18–20; Luke 6:12–18; 10:1–17).
7. Inclusive Community. Jesus proclaimed the gospel in ways that broke down walls among people and brought good news to the poor and marginalized (Matthew 9:35–36; 15:24; 25:31–36; John 20:21).
8. Christlike Leadership. Jesus cultivated a culture in which leaders taught and exercised authority rooted in their transformed lives with God (Mark 1:35–39; Luke 4:1–17; 22:31–32).[8]

I am sure that readers and others could develop a slightly different list, but the point is simple: The primary duty of a Christian leader is to create a community that models the triune love of God in a particular place.

The Truly Transformed Leader

These lists might make developing a post-corporate Church culture and a Christ-centered ministry seem simpler than it is. The fact is that even the most committed church leaders with strong biblical and theological backgrounds are part of contemporary American corporate and bureaucratic culture. It is best, therefore, to think of these characteristics as helpful markers. You can add your own specific markers for your local church or denomination to show that leaders and churches are steadily making progress. The goal is to become the kind of people and organic Christlike church body that God ultimately intends for everyone.

A strength of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, which is also a point of incompleteness, is that Pete is trying to write a book to help churches, both traditional and contemporary, across all historic denominations. One thing he can’t address, therefore, is the specifics of leadership in terms of whether it is Episcopal, Reformed, Free Church, Apostolic, Democratic, or whatever. This is an area in which every church or group that embraces Emotionally Healthy Discipleship must make its own choices and craft the underlying program and ideas suited to its situation and needs.

Similarly, various streams of Christianity would find minor differences in the kind of pastoral and community formation that best fits their particular way of being a church. In my case, and as a hint of where I believe all churches should be headed, the theological and other divisions of the Reformation no longer excite the next generation of Christians, nor do they point the way toward a renewed Christian culture. One reason I’ve been so interested in the Emotionally Healthy Discipleship movement is that Pete Scazzero is careful to draw on church history, especially the period before the Great Schism, for inspiration. I think it’s the right move. This may be a hard move for some groups, but it’s worth undertaking. This does not mean that groups must give up their unique identity. It means incorporating what has been lost into the present-day church.

Copyight 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved 

^[1] Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus  (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2026. This, the last and the remaining blogs in this series are inspired by this book. I was given the opportunity to review an advance copy of the book, which I recommend to interested readers.

[2] Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003, 2010). Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). For those who wish to read all of his books, see Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, updated ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), and The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming your Inner Life will Deeply Transform your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017).

[3] Emotionally Healthy Success, 82. A full examination of these two movements occupies Chapters 4 and 5 of the book.

^[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship Rev. Ed. (New York, NY: Collier Books, 1963. See, G. Christopher Scruggs, Crisis of Discipleship: Renewing the Art of Relational Disciplemaking (Richmond, VA: Living Dialog 2023).

^[5]Id, at 45.

^[6]Id, at 47.

[7] Id, 92-93.

[8] Id, 109-111.

Last week, I forgot to mention that I was going to take a Labor Day break from Emotionally Healthy Success to talk about Labor Day and the importance of labor. In the meantime, you can still sign up for an advance copy of Emotionally Healthy Success and get a free copy of one chapter. Take time to do this. You will not regret it.

One word about this post. All forms of economic organization, including free enterprise, communism, socialism, and state managed economies fail when not connected to the greater good of human flourishing. There can be no independently successful  economic organization separate from the transcendental goal of fairness and the search for harmony and the common good. I would not want this blog to be read otherwise.

In my first pastorate, our family lived in a small town in the third-poorest county in Tennessee. Our church was near the dividing line between wealthier and poorer areas. On my first day, a member asked to take me on a drive through an extremely poor part of the city. It was also a part of the city where unemployment, drug abuse, and violence were endemic. Much of the city’s crime stemmed from that neighborhood. The drive left a lasting impression. Before that ministry was complete, our church led a citywide effort to create a community center in that neighborhood. One of the community center’s goals was to provide educational opportunities that lead to work.

Biblical Background

The Bible begins with a story about two people living in a perfect world—a garden we call Eden. They were to be shepherds and gardeners, taking care of the creation God had given them. Very quickly, they fail in their task and are removed from the garden into a life marked by hard work, family difficulties, and a host of other problems.

Because of the way the story is structured, many people see work as a curse. I was one of those people for a long time. Our time in West Tennessee helped cure me of that misunderstanding. I’m not much of a gardener; however, we had a small yard, and I became a gardener. Gardening changed the way I looked at the book of Genesis and the creation story. One thing I can tell you for sure: even without the Fall, the human race was going to be hard-working. I learned very quickly that weeds don’t just get pulled up once; they get pulled up all summer. I learned that plants don’t need to be pruned only once; they need to be pruned more than once. I learned that trees have to be trimmed and that pests have to be dealt with. I learned that gardens have to be planted more than once. Gardening is a pretty demanding profession.

I’m telling the story because it’s important to read our minds of the idea that work is evil and to read the story of Creation as telling us that work, that is, work given to us by God for our own good, is a blessing, even though it’s hard. And idleness, especially that idleness that comes from an inability or unwillingness to work, is not a blessing. It’s a curse.

Labor Day

Each year, in early September, we celebrate Labor Day. Many of us have little idea why we celebrate Labor Day. We’ve celebrated Labor Day every year for most of our lives. On Labor Day, we go fishing, or camp out, or have a neighborhood block party, or spend time with our family and friends. What we don’t do on Labor Day is work with our hands. We also don’t think about those who do.

It used to be that in major cities, and even in the small town where I grew up, there was a Labor Day parade. The unions, which are much less influential than they were in my youth, sponsored the Labor Day parades because it was the time of year when they could celebrate labor’s victory over a period in our nation’s history when laborers were abused.

With the Industrial Revolution came a host of social problems. America, which had once been a land of small farmers, suddenly became a place where many people, eventually most people, lived in urban areas and many worked for large corporations in which they had little or no ownership. There was a division between management and labor. The extreme division between management and labor was caused by the Industrial Revolution.

In my own family, we owned a farm. Our great-grandfather was the primary farmer and went into the field every day, though his role was mostly managerial. The children and others provided most of the labor. When we lived in Brownsville, we lived in a farming community, where there had been a pretty big division between the landowner farmers and what were once called sharecroppers. One of the members of my congregation, who was in his late 80s, was famous for always going out into the field to work with everyone else. The only difference is it was his habit to wear a white shirt and tie underneath his overalls. Everybody else just wore the overalls. He was a wise and practical person who had spent most of his life on a tractor., though he owned a fairly significant farm.

With the advent of large corporations and significantly white collar cities, many in management never even see the laborers they distantly supervise.  They work in office buildings in places like Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, or New York City. Laborers often work in oil fields or factories far removed from corporate headquarters. This builds a sense of psychic distance that I am not sure is healthy.

In the beginning of the Industrial Revolution,  women and children were forced to work excessive hours. Safety was largely ignored. Workers were poorly paid and taken advantage of, perhaps especially in the mining and manufacturing industries. The result was the growth of unions. Unions were formed to protect laborers’ rights against the social evils created by the Industrial Revolution.

In some ways, the Industrial Revolution was a time not much different from our own, when wealth had become extremely concentrated and power was exercised by just a few oligarchs. It was a time when the national economy was run for the benefit of the few. Some of you know that part of the blogs I’ve written deals with the legal problems created by the way state legislators, and even our national government, resisted regulating these enormous businesses.

Labor Day is an annual celebration that honors the social and economic achievements of American workers and recognizes their vital role in making the American Dream a reality. Since the late 19th century, there have been efforts to highlight the importance of labor and its value to our nation. For instance, in 1882, Peter J. McGuire, the general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, proposed dedicating a day as a “general holiday for the laboring classes” to pay tribute to those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.” Because revolutionaries adopted May 1 as their day, there was resistance to fixing American Labor Day in the spring. After a long period of ad hoc local celebrations, on June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September each year a national holiday. It remains America’s Labor Day.

Why a Labor-Free World is a Bad Idea

Many utopians envision a world in which people don’t have to work. Some people believe that the advent of artificial intelligence and robotics means that people will not only not have to work, but they also believe many people will not be able to work. Robotics empowered by artificial intelligence has the potential to eliminate many jobs. These utopians want a national minimum wage, allowing many, if not most, people to enjoy endless leisure. Even among white-collar workers, we already see the impact of artificial intelligence on employment. I think this is a problem that needs to be thought about by every American and our leaders.

Meaningful work, you see, is an ennobling experience. Those who work to produce goods and services for others have the satisfaction of knowing that they’re helping their fellow human beings while earning their own living and supporting their own family. There is a certain independence and healthy self-image that comes from knowing that one earns one’s own living and supports one’s own family.

Perhaps more importantly, it’s psychologically important to work. When I was young, I was pretty lazy. My father and his best friend conspired to get me to work on the Frisco Railroad, laying ties and working on bridge gangs for several summers. Today, some of my fondest memories are swinging a spike maul on a hot afternoon in Arkansas, barely able to keep going. I’m also extremely grateful for the friendships I made while living in a railroad car converted to house workers on a bridge gang. Even though I’ve spent the vast majority of my life as a white-collar professional, I am grateful for the experience of working hand in hand with laborers, belonging to a union, and sharing their lives as we traveled across southern Missouri and Arkansas, laying track and repairing bridges.

Most of the things we did have long since disappeared, but just occasionally, when I’m home, I pass a crossing or go over a bridge, and remember that I worked on that bridge at that crossing over a half century ago. I remember the foreman and a number of the workers who taught me how to work with my hands. Work draws a person out of isolation into a community of fellow workers.

Work is not just socially important or economically important. It’s emotionally and spiritually important for the worker. Going back to my first church, on that first day,we passed house after house in which young men were sitting on the porch, getting ready to go out for the night, or drinking or taking drugs. Every one of those young people was larger, stronger, and more capable than I ever was. Many of them would end up fathering children out of wedlock, engaging in illegal activities, drinking or taking recreational drugs, and spending a bit of time in and out of the county jail. They didn’t have to work because of welfare, but the absence of work was not a good thing.

Those who think we ought to do away with work sometimes forget that young men who are tired after a long day of swinging and using a spike maul don’t get into much trouble at night. My brother, my best friend, and I might occasionally have an illegal beer at a local bar on the way home, but by 8 o’clock we were getting ready for bed because 6:30 AM comes early, and by 7:30 I was swinging a spike maul again. The social cost of people who don’t work or who don’t have sufficient or appropriate work for their capacities is huge.

Conclusion

Labor Day reminds us of an important truth. We often view our economy as simply a system for generating money to support families and help some individuals become wealthy. Of course, earning money supports families, which is crucial. However, what we sometimes overlook is that the wealth of a few is actually the result of creating valuable work for everyone. The core purpose of our economy isn’t to make a select few extremely rich or to boost the net worth of the wealthiest Americans, fueled by the idea that wealth will gradually reach everyone else. At its core, our economy isn’t solely about money at all; it’s about providing meaningful, helpful, and, ideally, rewarding work for everyone who needs a job.

This is why I believe that even if we could make work optional, even if we could create a world in which no one has to work, it would be a bad idea. It would deprive most people of the ennobling experience of labor. It would be better to find ways to ensure that every person who can work has work. We ought to be thinking about work that is truly ennobling and productive, not make-work that benefits no one.

I mentioned that I have fond memories of the Frisco Railroad. It’s gone now, merged into a larger conglomerate. One day more than 50 years ago, I sat on the porch of a caboose with an elderly-looking black man who had once been a jockey and was now part of our bridge gang. He was only a short time from retirement. Both of us were drinking Coca-Cola in the twilight of a hot July Day near Black Rock, Arkansas.

He shared his life and his dreams with me. He grew up as a sharecropper and escaped poverty by working on the railroad. His family still lived on a small plot of land in Mississippi, from which he commuted. Upon retirement, he planned to return to that little farm. He intended to spend a good bit of time sitting on the porch in his rocking chair. But he knew enough about farming to know that’s not all he would be doing. Even old men can be useful at planting and harvest time.

I will remember that conversation for the rest of my life. My friend, so different from me in every possible way, rarely leaves my mind for more than a month. He’s one of the blessings of having been a laborer in one of the most difficult and exhausting jobs a person can do.

Happy Labor Day.

Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

This is the third week we’re exploring the upcoming book, Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus by Pete Scazzero.[1] You can pre-order the book on Amazon and other platforms. In this inspiring work, Scazzero continues to emphasize how vital emotional health is for pastors, church leaders, members, and entire religious communities. I’ll never forget the first time I read Pete’s powerful words: “There are many people in the church who cannot be the disciple God calls them to be because they lack the emotional maturity to become mature disciples.” That moment truly changed my life and perspective on ministry. It helped me realize that his words resonate with many people I’ve known in the church—including myself.

When I was in seminary, a New Testament professor discussed the great reversals Jesus brought about in people’s lives and in the expectations of the people of God. The Beatitudes summarize the reversals Jesus instituted. God’s blessings, it turns out, are for the poor in heart, the poor in spirit, those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, and those who are persecuted. This week, we’re going to focus on how Jesus requires us to reverse our thinking about success if we are to receive the kind of success the gospel offers.

The reversals Jesus offers require us to accept that success includes suffering, vulnerability, a willingness to go unnoticed, sacrifice, servanthood, and, above all, humility. If we embrace the reversals of Jesus, we will need to adopt a different way of measuring success, a different scorecard, than the world around us. Unfortunately, the church, and perhaps particularly the Western evangelical church, has long been dominated by the values of achievement, control, size, and visible success. It really doesn’t matter what pastors preach from the pulpit if the lives they lead in the churches they build are grounded in values indistinguishable from those of corporate leaders with extremely talented staffs.

In order for us to change the secularization and worldliness of the contemporary church, we need four great rehearsals which Scazzero describes as follows:

1. From prayer for results to prayer for communion
2. From charisma to weakness and limits
3. From our best ideas to discerning God’s voice
4. From critical mass to critical yeast. [2]

From Prayer for Results to Prayer for Communion

Most pastors keep some form of prayer list. Unfortunately, studies have shown that many pastors rank prayer lower than other aspects of ministry, and many admit to having an inadequate prayer life. One study I read years ago found that pastors of larger congregations were especially likely to have an inadequate prayer life. Among Protestants, the problem is even worse. Protestants, with their historical skepticism of mystical religion, often underestimate the importance of communion with God compared with vocal or silent prayer. Among charismatics, there can be an emphasis on what used to be called “prayers of power.” I used to have a friend who ordered God to do a lot of things on the theory that this was the appropriate thing to do.

For me, the change came with exposure to Centering Prayer. For Scazzero, the change first came with his exposure to the Trappist monks:

The first gift came through exposure to Trappist monks who had dedicated their lives to prayer. Their commitment to silence and stillness as a means of surrendering their will to God’s will, along with their focus on listening to God more than talking to him, quietly unsettled me.[3]

The second change came through his study of and immersion in Jesus’ prayer life. Jesus, it turns out, made prayer a priority, and his first goal was simply to be in communion and constant fellowship with God. This is why the Father could say of the Son, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:21-22).

Communion, Clarity, and Direction

This, then, should be the first item in the scorecard of a Christian leader: Become a simple child of God, sitting at the Father’s feet, listening for wisdom, experiencing the Father’s love, and being content with the status of a beloved child of God. Unfortunately, too many Christian leaders drift slowly away from the Father’s feet, caught up in ceaseless activity on behalf of the Son, and, in the end, lose the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus withdrew to pray at decisive points in his ministry. He withdrew in order to renew his sense of purpose, discern the Will of God, and make important decisions, such as choosing his disciples.[4] When I’ve faced difficult decisions as an administrator, I’ve found that taking time to pray quietly can be incredibly helpful. Over the years, through many successes and setbacks, I’ve learned to rely on silent prayer in challenging moments. Sometimes it may seem like a waste of time, but I’ve discovered that this quiet time often brings a deep sense of guidance. After praying, I might not hear a clear voice, but I do feel a nudge toward certain actions. Once I follow that lead, I often feel assured that I am aligned with God’s will. I believe that for every Christian leader, pausing for listening prayer is a vital way to connect with God and find clarity in making good decisions.

Prayer and Power

One primary delusion in our society concerns power and its ability to force others to adopt our way of thinking, acting, and believing. This is a kind of power that Christian leaders must reject. However, there is another kind of power that Christian leaders receive when they make prayer their first priority. It is not the overt power the world worships. It is a quiet power that reveals itself in weakness, servanthood, occasional suffering, and even failure. Here is how Scazzero makes the point:

Prayer is where we, too, receive power. Not the power to make things happen on our terms, but the strength to persevere, wait, obey, and stay faithful through testing and setbacks. No strategy or support system can give us that. Only God can.[5]

One of the most challenging times I faced in ministry was dealing with a staff member at a large church who had committed financial wrongdoing. Even though I was trained as a lawyer and had years of experience as a senior pastor, this issue, along with others I was handling at the time, felt overwhelming. It quickly became clear that I needed to meet with the church leadership responsible for finance. I spent twenty minutes alone in my office, praying for God’s mercy and wisdom. After that, I picked up my pen and quickly listed ten steps essential to address the problem. I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to come up with that on my own, but I was confident that God had granted me the wisdom to identify the first important steps needed to resolve the situation. The group met just before noon, and by 1:00 in the afternoon, the church’s lay leadership had taken charge of the problem.

Abandoning the False Lure of Charisma

Another false scorecard item pastors are tempted to believe is that extreme charisma is a sign of spiritual power and sound decision-making. Anyone who pays attention to the dramatic failures of popular, visible charismatic Christian leaders should realize this is false. Charisma, as our society counts it, is a rare combination of physical, emotional, personal, and other characteristics that gives a person the power to get others to do what they want. As pastors, we are not seeking that kind of power. We are seeking the power to do God’s will.

Interestingly, this insight isn’t just for religious professionals. When Jim Collins wrote his book Good to Great, he found that the most impactful changes in organizations weren’t led by charismatic leaders. Instead, they came from individuals who genuinely prioritized the organization, its employees, and its customers, always humbly serving the company’s best interests above all.[6]

Discerning God’s Will

During the 1990s, at the height of the Mega-Church movement, many pastors attended large conferences where pastors from very large churches urged them to imitate those churches’ leadership, worship, programming, and other practices as a key to success. More than one returned to his local church, attempted to implement changes, and failed miserably, sometimes ending his ministry.

A third problem with using the wrong scorecard and refusing to follow the humble path of Jesus is substituting one’s own will for that of some celebrity leader concerning what God wants from a particular local congregation. Discerning God’s will means slowing down, refusing to act impetuously, listening carefully to God and others, and then acting. It also means recognizing the limits of a particular church, a particular situation, and most importantly the limits of a particular leader. This means we must slow down, surrender control to God, and listen for God to direct our steps.[7]

Nothing is more indicative of an immature leader than an unwillingness to slow down, surrender control, embrace humility, and listen carefully to God and others. This means we must abandon the notion, so common in America and in the media, that leadership is primarily about being decisive, quick to act, and uncompromising. The truth is that the best leaders listen to everyone with humility, take whatever time is necessary to make a good decision, and are more than willing to compromise, change direction, or even abandon a course of action if it turns out to be outside God’s will.

As one inclined to embrace a worldly vision of leadership and the character of a worldly leader, I can testify that nothing is more spiritually liberating than giving up the false ideal so common in our culture, the leader as master of everything. There is a wonderful freedom in submitting ourselves to God, to those God has brought around us as leaders, to the limits God has placed on us and those around us, and to the tendency to overreact out of fear or anxiety. All these things distort our decision-making and prevent us from making the best decision in God’s world.[8]

An Ignatian Moment

Pete Scazzero directs our attention to Ignatius of Loyola’s insight that we need to reach a point of “indifference” in our prayer life and decision-making to make good decisions. In summary, we need to listen to God in the movement of God, not just in our minds, but also in our Will and emotions as we make decisions. What we are waiting for is the moment when we want God’s will more than anything else and, so to speak, are indifferent to the worldly consequences of the answer to our prayer. In other words, when making decisions, leaders should feel that they, their organization, and the people closest to them will be drawn closer to God by the decision. This kind of decision-making takes time.

From Numbers to Discipleship of Future Leaders

One important discovery a Christian pastor or other leader can make is that the number of followers is less important than their quality. Success depends not on the actions of a large number of people, though many may be involved in the end, but on the actions of a few people who do the right things at the right time and in the right place. Christian leaders need to remember that, while Jesus did speak to large crowds, he focused his attention on a relatively small number of people who would carry his ministry to the ends of the Earth. Skipping personal discipleship with small groups deprives Christian leaders of their greatest potential for impact.[9]

Conclusion

By now, it should be clear that Jesus calls Christian leaders to a different kind of leadership and a different measure of success than the world elevates. In recent years, my wife and I have primarily attended relatively small congregations. Some were new church plants; others were ancient churches led by priests. One thing I have appreciated learning is that the best church leaders are personally humble, love their congregation, get close to members, act carefully and wisely, and try to imitate Christ.

Becoming this kind of a leader requires adjustment. Here’s how Scazzzero puts it in Emotionally Healthy Success:

Jesus is not asking us to make small adjustments to our leadership. He is inviting us to stop playing the old success game entirely— to step out of the world of scale, hurry, worldly influence, comparison, and visibility— so we can learn a new way of seeing what truly matters.[10]

Next week, I will move on to the kinds of changes that Christian leaders and others need to make to become leaders like Jesus who focus on what truly and eternally matters.

Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus  (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2026. The blogs in this series are inspired by this book. I was given the opportunity to review an advance copy of the book, which I recommend to interested readers.

[2] Id, 57.

[3] Id, 58-59.

[4] Id, 62.

[5] Id, 63.

[6] Jim Collins, Good to Great (New York, NY: HarperBusiness, 2001).

[7] Emotionally Healthy Success, 71.

[8] Id.

[9] Id, 76.

[10] Id, 79.

 

This is the second week of an examination a toon o be released book, Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus by Pete Scazzero.^[1] One endearing characteristic of Pete Scazzero’s writings is the winsome honesty and self-disclosure that permeate his work. He’s not afraid to admit his own failures. I remember reading The Emotionally Healthy Church, the first of his books I read, and being touched by his admission of personal and pastoral failures, some of which I shared, and his willingness to share them.[2]

I wouldn’t want to take anything away from people reading his story for themselves, but I will share just enough to show that when he was a younger pastor, he was captured by a common evangelical desire to build a growing, thriving, and successful church. At some point along the way, a series of crises forced him to face the fact that he did not have the emotional health to be the kind of leader he wanted to be. The result was the creation of what is now Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. The church of Jesus Christ is better off because Pete Scazzero was willing to look at himself and see his own failures.

The False Metrics (Scorecard) We Create for Ourselves

Pete, like many of us, sometimes found himself comparing himself to other church leaders who seemed more successful. Such comparisons often brought him down rather than lifting him up. He might think, “I’m not a strong enough leader,” worry that his church isn’t growing quickly enough, or feel discouraged because people aren’t responding as he hoped. These negative thoughts can become endless and harmful because we often carry unhealthy scripts about what success should look like—scripts based on false ideas about our ministries and lives. Here are just a few of those misleading messages: ^[3]

1. I make too many mistakes and fail too often, violating the false metric that requires me to avoid mistakes.
2. I sometimes upset people or hurt their feelings, violating the false metric that people should always respond positively to my ministry.
3. I sometimes fail to meet people’s expectations, violating the false metric that one should always say yes to and meet other people’s expressed needs.
4. I don’t always get things right, violating the false metric that I must be right all the time.
5. Not everyone likes me or supports my ministry, violating the false metric that I should be liked and approved of by everyone.
6. My decisions sometimes result in conflict, violating the false metric that requires successful leaders to avoid conflict.
7. I am not always productive and thereby violate the false metric that a leader should accomplish a lot and work productively all the time.
8. I have physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and other weaknesses and thereby violate the false metric that I must not be weak or needy.
9. There are limits to my knowledge and experience, and I constantly fail the false metric that requires me to know more than everyone else.
10. There are times when I fail to put others first and meet my own needs, violating the false metric that requires me to make my personal life secondary.
11. There are times when I show anger, sadness, disappointment, and other emotions, violating the false metric that requires not to showing or expressing true feelings.
12. When I look around at others in my position, I recognize that I am just not good enough.

These internal narratives, the metrics they imply, and many others we could create are misleading and often false. In some cases, they lead us to be untrue to ourselves, our real needs, and the people who rely on us. As we internalize these false ideas, we create an “internal scorecard” we use to measure our success—a scorecard that can be deeply damaging.

The Problem with False Metrics (Bad Scorecard)

The problem with misleading metrics is straightforward: neither we nor anyone we know can truly meet them. If we try, failure is almost certain. For a long time in both my careers, I held a misguided notion of success that pushed me to be someone I wasn’t—someone smarter, stronger, tougher, more ruthless, and more daring than I was created to be. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t succeed. More damaging, failure deeply ingrained those false standards into my personality, resulting in obsessive workaholism. It took many years to finally let go and move forward.

Pete Scazzero puts it this way:

The weight of living up to all these scorecards is crushing. To keep everyone satisfied, to keep approval levels high and productivity up, we push ourselves far beyond what we can humanly sustain.^[4]

For a few years, our church compared itself to another congregation, a nearby mega-church that was part of a larger mega-church movement. We made our plans and set goals on the assumption that we should attempt to be like that church. We constantly fell short of our unrealistic goals. Finally, our Director of Christian Education, a wonderful person and good friend, advised senior leadership to stop imitating this other church and stop judging our success by its standard. She concluded with, “We just need to be who we are.”

It was one of the most liberating moments of my professional life. It was the first time it occurred to me that I did not always have to strive for our congregation to be bigger, better programmed, with a bigger facility and a larger budget. We could simply be who God created us to be. Most importantly, we could remain the community-centered church we had always been, without striving to become a more corporate congregation.

Social Status and False Scorecards

There was a time in America when pastors were held in high esteem. In particular, pastors of large mainline churches were highly respected members of local communities. When I was young, I was privileged to experience this phenomenon. The church my wife and I attended was prominent, and our pastor was a highly respected figure in a very large city. Unfortunately, the decline of Christian faith in America and a series of high-profile scandals have almost eliminated this phenomenon. It is rare today for a pastor to be seen as socially important.

One notable outcome of this phenomenon is that some pastors try to imitate successful leaders from the worlds of business or government, not only in how they lead but also in how they live as Christian mentors. For example, in one community where Kathy and I lived, there was a prominent pastor who never called himself a pastor. Instead, he sometimes referred to himself as a “religious businessman.” I believe this reflected a heartfelt desire to belong to a respected profession that offers social status and recognition. I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with wanting to be seen as a community leader, but unquestioningly emulating the values, objectives, organizational structures, and other aspects of business and government is problematic.

When he was a young man, the German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a doctoral thesis in which he argued that the church was a visible social organization as well as a visible spiritual one.[5] He persuasively argued that the sacred community of the church could not be reduced to the categories applicable to other social organizations. This is a point all pastors need to internalize: As a church, we share certain characteristics with other social organizations and must be managed efficiently, just as they are. As I sometimes used to tell some of our staff, “We have to pay the light bill just like everyone else.” On the other hand, the church is a spiritual organization, and we cannot always lead it in accordance with the values of a secular society. This can be hard for some people to understand. I’ve had to explain to successful businesspeople who were elders in a local congregation that a strategy successful in a business context simply could not be used in our local congregation.

When we use metrics developed for business or other social organizations, we risk being unfaithful to Christ. In the same way, when we ultimately use the ministry of Christ to achieve for ourselves the same order of secular objectives that motivate secular leaders, we are almost certainly victims of a false metric and are measuring our ministry inadequately. This is particularly true when physical or fiscal size (members and budgets) becomes our most important metric. In the end, behind all the metrics ministries use to measure success, the fundamental question remains: “How good a job am I doing and our organization doing, in making more and better disciples for Christ?”^[6] Numbers can hide the spiritual reality that nothing important is happening in a church and in the spiritual lives of its members.

The Consequences of Inadequate or False Goals

Most parents encourage their children to learn to make good decisions. We spend so much time educating and training our children and trying to model a healthy lifestyle for them because we want them to make good decisions and lead happy, meaningful lives. A life characterized by bad decisions is never a happy one. The same is true for leaders as individuals and for the organizations they lead. Bad decisions have bad consequences. A bad notion of success leads to bad decisions, personal and otherwise.

When we adopt a false metric and therefore judge ourselves, others, and the organizations we participate in in a false or inadequate way, we open the door to suffering. When a pastor or other leader embraces a false scorecard, the results harm that person, those closest to us, and the cause of Christ.

There are certain signs that we have adopted a false scorecard and are harming ourselves, including the tendency to work beyond physical, emotional, and spiritual limits, constant overwork, feelings of inadequacy because one is not accomplishing enough, and constant comparison with others. Unfortunately, I have known many pastors who experience these feelings, including myself a good bit of the time.

When we act in this way, it can influence those around us, encouraging a similar behavior. For leaders, this might mean setting a standard that pushes everyone beyond what they thought was possible. While this can sometimes lead to personal challenges, it’s important to remember that pushing ourselves too hard can also affect our relationships with loved ones—family and friends—impacting the emotional bonds we cherish most.

Finally, when we push ourselves beyond our natural limits and live alienated from our own emotional well-being, we do violence to the cause of Christ. Over and over again, Scazzero points out that the most important changes people make occur slowly. Hurry, rush, and anxiety work against the slow work God intends to do in transforming our lives and the lives of those we have been called to serve. The mission we have been called to undertake becomes distorted and diverted from God’s fundamental purpose.

I’ve had the opportunity to help turn around more than one church. One of my personal failures has been to focus on structural flaws in the organization rather than on personally discipling people. When I look back on some of my successes that have not endured, I realize the failure was not growing the people, but trying to fix problems. God primarily calls pastors to disciple people, not to fix organizational charts or personnel problems. (This does not mean that fixing structural problems is unimportant.)

Scazzero describes the phenomenon as follows:

We do violence to God’s work whenever we rush ahead to do for God what he has not asked us to do. When we act for God without listening to God, we misuse our authority, distort priorities, and carry responsibilities God never entrusted to us. This is not a new pattern. Jesus’s disciples constantly succumbed to the temptation to take charge for God.[7]

The disciples, in many ways, misunderstood Jesus’s personal and communal messianic mission to transform lives. They hoped for something better: a politically and administratively reorganized Israel with them at the head. We can fall into the same way of thinking. We can fall into the habit of believing that because our church is growing, we’re doing God’s will. We can fall into the habit of thinking that because people praise our preaching, we’re doing God’s will. We can fall into the habit of thinking that because giving is increasing over the year, we’re doing God’s will. That may be the case, but it’s not necessarily the case.

When a church and its leadership embrace a false notion of success, there can be highly visible programs, a lot of activity, plenty of volunteers, and many indicators of health, while all along, under the surface, things are not good. Scazzero describes his experience as follows:

People under my leadership grew in areas that were visible–skills, knowledge, gift development— but not in the deeper places that actually change a person. We recycled the same problems year after year: defensiveness, poor conflict management skills, emotional reactivity. Significant parts of people’s lives remained untouched.[8]

My first pastorate was in a small church in a poor community that had experienced many years of decline. It was a small church, and so I was able to get personally involved in the life of many people. In particular, there was one young leader, about forty, with whom I became friends almost immediately. We spent a lot of time together. He was in a Bible study with me. He was in an accountability group with me. We began a men’s ministry which he led, and in which I participated. Interestingly, the five years we spent together were very productive for him and for me. That Bible study we started continues to this very day, thirty-five years later. He is still a leader in the church. He’s discipled other leaders in the church since I left. I can’t say this about every church I served. Devoting time to people is the most important thing a leader can do.

Don’t Play the Success Game

The most important takeaway from this blog is that we need to avoid judging our personal or ministry success by the standards of our society or secondary organizations. In Pete Scazzero’s terms, we need to refuse to play the success game. This does not mean we become isolated, highly spiritual, and entirely different people to whom normal people cannot relate. The reverse is true. We need to become whole people with whom people can easily relate. Next week, we’re going to talk about how we go about that difficult process.

Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

^[1] Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus  (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2026. This, the last and the remaining blogs in this series are inspired by this book. I was given the opportunity to review an advance copy of the book, which I recommend to interested readers.

[2] Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003, 2010). His other books include Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). For those who wish to read all of his books, see Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, updated ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), and The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming your Inner Life will Deeply Transform your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017).

^[3] Emotionally Healthy Success, 32-33. I have taken some liberty with the actual list Scazzero outlines to make it more personal to readers and to extend its meanings.

^[4] Emotionally Healthy Success, 33.

[5] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998).

^[6] “Making More and Better Disciples for Christ” was the motto of my first church. It was not a large congregation, but at some point it was widely seen as very active and productive in its area. The focus on discipleship allowed the development of leaders, some of whom are still active today.

[7] Emotionally Healthy Success, 46.

[8] Id, 48.

This week, I am shifting from political philosophy to discipleship, returning to a theme that has been the subject of many past essays. For the next few weeks, I am going to take a leisurely walk through a book that will be released in the next few months, Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus by Pete Scazzero.^[1] This book is in the final stages of publication. I was given the rare privilege of reading an advance copy. Readers can order the book in preorder on numerous websites, including Amazon. There may be some changes between the text that read and the final product. The Emotionally Healthy website is https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/.

In Emotionally Healthy Success, Pete is reaching out religious leaders with an important message—and one that is especially needed within the contemporary evangelical movement. The message is simple: For the contemporary church in the West and those impacted by American culture to recover spiritual and emotional health, spiritual values and disciplines that have been ruled secondary since the Reformation need to be recovered by the contemporary church.[2]

Pete Scazzero and his Ministry.

For many years, Pete Scazzero has been helping pastors and church leaders escape the shallowness of the American church and focus on deeper issues of emotional and spiritual health in the local church and among church members and leaders. Through his ministry, he has impacted many church members and leaders, including me.

Nearly a decade ago, I was asked to help a troubled congregation restore itself to health. One of the associate pastors pointed me to Pete’s book, The Emotionally Healthy Leader, and suggested I read it. Within weeks, one of our children reported to me that her Anglican congregation was reading The Emotionally Healthy Church together. Eventually, I read both books, then everything that Pete has written. Kathy and I participated in and later taught Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Relationships in local congregations. Over time, his message began to sink into my soul and changed not just my life and ministry, but our family as well.

Pete’s ministry has included planting and pastoring a growing church, facing the pressures and challenges of the contemporary pastorate, confronting his own weaknesses, writing books on the importance of emotional health in congregations, and, more recently, coaching and consulting with congregations of all shapes and sizes. One question he is constantly asked is, “Pete, how exactly do I know if I am succeeding or failing?”

False Metrics

The mere fact that this question is asked so frequently (and I have asked it myself) should alert us to a big problem in American Christianity: We are captured by the materialistic success orientation of our culture. We don’t ask, as I think the Apostle Paul would have asked, “Am I following Christ and sharing his love with others?” We ask, “Am I succeeding?” In Pete’s case, he pondered the answer to that question and came to the conclusion that he needed to change. In the process of looking at his own inner life, he concluded that American church leaders are confused about the meaning of their ministry because we often use the wrong metric to judge our success and failure.

From the time I began my ministry, I looked at some metrics every week. The metrics I looked at included how many people attended worship that week, the collections for the week, how many people attended Bible studies, Sunday School, and other discipleship events, and the like. My list was pretty long. I have friends for whom the list ended with the number of people in worship. I’ve also known people who abandoned their ministry when they didn’t see dramatic growth in attendance or even a small decline. This focus on metrics eventually turns into a kind of mania. “If my church grew by 10% last year, it should grow by 10% every year. In fact, it should grow by more than 10%. I should be doing better and better every year.”

Fortunately, during my first pastorate in a very small church, our church actually grew by about 10% a year; one year it grew about 30% and then returned to a slower growth rate. Years later, when I was called to a new pastorate, I looked at the issue of who dropped out of our fellowship. Guess what I found? I discovered that the greatest dropout rate among members was among those who joined during the years we grew fastest. That 30% year was the case in point. Our little church was simply incapable of nurturing a third more people each year. My focus on growth had not worked. From that point forward, I realized that there was something fundamentally wrong with the way I was judging success. I made every effort not to let growth metrics control my ministry or our church’s ministry.

The problem of false metrics is not limited to church leaders. I have been a lawyer involved in business, as well as a pastor, throughout my professional career. The problem of false metrics for success is always with us in any profession. In any profession, false metrics often reflect a need for personal approval. In business, they often involve a need for financial gain. In government, false metrics involve power and position in a bureaucracy. The problem is the same: We fall into the habit of comparing ourselves to others we feel have experienced greater success, as measured by the metric we are using.

Why False Metrics Matter

When I was a young lawyer, I was assigned to help a businessman clean up a failed investment. It was an interesting experience. To sell what remained of the business, we had to continue operating it for many months. In the process, we found that the former managers continually compared themselves to the largest company in the industry, which made an expensive product. To gain market share, the company cut prices, resulting in massive losses during a recession. We, on the other hand, bid whatever it took to make a profit, because we were going to sell the company anyway. We got every contract we bid on. Why? Because, in fact, the company was the second choice for most customers, who only gave us the contract if our larger competitor was unable to fill the order. In other words, we could bid much higher because we were meeting an urgent need. Using a false metric drove the company into an unnecessary bankruptcy. Once we understood that fact, we were able to restore the company to profitability.

The lesson? False metrics matter, and recognizing that we are using a false metric is the first step toward renewed health, whether in business, government, non-profits, the church, or one’s personal life.

We live in a culture obsessed with false metrics. Our false metrics are often a version of size matters. But there are other false metrics—power matters, position matters, personal pleasure matters, getting what I want matters, being right matters—the list is pretty long. The problem with false metrics is that they result in failure and pain. The pain is felt by everyone: the person who uses the false metrics, their family, children, neighborhoods, church, cities, even the nation as a whole. False metrics create suffering. We are surrounded daily by the consequences of living according to false metrics and a false narrative of what a truly blessed life requires. The ruins lie all around us in the form of broken families, neglected children, alienated employees, troubled churches, and a host of other signs that something is deeply wrong in our culture.

The church is not immune to false metrics. I have been a pastor for a long time. I have been to many meetings of pastors, local groups, denominations, and large training events. Almost inevitably, the first question pastors ask each other is, “How large is your church?”  The most pervasive metric in today’s evangelical movement is size. Size = success is a false metric.  Interestingly, based on this metric, Jesus was a failure.

During his ministry, he attracted crowds, but at the end of his life he was completely alone. He had twelve close colleagues who deserted him, and a larger group that did the same. Jesus, however, did not think that size was what mattered. He also did not think that financial security, a large home, and a host of other things we view as signs of success were important. He thought having a relationship with God, whom he called “Father,” was important. Success was being a faithful son of the Father.

The night before he was executed by the successful and powerful people in his culture, he asked that the fate allotted to him not be required, but in the end, he accepted his destiny with a calm, “Not my will but Thy will be done.” His metric for success had nothing to do with success, money, position, power, pleasure, or fame. It had to do with carrying out the will of the Father in constant, unbroken communion with God. In the eyes of the world, he would be seen as a failure. In the eyes of God, the Beloved Son had achieved the greatest success the world had ever seen or would ever see—a victory over evil, sin, and eventually death.

False Metrics Lead to False Comparison

If we use a false metric to judge ourselves, our families, our professions, or our churches, we inevitably end up comparing ourselves to others. Pete Scazzero puts it this way:

Comparison with others is a unique kind of self-torture. What begins as a glance sideways often grows into something far more dangerous: envy and covetousness. Comparison says, “How am I doing?” Envy whispers, “I’m not enough unless I have what they have.” It is the voice that says, “I’ll be happy when our church reaches two hundred or five hundred.” “I’ll be content when we finally have our own building or are debt-free.” “I’ll feel so much better when we have a bigger youth ministry or a second campus.” This struggle with comparison isn’t new. It’s a dynamic that appears repeatedly in Scripture.^[3]

The Bible is full of stories about people and nations that had a false ideal that led to destruction and death. Israel wanted to be like all the nations that surrounded them, and the result was a series of failed kings, division, and finally enslavement in Babylon. Saul wanted the adulation of the people more than faithfulness to God, and the result was the loss of God’s favor and eventually the loss of his kingdom and life. David wanted the pleasure of being with Bathsheba more than obedience to the law, and the result was suffering for his family and nation. When Jesus arrived, the leaders of the people valued the continuation of their comfortable way of life more than the recognition of the unexpected Messiah they had been given by God.

I wish I could look back on my own professional career without regret for having followed false metrics and the damage they caused. But the facts are otherwise. When we discover that we have been captured by a false ideal of success, the best thing we can do is recognize it, repent of it, and live beyond its control as we do the best we can to undo the damage and suffering it has caused.

Conclusion

The good news is that God is merciful and we can move beyond our cultural captivities to false ideals and notions of success. In the process, we find our true selves and the joy of using our best talents, be they large or modest, in the way God has intended. In my experience, undoing the consequences is never swift, easy, or complete, but there is real healing. In this world, real healing, personal and social, is both important and enough.

At least to this point in my Christian walk and as a Christian leader, I have not accomplished all I hoped and dreamed of. Along the way, there have been failures and shortcomings. There has also been mercy and undeserved success. One of the great mercies has been the discovery of Pete Scazzero’s writings and the Emotionally Healthy Discipleship movement.

One word about Emotionally Healthy Discipleship generally and Emotionally Healthy Success in particular: These are not books to be read quickly or summarized in an essay like this. You have to read the books, do the exercises they recommend, and make the changes required to achieve emotionally healthy spirituality, relationships, and leadership. This is why pastors and church leaders need to do the work personally before leading a group of people through the materials. In a reversal of the phrase, “It is not about you,” it is about you (and me). It is about being the person and disciple God calls you (and me) be before anything else.

Perhaps just as importantly, it is important to do the work with your spouse and other colleagues. Fortunately, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship offers online leadership training for church leaders, preparing them to bring this ministry to their local church. Kathy and I have done the training, and it was wonderful. We are still in contact with some of the people we met during the training. Next week, we are beginning a new couples course with folks from around the country. It has been a wonderful experience.

Next week, I am going to return to how false metrics lead us to false ways of thinking about ourselves and what leadership requires of us, causing failure and misery to ourselves, others, and the cause of Christ.

Blessings to all.

^[1] Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus  (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2026. See also, Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). For those who wish to read all of his books, see, Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003, 2010), Emotionally Healthy Spirituality updated ed (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming your Inner Life will Deeply Transform your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017)

[2] Although Emotionally Healthy Success is primarily written for religious leaders, its principles are equally valid for those of us in secular occupations. They are also valid for non-Christians, though people from other faith traditions or no faith tradition will have to adapt certain principles for their own tradition.

^[3] Id, 24.

It might seem unusual to find a section on God in the political arena as part of a series of informal writings about the search for justice. Hopefully, by the end of this blog, we’ll see that including God in process-based political discussions is justified. The modern world often reacts against the idea that God or religion should play a role in politics, and a quick look at history helps us understand why. Before the Enlightenment, Europe was torn apart by religious wars among Protestants, Catholics, and various political groups trying to assert control over the church and its followers. This turbulent history, which concluded with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, left a lasting negative impression on many thinkers.[1]

In France, in particular, many people felt that the close ties between the Roman Catholic Church and the French government unfairly burdened the poor and lower classes. Across most European countries, religious dissenters often faced persecution. One of the main aims of Enlightenment thinkers was to protect individuals from the threat of religious persecution by advocating greater separation between church and state.

The Enlightenment thinkers dreamed of freeing the human race from religious superstition and institutions, enabling the advance of science and technology, and, originally, the emergence of a universal moral system on which all rational people could agree and on which human societies and their laws could be based. Unfortunately, this dream could not be realized, and the modern world lost confidence in the possibility of a universally agreed-upon moral system. In addition, with the breakdown of Enlightenment confidence in human reason, a kind of cultural nihilism developed in Europe and the West, including the United States.

The God of Process Thinking

Major process thinkers are often considered “constructive postmodernists.”[2] In other words, this group of thinkers has generally opposed the deconstructive potential of much modern thought and has been sympathetic to religion and morals. Some of these thinkers early on saw the potential for cultural and political nihilism as the modern world decayed, and addressed that decay by offering constructive thinking about the problems of religion and morality. As a whole, they reject the idea of “God as a Super Tyrant” who undertakes to manage the universe in great detail. Nevertheless, they are concerned to make room for a realm of the spirit, universal values and human freedom in the search for justice.

As always, when discussing the various takes on process and thought, it’s common to begin with Alfred North Whitehead. (This is not to deny the contributions of many other thinkers.) Whitehead was not religious but was sympathetic. He grew up in a religious household. His father was an Anglican priest in the Church of England. Although Whitehead lost interest in the Christian God of his parents early on, he remained sympathetic to religion and often had positive things to say about Christianity in particular. Despite this, he’s often been regarded as a kind of Western Buddhist because of similarities between aspects of his thought and Buddhist philosophy.[3]

For Whitehead, God is “dipolar,” meaning there are two aspects to God’s being. He begins his analysis by distinguishing between the primordial eternal (or transcendental) nature of God’s being and the “consequent” (or postmordial) nature of God as God is involved in the universe. In this essay, I will speak of the primordial and postmordial natures of God as the distinction between God’s eternal nature, considered without regard to his relationship with creation, and his postmordial nature, which includes his intimate involvement in his creation, allowing Christians to believe that we live and move and have our being in the ever-present God of wisdom and love revealed in Christ.[4]

Eternal Objects and Whitehead’s God

To better understand Whitehead’s perspective on God, let’s explore what he calls “Eternal Objects.” As we discussed earlier, Whitehead describes our everyday world—sometimes called the “Actual World”—as composed of many actual occasions, which I have called “momentary events” or “units of becoming.” The things we perceive as stable objects, which he calls “Enduring Objects,” are really just complex events that persist because of their underlying structure.

Whitehead points out that there are two types of objects that influence the emergence of the world of actual occasions but are not themselves actual occasions. These are:

1. Eternal objects, that is, ideal entities, like “justice,” that represent pure potentials for becoming real in the actual world. They also serve as the foundational concepts underlying all actual occasions. As to notions such as justice, I have called these “Transcendental ideals.”
2. God is the unique Eternal Object, who is both an Eternal Object and the primordial actual entity. (That is to say, God exists and has always existed as an actual entity that influences reality. While God is not an actual occasion (“momentary events” or “units of becoming”), God is present in all actual occasions.

Eternal Objects are the qualities and structures that shape actual occasions, such as instances of “justice” or “injustice.” Every individual entity is noetically composed of and defined by an endless hierarchy of these Eternal Objects, which can be a lot to take in. Basically, Eternal Objects are essentially the same as what philosophers call “universals,” which are repeatable qualities, characteristics, or types that can be shared by multiple distinct objects or individuals.

For example, consider me: I am a human being, a man, Caucasian, with blue eyes, a Christian, and a seeker of justice. I am also a citizen and a church member. Countless universals make up who I am. For Whitehead, Eternal Objects gain meaning and become “real” through their embodiment in individuals. In turn, individuals find their meaning through their participation in these eternal logics.[5] In this respect, they are somewhat similar to what Aristotle called “Potentials.” Eternal objects find their concrete existence as they become embodied in something that exists.

This feature allows each actual entity to be experienced in important ways by future entities.

1. Eternal Objects participate in the causal connection among individual entities, functioning as private qualities and public structures that characterize the growth of actuality in its rhythmic advance from private, subjective immediacy to public, extensively structured fact.
2. Eternal Objects are real potential elements (noetic ideals) that ensure that the process of nature is not deductive succession but organic growth and creative advance. This characteristic is important for understanding such political notions as Justice, for the search for justice is one of constant change and creative advance.

According to Whitehead, Eternal Objects are pure potentials that arise from the nature of the special actual entity humans call “God.” In God’s eternal life, Eternal Objects are ideal possibilities or potentialities, carefully ordered by logical and aesthetic principles, that become actual when embodied in Actual Occasions. Because God is both eternal and involved in his creation, God is both the originator and the recipient of every actual embodiment of these qualities. When these objects are realized in God, they transcend the specific actual entities in which they are found. For instance, consider the concept of blueness—it’s present in many actual entities, such as my blue eyes, but the essence of blueness itself transcends any single physical example.

Throughout Western philosophy, several fundamental ideas have been proposed about the ultimate nature of God. One is classic theism, which sees God as eternally above the universe. Those who reject classic theism often turn to pantheism, which views God as the inner spiritual essence of everything in the universe. The final idea, which aligns well with a process view of God, is called “panentheism.” This perspective sees God as both present within everything as the inner spiritual essence and existing transcendently beyond the universe. Therefore, God and his eternal qualities are both transcendent and potential, and present and real in concrete reality.

In summary, the God of process thinking is both eternal and unchanging, with the characteristics philosophers and theologians have historically attributed to God, and loving, personal, and social, maintaining constant contact with his creation and everything in it. The “postmordial” nature of God is not transcendent but present in creation and actively part of the world’s process. In a real sense, God can be seen as “becoming” as creation unfolds in both the natural and social worlds that human beings create.

In classical Christian terms, God the Father is not knowable in his essence, which transcends human existence, but the word of God (the logos) is present in the universe and became supremely present in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The word of God, which is present in every actual occasion, is therefore knowable and can be known and experienced in human history. That specific quality of the logos that we call justice likewise becomes existent in a human society when people act justly in a specific situation. A court is considered just, or a decision is considered just, when it embodies that quality we call justice in a principle or decision.

A God of Persuasion Instead of Force

For Whitehead, God is “actual” (an actual entity) but nevertheless “non-temporal” (not a part of space/time as we know it), yet is the source of all creativity and innovation.[6] God transmits his creativity through what Whitehead refers to as “Persuasion.” God does not force the universe to do God’s bidding. Instead, God “persuades” or “lures” the universe through wisdom and love into becoming what God intends it to be. In this act of persuasion, God submits himself to the fact that the universe and human beings may freely ignore or violate that persuasion.

As mentioned earlier, Whitehead’s God has two poles of existence: a transcendent pole, which is primordial, and a consequential or physical pole that I have called “postmordial.” The transcendent pole is the “mental pole” of God, wherein the existence of Eternal Objects is found. As primordial, God is eternal, having no beginning or end, and is the ultimate reason for the universe, a factor that was important to Whitehead.

Despite the transcendent reality of God, God is present in the universe and in all actual occasions, which constitute the physical pole of God’s existence. In this physical pole, God experiences the world and the actualization of Eternal Objects within Actual Occasions. Because of God’s physical pole, God can be affected by and experience actuality. Thus, Whitehead’s God experiences and grows in a dynamic relationship with the created universe.

Subsequent interpreters of Whitehead have made significant changes to his theory, bringing it closer to Christian thought. In particular, Charles Hartshorne, the most important of his interpreters in the United States, thought that Whitehead’s definition of God did not sufficiently reflect God’s personhood. The consequential nature of God (God embedded in physical reality) is conscious and constantly moves creation toward an ideal end, wielding the power of wisdom and love. But God does not direct the course of the unfolding so much as “lure” or love creation (including human beings and human society) toward the accomplishment of the ideal ends for which God created them. In other words, God respects the freedom of his creation, including his human creation, and is affected by every decision the universe and everything in it makes.

Thus, process thinkers envision a God who is both eternal and capable of change, experiencing growth and actualization through an infinite variety of relationships with his creation, including the human race’s creations. This dynamic view of God emphasizes that God is not merely an abstract, timeless being but one who knows and includes the world within Himself—building a deep, loving connection with all within it. Only such a loving, active God can be truly complete and responsive, embodying love through real, personal relationships.[7]

Justice, God, and Transcendent Ideals

Whitehead uses the term Eternal Objects to refer to what other philosophers call universals. Regarding universals like “justice,” which is the primary purpose of these blogs, I think of them as what I have called “transcendent ideals.” These ideals exist as noetic potentialities that can be realized in human society through the diligent search for justice, embodied in institutions such as legislatures, courts, and the legal community as a whole, which seek a better, more harmonious society. These ideals exist in the eternal being of God yet are unfolded over time by the actions of human actors, some of whom are inspired by the ideals of the transcendental God and some of whom are not.

At this point, I will become both philosophical and theological at the same time. For example, take the Westminster Confession of Faith and its description of the attributes of God:

There is but one only, living, and true God who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him….[8]

Ultimately, what we call morality and justice is rooted in the eternal, simple being of God, who is the ultimate source of any justice humans can achieve throughout history. God has kindly revealed some of this to us, both in nature, which secular thinkers can accept, and in Christian revelation and tradition. God is slowly unfolding this fundamental embodiment of justice, inherent in God’s being, into the time-bound reality of human societies, including our own. Yet the full extent of God’s being—eternal, invisible, and beyond human understanding—remains a divine mystery.

The great Jewish physicist and philosopher David Bohm offers us a way of thinking about the unfolding of justice in a concrete human society that I find helpful. The eternal essence of justice is “enfolded” in the being of God (or, for secular people, in the transcendental ideal of justice and a just society) and “unfolded” into human reality by human actors as they are drawn into the search for that justice, which is continually revealed to those who search for it, however imperfectly.[9]

Bohm sees the universe as deeply meaningful, full of information at every level of reality—much of which we humans are only beginning to understand. This meaningful aspect is constantly being “unfolded” during the course of universal history and especially within human societies. In simpler terms, both the physical universe and human beings, along with society, are inherently meaningful. These physical and mental parts of reality are interconnected as one whole, gradually revealing themselves within the universe, human societies, and history—both in how they unfold physically and through human actions.

To share this insight, Bohm introduced the term “soma-significant” to highlight the meaningful and information-rich nature of the universe. The term also suggests that the mental and physical parts of reality are deeply connected: soma-significance indicates that the physical (soma) and its mental significance are not separate entities, but rather two sides of the same coin, forming one unified reality. [10]

The universe and all its parts, including human societies and justice systems, are naturally both physical and mental (what I call “noetic”). The core of the universe’s information-sharing is grounded in a somatic order — an arrangement or connection of distinguishable parts within a physical structure. According to Bohm, there’s essentially only one flow in the universe, a flow that is both material and meaningful. Though meaning shifts within that flow, there’s no final line dividing mind and matter. The universe is a single meaningful whole, and while we can analyze and distinguish mind from matter, they are part of the same process.

The flow of the universe, through its organic processes, is a movement of matter, energy, and information in which meaning flows between the physical aspect (“soma”) and the noetic or ideal aspect (significance), yet ultimately they are not separate. The beautiful interconnectedness of the universe means that soma-significance (physical reality) is paired with its opposite, a sign-somatic relationship that Bohm calls “signa-significance” (a noetic reality). This means that, at a basic level, the information and signs that form the universe influence the physical world, as they are closely interlinked. Soma-significance shows that matter affects the mind, while signa-significance highlights that changes in meaning or significance also have physical effects.

This insight illuminates how ideals like justice come to life through the actions of a community dedicated to law and fairness. The deep meaning of justice is woven into the fabric of reality itself—and into the essence of God, who continually reveals it (unfolds its reality) through those who earnestly pursue justice in their communities. This pursuit is not merely abstract; it’s meaningful and tangible, influencing the physical world and shaping the ongoing development of society and legal systems.

Conclusion

Readers, I hope you can see that I’m trying to express an idea I haven’t fully understood. The main principle is actually quite straightforward. Justice isn’t simply a matter that can be reduced to science, as modern thinkers often suggest, focusing on power, relationships, economic factors, or political ties. Instead, justice is unique, independent, and eminently real, though its actual existence in a given society is embedded in its institutions and their decisions. When we seek justice, we can’t ignore the influence of power, political realities, economic laws, or other social and cultural factors present in any society. Seeking justice is about creating a harmonious society where different groups can coexist peacefully and where those who disturb that peace are held accountable and receive what they deserve. Even more importantly, it helps establish cultural norms—such as protecting private property and the obligation to make amends when harm is caused negligently.

From this perspective, it should not surprise anyone that various societies have different legal codes and approaches to legal problems. The power dynamics, relationships, economic realities, political realities, and social and cultural factors differ among societies. For example, Muslim societies are very different from Western democracies, as are Confucian societies, such as China. Nevertheless, despite all of our differences, we are on a common search for justice and can live in a peaceful world order as we seek a just order of the societies of which we are a part.

Copyright, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] The Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, ended the Eighty Years’ War and the German phase of the Thirty Years’ War. The treaty, signed in Münster and Osnabrück, involved Spain, the Dutch, the Holy Roman Empire, France, and Sweden, marking a secular shift in European history.

[2] Constructive postmodernism refers to a movement that rejects the nihilistic attack on the foundations of knowledge and morality by what sometimes called the deconstructive postmodernists. Instead, constructive postmodernism proposes a view of the progress of human knowledge that respects tradition, communities of interpretation, and religious and other traditional components of morality and the search for justice. My own views track those of C. S. Peirce, Josiah Royce, Michael Polanyi, Alfred North Whitehead and others of the movement.

[3] A substantial portion of this post is based on an earlier post, see G. Christopher Scruggs, “Whitehead No. 2: God, Eternal Objects, and Persuasion” at  www.gchristopherscruggs.com August 1, 2022 and G. Christopher Scruggs, Illumined by Wisdom and Love: Essays on a Sophio-Agapic Constructive Postmodern Political Theory (Hunt, TX; Quansus Publishing, 2025).

[4] As an aside, I believe that there is nothing inherently contrary to classical Christian belief in the work of the major process thinkers, despite the antagonism of some process thinkers like Charles Hartshorne.

[5] In this argument, I think Whitehead would have benefited from adopting a distinction made famous by Charles Sanders Peirce, namely the distinction between what it means to be real and what it means to exist. Peirce uses the term “exist” to refer to material reality. He uses the term “real” to include things that are not part of material reality but influence it, such as universals like justice. I believe this is the better way to think about a process argument as it relates to the law. Justice exists in past situations (existing reality) where society has found a just solution to a problem, and it serves as a transcendental ideal or a noumenal reality that continually shapes future decision-making.

[6] In what I think was a mistake, Whitehead does not consider God the preeminent being as does traditional thought. Instead, “creativity” is the ultimate metaphysical principle that underlies all actual entities. The universe is characterized by the continual creative emergence of actual occasions and actual entities. Charles Hartshorne rejected this view, returning God to the position of metaphysical supremacy. For Christians, God’s eternal wisdom and outpouring love are the source of this creative advance. “Justice” is one of the results of God’s creative outpouring.

[7] Thomas Hopko, “God and the World: An Eastern Orthodox Response to Process Theology” A Dissertation submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Theology of Fordham University (New York, 1982). 126-127. This dissertation remains worth reading for anyone interested in the potential for dialogue between Orthodox thinkers and process thinkers.

[8] Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 2, Section 1. The Second Helvetic Confession puts it this way: “We believe and teach that God is one in essence or nature, subsisting in himself, all sufficient in himself, invisible, incorporeal, immense, eternal, Creator of all things both visible and invisible, the greatest good, living, quickening and preserving all things, omnipotent and supremely wise, kind and merciful, just and true.” Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter 3 Of God, His Unity and Trinity, Section 1 (emphasis added).

[9] See, David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London ENG: Routledge, 1980). David Bohm, “the Enfolding Unfolding Universe and Consciousness” (1980) in Lee Nichol, ed, The Essential David Bohm (London, ENG: Routledge, 2003).

[10] “Soma- Significance and the Activity of Meaning” (1980) in The Essential David Bohm, 158.

Society As a Dynamic Process System

Last week, I shared a perspective on our legal system, viewing it as part of a larger ‘world’ composed of various societies. For those who think in terms of processes, the fundamental building blocks—called actual occasions—combine to form enduring entities and communities. This suggests that what we often consider “reality” is, at its heart, social. This encompasses not only the physical universe but also our social and intellectual worlds. Simply put, everything—everything—is fundamentally social, including human beings, our culture, and the institutions we build.

Relativity theory and, at the quantum level, what is sometimes called “spooky action at a distance” or “entanglement” implies that everything in the universe is related to everything else. In other words, the universe itself is a society of sorts. Every subatomic particle, every actual entity, every actual occasion (“momentary event,” “unit of becoming,” or “relational experience”), every person—everything in the universe—is socially related to everything else. To put it bluntly, everything whatsoever, of whatever kind or character in the flow of universal history, has social relationships with everything else.

Our legal system is highly complex, built on a series of laws and principles, starting with the Constitution, which remain steady over time but can evolve. Last week, I shared the idea of “fixed principles” or “fixed decisions” as the legal equivalent of “actual occasions” within the law. For example, Marbury v. Madison, decided in 1803, was a groundbreaking case that set the precedent that the Supreme Court has the power of judicial review.[1] This means they can strike down laws passed by Congress that conflict with the Constitution. This principle has been a part of our legal system for over 200 years. While it could theoretically be changed, it’s highly unlikely that Congress, the Supreme Court, or the people through amendments would overturn Marbury v. Madison. It is a fixed decision that reflects a principle of American law and has endured for a long time.

Social Relationships and Law

In recent years, the relatively new discipline of ecology has made it clear that the world consists of interrelated parts not only at the universal and subatomic level but also at the material level of our day-to-day lives. When we consider the natural world as a whole, sustaining healthy relationships among its parts becomes an important goal. At the human level, the principle of ecology is even more important. Maintaining healthy human relationships within a healthy society is an important goal for any society. This is important when considering what kind of society we want to create, what kind of judicial system we intend to have within that society, and the nature of justice itself.

We often speak of the “social environment of a culture.” This implicitly recognizes that every facet of a culture is related to every other aspect and that we experience that social environment in numerous ways. This is not just true on a material level, that is, the level of human beings who run into each other through their social contacts. It’s true on a noetic level as well. Although we have to look at certain immaterial aspects of society as discrete social realities, they’re all related. For example, our judicial system is related to our political culture, which is related to our philosophical culture, which is related to our ideas about who human beings are, which is related to the arts as well as the sciences. For our society to be healthy, all the relationships human beings create must be healthy, not just in isolation but in relation to one another.

As a result, we can’t view a judicial system in isolation from the other aspects of the culture of which it is a part. This, I think, explains some of the problems we sometimes face when religion, morality, and law collide. Some people would like to keep morality and religion completely outside the boundaries of the law. Some people would like to see their moral views enacted into law in a rigid way. Neither of these is the best way to approach the problem of religion and morality. The fact is, our moral views are important and inform our legal views. This is apparent in public debates such as that over abortion; it’s less obvious in other areas.

Despite attempts by some to separate morality and law, it is clear that much of the law in every society, including our own, has a moral basis. Stealing is illegal in most societies, but it’s also widely regarded as immoral. Murder is illegal in most societies, but it’s also widely regarded as immoral. The moral element, to use a technical term, “inheres” in the law as part of its essential reality. Sometimes moral commitments offer clues about how the legal “real world” is or ought to be. Sometimes the legal element of society gives us a clue as to what morality it should adopt. Most importantly, as the widespread social decay evident in some societies illustrates, if the majority of people believe that the leadership or legal system of that society is unfair or immoral, the entire culture experiences dysfunction and decay.

Individuals and Societies

One persistent challenge in our modern world concerns the relationship between individuals and their society. This is true because individuals and the society they live in are not independent, unrelated entities. We develop our sense of self within the context of human society. Every human being is born into a family, community, and culture with unique (and sometimes destructive) norms and traditions. Our civilization is built upon the shared social attitudes that various communities embrace and internalize. Yet it’s important to remember that human beings are not mere automatons driven solely by society. At some point, the character of the mature individual emerges—an individual capable of independent judgment and creative involvement in all the societies of which he or she is a part.

In reality, human societies both constitute individuals and are constituted by them. Society and culture, including political institutions and conventions, shape individuals and are shaped and transformed by them. Thus, there is a constantly unfolding interplay between individuals and society, resulting in ongoing social change. Human society not only shapes individuals’ social behavior; it also gives them the potential to change society.

Over time, infants develop into conscious human actors who can influence the societies into which they were born. This creative human capacity allows people to modify the beliefs and attitudes that shape their sense of self and project those views into the broader communities to which they belong. Thanks to this capacity, individuals can shape and refine their personal growth—their developing self—by influencing and even changing the broader social patterns on which they were initially built. In this way, there’s a continuous, dynamic interaction between the individual and society, with each continually shaping the other. Once again, you cannot reduce societies to collections of independently existing individuals, nor can you reduce individuals to products of the societies that produced them.

Our habit of thinking of individuals as isolated monads, like Newtonian atoms bound together by forces, has fueled a kind of extreme social individualism on one side of political and social thought and an extreme corporatism on the other. It’s my view that both these extremes are wrong and that thinking in this way is no longer the best way to think. We human beings have a separate identity, but that identity is heavily influenced by the culture and society of which we are a part. It’s actually kind of hard to say where social influence ends and individual thought begins. I’ve known many people who considered themselves to be individualistic rebels who, in fact, were simply adopting the views and behaviors of a subset of our society of which they were a part.

Why Tolerance is Important

To use a religious term, it would seem that individuals and societies “coinhere” with one another. We are deeply embedded in a network of relationships, and our self-identity is tied to the identities of those around us, especially those in our families, communities, churches, social groups, political parties, cities, states, and nation. A problem, however, occurs when we over, identify with the social realities to the point where we cannot appreciate other people, their views, and their way of life. If we make our own social group, the absolute source of our identity, we end up, worshiping it and giving it a power over us that is unhealthy not just for us, but for the society of which we are apart.

In a complex, multifaceted social system, like the United States of America, one is daily, brought into contact with people from other places, other races, other moralities, other religions, and other ways of life. One does not have to agree with that way of life in order to respect the rights of those who have it. The basis of the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom was for just exactly this purpose. The early United States was primarily Christian, but, there was a Jewish minority. In addition, there was a division between Protestants and Roman Catholics and among the various Protestant sects that made up the early nation. The founders had experienced in Europe, and primarily in the United Kingdom, the results of the government making decisions about what was and was not religiously acceptable. Many of the first generation of Americans left England because of their persecution for their religious beliefs.

Therefore, they felt it was necessary that Congress should not establish a religion. That is to say, Congress could not establish a religion that was binding upon all members of the society of the United States of America. When they said this, they intended in particular to protect Americans from an established church, like the Church of England had become in the country from which most of them left. However, many of the founders were aware of a Jewish minority in America and they expected these protections to be available to them as well.

This gives us a clue as to how we ought to behave today in a much more complex situation. Today America not only has innumerable Christian groups, but also every world religion and a number of what would have been called religious cults exist in the United States. They occupy the public arena, have access to the media, build religious establishments, and otherwise participate in the society of which we are all a part. There are also people who have no faith at all, and they also participate in the society of which we are a part. It is only if we can all recognize that we are on a common search within our various communities for a kind of religious truth and a way of life that is life enhancing that we can permit those who differ from us to express their views.

This aspect of American culture is different than the experience in Europe and other places in the world. We sometimes are appalled by the kind of religious control that governments in Europe feel empowered to create. We need to remember that there was not a time in Europe when people were religiously free. The government was always in charge of religion, and whatever religious freedoms exist because of a government decision.

This is not the view of religious freedom held in America. In America, we believe that the people are fundamentally sovereign, and the government is limited to the specific powers given to it. The people have the right to restrict those powers by amending the Constitution, which they have done. In fact, before the Constitution was fully put into effect, it was required that the first ten amendments be passed. These amendments prominently included the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and of religion. I hope to do a longer series of blogs on this very important point before the year is over, or early next year at the latest.

We see today in America a generation that has grown up without a full understanding of the unique freedoms we Americans possess and the unique wisdom of our founders in placing restrictions upon the power of the federal government. In addition, nearly every state Constitution has the same or similar restrictions. The notion of our founders was that sovereignty ultimately resides in the people, and that their rights cannot be limited except by the people themselves.

Conclusion

Initially, the blog for this week and next week was combined into one. However, as I tried to keep it to a typical week’s content, the word count doubled! So, I decided to split it into two parts. This week, we focus on the individual and society, while next week, we’ll explore traditions and their role in social stability and preserving our freedoms. I hope you find these discussions engaging!

Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs. All Rights Reserved

[1] Marbury v Madison, 5 US (I Cranch) 137 (1803).

For some time, I’ve been trying to think about what a process-influenced judicial theory might look like. Over the next few weeks, I am publishing what is essentially a series of reflections on a process view of reality, as it might be understood to help our judicial system work better, promote the search for justice and social harmony in our society, and, hopefully, help make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren. Unlike most of my endeavors, this blog does not include a bunch of footnotes reflecting research. It is a reflection on research already completed, most of which has already been set out in one or more of my writings.[1] Those who follow me know that I rarely publish anything without research, and the next three or four blogs are no exception.

What is a Process Influenced Judicial Theory

The idea that reality is best viewed as a process is not new. In fact, it goes back to the Greek philosophers. The Biblical writers understood this important truth. They knew that:

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.[2]

The Biblical writers were not unaware of the reality of change. The meditations of the prophets on the rise and fall of empires from Egypt to Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome testify to their understanding of the reality of change in the political realm.

From a political point of view, Marcus Aurelius noted that the Roman Empire was subject to constant, and sometimes threatening, change. Thus, he says:

Observe constantly that all things come about by change; accustom yourself to reflect that nature of the universe loves nothing so much as changing things that are and making new things from them. [3]

Nevertheless, Western civilization has been influenced primarily by what might be called a static or atomistic, reductionist view of the world, which results in a reductionistic, power-oriented theory of justice. Plato, represents the classical view that notions such as “justice” were real things, what he called Forms, that existed in a world of Forms, and upon which all incarnations of the Form were based. Put in legal terms, any particular just decision was a physical incarnation of the ideal of Justice.

A Static Material Universe

Beginning with Newton, this earlier, ancient organic view of the universe began to shift toward a material vision of the universe. Part of what drove the rise of modern science was the search for universal, unchanging, and timeless principles that would govern the universe and everything in it. According to early Enlightenment thinkers, the universe was made by God, but the God who created it was more of an absent creator, participating in an overflowing stream of reality.

What might be called “historical Enlightenment optimism” held that moral values were built into the universe and, in a sense, baked into the human personality, which emerged from that material universe and was part of it. Initially, these thinkers believed that all right-thinking people would eventually agree on what was just or moral in any particular situation. The problem was human ignorance. Unfortunately, a consensus on moral, political, and legal issues was never achieved. In the end, this part of the Enlightenment project failed. This, in turn, led to a kind of moral nihilism common in contemporary society. Modern materialists tend to think they’re merely human choices enacted by a power-invested body.[4]

Contemporary materialist philosophers have generally held that there is no such thing as “Justice” per se, except as a label that those who seek a particular outcome place on things that advance their interests, or, for more communal thinkers, on the human community as a whole. The technical term for this view is “nominalism,” i.e., the notion that universal categories like “justice” are merely names we place on certain states of affairs or results that we, our group, or our society approve of.

This development is particularly important for the United States of America because we are the first Enlightenment nation. America was born out of the optimism early Enlightenment philosophers felt about the prospects for a human-oriented politics that would serve the best interests of citizens. It’s also a fact that the decline of that optimism has resulted in a kind of political realism and negative-oriented politics that characterizes contemporary political debate. One of the objectives of a constructive postmodernism is to overcome that realism and its destructive results in political life.

Process View of Reality

Unlike materialist thinkers, process thinkers believe that the fundamental reality lies not in matter and forces acting upon it, but in the unfolding process of the universe.  The quantum physicist and philosopher, David Bohm, describes the process of reality as a “flow.” Skipping the long history of process philosophy, it seems to me that the best way to understand reality is as a coherence among information, energy, and “concretions” of that intelligible energy flow, which we call “matter.” This is where we encounter the work of Alfred North Whitehead.[5] For Whitehead, the fundamental components of the flow of reality consist of what he called “actual occasions,” which, if they retain a stable existence, can become “actual entities.”

In this blog series, I may use the term “Fixed Principle” to describe the core realities within a judicial system. A fixed principle could be anything from a granted motion, a jury or court verdict, an appellate ruling, or an administrative decision—basically, any point at which a legal principle or its application to specific facts becomes settled for a certain period. Throughout American legal history, we’ve seen fixed decisions that have lasted for most of it, as well as some that are quite recent. What’s truly important isn’t how long they stay in control, but that, for a time, they become an accepted part of the objective reality of our judicial system.

I’ve always thought the division somewhat misleading because actual entities are actual occasions that remain stable over time. A mountain is a good example. It might last several million years because the fundamental quantum-physical actual occasions that make it up have a stable form capable of enduring that long. Human beings are the same. I am 75 years old, and my body has remained stable, capable of sustaining itself for that many years. However, because of my constitution, it is not possible that I will last as long as a mountain.

The same is true of social structures, such as a legal system. Every time a judge makes a decision, there is a small change in our judicial system, but the American legal system itself has maintained its identity over time. That does not mean it’s eternal. For example, the Roman Empire had a judicial system that no longer exists. Yet for hundreds of years, there was a distinctively Roman judicial system. Today, the United States and Europe are inheritors of the heritage of that ancient system of laws. Our legal system is, however, not eternally stable. Like all human creations, it must either evolve or die.

This brings us to a concept that is of great importance to Whitehead and to process thinkers. Although human beings can be described as actual entities, and although stable structures have that characteristic, human beings are also societies. In fact, human beings are a particular kind of society known as a “structured society.” Structured societies are composed of nexuses, or simple combinations, and more basic societies, or what he might call “subordinate societies,” which contribute to the definite relationship of the society in question. What makes a society important is that it has a kind of social order that allows it to change and adapt to its environment.

Although this can be hard to get our minds around, as to human societies, it’s fairly straightforward. Human societies are made up of human beings, who are themselves highly complex social structures. The nature of these social structures, particularly the presence of human consciousness and conscious thought, makes these societies especially complicated and especially capable of innovation, adaptation, and growth. It should be obvious that if a human being is a complex society capable of adaptation and growth, then social structures made up of multiple human beings are even more complex and adaptable to human innovation. This is important when thinking about a judicial system, which is itself a highly complex structure.

In the midst of the operation of any particular human justice system, “Justice” is what emerges from a justice-seeking community. Thinkers such as C. S. Peirce and Josiah Royce, along with their followers, view the search for justice as a communal enterprise in which a community seeks to order itself rightly. The term “justice” denotes the concrete achievement of that right order at a particular point in time.

It’s important to remember that for a community to truly achieve justice, it must genuinely be committed to seeking justice. If that community becomes corrupted and turns into a power-hungry group, it can no longer effectively create a fair society. I believe we’re currently facing this challenge. Moreover, there’s always the risk of mistakes along the way. Often, the bigger obstacle isn’t losing sight of justice, but our human tendencies—like self-interest, class consciousness, and other flaws—that can cloud our judgment. These imperfections mean errors are inevitable, even within the most earnest justice systems. Society’s progress isn’t always straightforward; we move forward at times and hit snags at others, but the journey continues.

This is an extremely important point for modern people to grasp. Progress is not inevitable. Not every new idea is progress. Not every social pressure from a particular interest group necessarily leads a society forward. In fact, given human nature, many of the pressures on any society and its justice system would lead to corruption and decay if followed. This means that the justice-seeking community has to be ever vigilant and always willing to admit mistakes.

Noetic Reality of Justice

When I say that a judicial system, as a community of justice seekers, is capable of making mistakes, I’ve reached an important point. Justice is not merely a label for whatever a group of people considers just at any particular point in time. It is something that exists outside of us, and its reality stands over our notions of justice, always critiquing the current state of justice in human society. Justice is what I call a “transcendental ideal.” Human actors can and do make mistakes along the way, but justice itself stands over the human search for justice like an invisible beacon guiding us towards a rational and harmonious solution to our concrete search for justice in our own society.

Understanding that not all real things are physical can be quite inspiring. For example, a judicial system isn’t just about physical buildings or officials—it’s about the relationships and ideas that shape it. This system involves many people—legislators, kings, rulers, judges, lawyers, court staff, police—everyone plays a vital role. While it has tangible parts like structures and personnel, it also has important intangible parts—what I call “noetic” or ideal components, which include the core ideas and values it stands for. These noetic parts are actually even more crucial than the physical ones. A legal system can withstand a corrupt official, but it’s much harder to endure if the fundamental idea of justice is lost.

These ideal or noetic components are just as real as the human actors and physical structures involved. To borrow from Plato, that which is real is that which has the capacity to influence the world. Ideas and concepts, such as justice, are not material, nor does justice exist in a Platonic world of ideal Forms. Yet justice and injustice are real aspects of any social reality. They exist as “noetic realities.” The legal system rests on an enormously complex set of noetic realities embodied in areas of the law we call contracts, torts, property law, tax law, statutory law, and administrative rulings—a host of ideal components that are in constant relationship with one another and with the physical reality they regulate.

Influence and Change

A process view of a judicial system holds that any system, any portion of the flow of reality, is constantly changing. To be real is to be both subject to and influenced by others, and this means being embedded in a constantly changing world system. This is true in the subatomic world, in the material world we inhabit, in the social worlds of which we are a part, and in any judicial system. Every participant in a judicial system, however insignificant, has some influence on the system as a whole. This influence is constant and results in an ever-evolving structure for a just society as it seeks just solutions to the infinite number of relationships of which we human beings are capable.

We sometimes focus on important entities, such as the United States Supreme Court, as shaping the legal system. And it’s true that the US Supreme Court has greater influence on our legal system than, for example, I do. Yet every Justice of the Peace, every attorney appearing in court, every plaintiff or defendant, every policeman making an arrest, every juror in a trial, and everyone else involved in the system has some degree of influence, and any change we make will be embedded in that system for as long as it exists. One conclusion to be drawn from this is that everything we do is important, whether it is highly socially significant or hardly significant at all. All participants in our society are important parts of the search for justice.

An American Application

I am at a stage in my study of American constitutional law and political philosophy where I am approaching a time to discuss the issue of freedom of religion. In our society, the First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Early on, Thomas Jefferson made some ill-advised comments about the separation of church and state, meaning that we should not have a theocratic state. Those words have been used to support the view that religion should have no impact on our legal or political systems whatsoever. This is not what Jefferson was trying to say, and it’s not true. Once again, since we understand that reality is relational and that all of society is interconnected, we also understand that religious views are fundamentally important to the legal system. They bear upon it in important ways. Conceptually, they must be kept separate, and the law in America should not establish a national religion, but that does not mean that there should be an “iron wall” between religion and politics.

From this perspective, attempts by secular people to remove the Ten Commandments from courthouses are somewhat misguided. They ignore the fact that our judicial system has been profoundly shaped by our Judeo-Christian heritage, of which the Ten Commandments are a fundamental part. This doesn’t mean other components aren’t important or that we mindlessly embody the Old Testament law in our legal system. Our legal system is also based on the works of great non-Christian thinkers, such as Cicero. I would have no problem with the courthouse displaying a few quotations from Confucius, the greatest Islamic thinkers, or anyone else who has seriously considered the nature of justice. The fact is, our legal system is profoundly shaped by this great religious heritage, which finds its way into our culture.

Some readers might worry that I believe morals or religion should control politics or law. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our moral systems and religious communities are part of the broader culture, even a world culture, of which we are a part. But they are not the only part of the culture, and they frequently disagree. Therefore, they can’t be the sole controlling factor in every decision. It’s not possible to have a legal system in which these two irreconcilable views are both enacted into law as their most ardent proponents hope. What we can hope for is a degree of social harmony and human respect for others amid our disagreements.

Consensus and Justice

This brings me to another concept, which I will call “consensus.” When it comes to making decisions, whether as individuals or as a society, there comes a time when we have to decide. Our society, and in particular our political systems, is dominated by a view of decision-making that relies on power. Courts, legislatures, administrators, business executives, and many others believe they get to make the decisions and that their decisions are justified by the power they have to make them. That is not the view I want to defend.

I believe it’s important that we all work together harmoniously to keep our society running smoothly. To do that, we need to find some common ground about what steps to take next. Implementing laws, holding elections, and making decisions are essential parts of this process. But when the pursuit of power and the desire to keep one’s own group in control become the main focus, it can gradually erode our ability to compromise and make fair, wise choices. If I believe that my own success is crucial to my life’s stability, I will be tempted to treat others unfairly.

We tend to think of these decisions as final. If we happen to be on the winning side, we hope they are, but they’re not. A person who has read enough history knows that laws, political structures, conventions, and other things change over time. In law, we seek a decision that can remain stable over an appropriate period of time, which requires a kind of consensus among those who believe it’s the best possible decision, an acceptable decision, or a completely unacceptable decision. Such decisions are always open to further critique and a new consensus. They are fixed decisions only for a period of time.

Pragmatic philosophers often say that truth is what a community accepts as a proper description of reality over time. When they say community, they don’t mean just any community. For example, I don’t get a vote on whether quantum physics is the best explanation of reality. Only highly qualified quantum physicists get to vote. In a legal system, it is primarily legislatures, courts, executives, and administrative agencies that make such decisions.

This place is a significant responsibility for those in a position to form a consensus. It means they need to listen to everyone and distinguish good advice from bad. It also means they have to be able to make decisions that may not align with their particular social group but that seem best for society. Above all, it means we must be willing to compromise. Without the ability to dialogue, share information, evaluate options, and compromise, it’s impossible to have a functional social system, particularly in a society as diverse as the United States of America.

Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] I have written a number of blogs on aspects of process thinking at www.gchristopherscruggs.com. In addition, I published a book examining the major pragmatically inclined process thinkers, titled Illumined by Wisdom and Love: Essays on a Sophio-Agapic Constructive Postmodern Political Philosophy (Hunt, TX: Quansus Press, 2025). The title is pretentious because it was intended as the “senior essay I never wrote because it wasn’t required, but I should’ve been required to write it!” One of our children demanded that I do the research.

[2] Isaac Watts, “O God our Help in Ages Past” in Psalms of David (1719), which finds its inspiration in Psalm 90, with its recognition that human life is short and passes away more quickly than we realize when we are young.

[3] Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations” in Marcus Aurelius and his Times; The Transition from Paganism to Christianity, tr. George Long (New York, NY: Walther J. Black, 1945), pp 11-133), 40.

[4] The purposes of this essay, the modern world begins with the work of Descartes and John Locke, and the emergence of modern Democratic societies. By the middle of the 19^th century, with the work of Darwin, Nietzsche, and others, the modern world begins to take on a postmodern form, which finally emerges, in my view, in the post-World War I era. As with all labels, there is a certain subjectivity to when one period of history ends and another begins. For example, if you read my other writings, you will see that I believe the state we are in is not truly postmodern but rather something like “hyper-modernism,” the frantic end of the modern world.

[5] For those who are interested, there are three books that are extremely important for understanding Whitehead. Science and the Modern World, Process and Reality, Adventures of Ideas, and Modes of Thought.

Anyone who reads the news understands that Great Britain is in an almost impossible budgetary situation. Years of uncontrolled domestic social spending and failure to invest in needed military maintenance have left it nearly bereft of its historic military capacity and deep in debt. Much of Europe is in the same or a similar situation. In Britain, successive Conservative and Labor governments have increased spending on domestic priorities while insufficiently funding defense. In the process, they created a set of social expectations that cannot be met over the long run and, at the same time, a situation in which the long-term viability of their country could be in danger. We often hear criticisms of Great Britain without considering whether the very same thing is happening in the United States. The sad truth is that it is.

The story of collapse of the British Empire and its impact on the UK’s finances is long and complex, but there are some lessons that resonate with what’s happening in the United States today. At the beginning of the 20th century, the British pound was the world’s primary reserve currency. Britain was the world’s preeminent military, and especially naval. power. The sun never set on the British Empire. Two World Wars and the end of colonialism changed everything. Britain lost its empire. It ivested heavily in social spending. It nationalized industries that rapidly became uncompetitive.  Britain’s enormous public debts, the shift of industrial and economic power to the United States, and increasing dependence on social programs and social spending marked the end of its economic dominance.

The United States isn’t immune to these challenges. The US emerged from World War II as the world’s dominant economic and military power. Since that time, we’ve been involved in several wars financed by debt, and, like others, we’ve seen our industrial strength come under pressure from China and other countries. We’ve also built a large public social welfare system that can be costly and difficult to sustain. Like Britain during the first half of the 20^th century, the US faces ongoing concerns about maintaining the dollar’s dominance as the world’s reserve currency. Especially since the COVID-19 crisis, the standard of living in the US has declined, and the national debt has increased dramatically. In other words, the same policy threats that led to the collapse of the British way of life threaten our own economy and way of life.

Our Debt Situation

In this article, I want to set out a reasonably neutral account of the situation in the United States, along with a suggestion for how to get ourselves out of it through a constitutional amendment. I’m not going to talk about specific spending cuts. Frankly, without a mechanism that forces spending cuts on our government, and a trade-off between defense and domestic spending, we can’t escape our growing financial problems. Congress and successive presidents have proven themselves incapable of addressing the issue because of the political consequences of doing so. Therefore, the citizens themselves have to act. If they do not, the United States is doomed to decline.

Because of years of poor financial discipline, the United States has an enormous national debt, and increasing interest costs to finance this deficit will lead to future problems, lowering the standard of living and security for our children and grandchildren. It will also impact our national security. The day will come when we simply cannot afford a military of the size to which we have become accustomed.  If we do not want this to occur, today’s generation must take steps to ensure that America is put on a long-term, secure financial footing.

What is the deficit? Quite simply, the deficit is the difference between the funds that the Treasury Department receives in any given year and federal spending against those receipts. If the number is positive, then the United States government has a surplus. If the government spends more than it receives, it runs a deficit. It’s just as simple as that. When there is a deficit, the government has to borrow money in public markets and pay interest on that debt.

Tracking the Federal Deficit: May 2026 

 For much of American history, deficits were not a problem because our country ran a surplus. Unfortunately, since the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the emergence of the United States as a permanent military power with a significant welfare state apparatus, this has changed. Set out below is a chart showing decades of spending growth in the American economy and the impact on federal spending:[1]

As of today, the total gross national debt of the United States is somewhere around $39.2 trillion. If one assumes that the United States has about 150 million taxpayers, that would be about $290,000 per household. Since many households do not pay any taxes (and in any case could not fund a $290,000 debt repayment), the burden is going to fall somewhere else.

The impact of increased social welfare spending on the budget is recorded in the following chart:[2]

The chart debunks a common assumption: that defense spending is the culprit. This is untrue. Social spending is the largest contributor to federal spending, with rising interest costs an increasingly significant factor. It should be obvious that any sustained attack on the deficit involves straightening out social spending. (This does not mean that the defense budget should escape scrutiny or cost savings.) Finally, our financial situation indicates that taking advantage of uncontrolled federal spending for political or fraudulent purposes to enrich elected and other officials needs to end. We cannot afford it.

How Big is the Problem?

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that the federal deficit will probably increase by nearly $25 trillion over the next decade. Health and retirement programs are expected to grow faster than the economy and population, which is a cause for concern because our costs are already high by world standards and these costs impact our competitiveness in the world economy. As the US borrows more, interest costs will rise sharply, potentially taking up half of the federal income-tax revenue. There is a risk that Social Security might become insolvent within six years, which would involve a federal subsidy of those costs. In almost any conceivable situation, spending on social and defense programs would be seriously constrained. More importantly, if we don’t find a solution soon, the savings and financial security of many Americans—both now and in future generations—could be deeply affected, which is something we should all be worried about.[3]

Here is what the future holds for America in terms of budget deficits if nothing is done:[4]

Average voters must understand uncontrolled deficits impact the value of our money, savings, retirement security, and other assets. In the end, deficits could lead to a dollar collapse similar to the pound collapse Britain experienced. This could result in a depression deeper than any our nation has experienced—and wipe out the savings of millions of Americans. Deficits impact the standard of living of the middle and lower middle class disproportionately because of their inability to “hedge” the decline of the value of their money.

What to Do

It should be clear to all Americans that Congress needs financial constraints in order to put our fiscal house in order. Tough choices are necessary, such as cutting spending, setting appropriate tax rates, deciding how Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid should be self-funded, and determining how to distribute costs fairly across groups and generations.

I won’t dive into all the specifics here, but my general idea is that each federal program should become more or less self-sustaining over time. We need to set fair tax rates, and everyone should contribute. Deductions, especially those that distort consumption or favor uneconomic business, need to be minimized. Above all, everyone needs to contribute to meeting our national financial obligations. If only the wealthy pay taxes, they end up controlling our country in the long run. This means that our democratic institutions would be threatened by the reality that most people are not contributing to social spending. Therefore, all Americans must come together, work as a team, and figure out how to row the boat together.

There have been a number of proposals from cutting spending to increasing taxes dramatically, and everything possible in between.[5] Most proposals would have a beneficial impact if enacted, but as a friend of mine says, “Congress does not intend to do a thing about the problem because they know any solution involves pain to some group of voters. They know we are on a pathway to disaster, but they do not have the courage or ability to act.”

Financial Responsibility Requirements

Public spirited citizens have attempted to create various incentives for Congress to balance (or at least reasonably control) the national budget. The last president to try to do so was George W. Bush, who quickly learned that it’s difficult to find a political consensus on this issue. (This is especially true when your Vice President is foolishly telling people that deficits don’t matter.) Without some kind of financial constraint on politicians accustomed to buying votes, it is nearly impossible see how our financial house can be put in order.

There have been many balanced budget amendments, some of which have come fairly close to being enacted. Some of these amendments would imply a very dramatic and quick change in public spending—a risky strategy. It seems to me that the better way forward is to gradually solve our financial problem over time, with the likelihood that both major parties would be in power during a portion of the phase in time. Therefore, here is one possible solution:

Financial Responsibility Amendment yo the Constitution of the United States of America

Section 1: The financial records of the Government of the United States of America shall be kept in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

Section 2: Except as provided for in Sections 2.4 and 2.5 of this amendment, financial outlays of the Government of the United States of America for any year shall not exceed receipts. In order to carry out the requirements of this amendment:

Section 2.1: Prior to each fiscal year, Congress shall adopt a budget for that fiscal year in which total anticipated outlays are no greater than total anticipated receipts, plus any spending to be funded from accumulated surpluses and reserves. Congress may amend such a budget during any fiscal year, provided that revised outlays do not exceed revised receipts. It shall be the duty of Congress and the President to ensure that actual outlays do not exceed the outlays set forth in such budget.

Section 2.2. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, liabilities for Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, or other recurring social entitlement payments, including federal pensions, must be accrued and funded year-by-year within the federal budget; provided that Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and other recurring social entitlement payments accrued or vested prior to the date this amendment is ratified shall not be required to be so funded, but the cost thereof is subject to the balanced budget provisions of this amendment. Each year, the budget shall show an accrual of, and contain adequate provision for, payment of these items, and the Government Accounting Office and the Office of the Budget shall certify to Congress that taxes levied for payment of these items are adequate to fund such benefits.

Section 2.3. In order to carry out the purposes of this amendment, the budget for each fiscal year shall contain a statement certified by the Congressional Budget Office certifying the reasonableness under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) of the estimated receipts and expenditures for the budgeted fiscal year.

Section 2.4. Congress may, by a two-thirds vote, waive the provisions of this article for any fiscal year in which a declaration of war is in effect and hostilities are ongoing. In addition, whenever three-quarters of the whole number of both Houses shall deem it necessary, Congress may provide for a specific excess of outlays over receipts for any fiscal year.

Section 2.5. This amendment shall take effect in the next fiscal year after the year of its ratification. In order for an orderly transition in the economy, during each of the following twelve fiscal years, the federal deficit calculated as set forth above shall be reduced by no less than one-twelfth of the average deficit for the three fiscal years ending immediately preceding adoption of this amendment. Thereafter, this amendment shall be fully implemented.

Section 3. Beginning on the date this amendment is ratified, Congress may no longer require the states to engage in activities without appropriating funds from the federal budget equal to the additional costs imposed by any such mandate.

Section 4: The President of the United States may veto any line item in any piece of legislation that, in his or her considered opinion, might result in the budget for any year becoming out of balance.

Section 5: Congress may pass no law creating benefits for, or responsibilities on, citizens of the United States of America that do not apply equally and uniformly to all citizens, including members of Congress.

Section 6: Members of Congress shall be liable to recall for any failure to adopt the budgets required by this amendment in any year in which it fails to do so. In addition, no Speaker of the House or Majority Leader of the Senate may continue in such office from and after any year in which there was a failure of Congress to meet the requirements of this amendment, and no member of Congress may be reelected to office who voted for an unbalanced budget in any year.

Conclusion

I’m not so naïve as to think I’ve got the solution to the problem our country faces, but I felt it necessary to at least suggest a possible solution. If anyone has a better, simpler, or more politically viable solution, or any other solution, I’d be happy to hear about it. In the meantime, I think that for the future of our democracy, some kind of balanced-budget and financial-responsibility amendment is the best approach.

As a matter of fundamental public philosophy, I think changes are better done slowly, carefully, and with attention to the potential that a particular strategy is not appropriate. More importantly, I believe that solving the budget problem cannot be done without a conversation and dialogue between our national leaders from both of the major political parties. The problem we face is not a republican problem or a democratic problem. It’s an American problem. Therefore, our leaders need to come together to solve the problem, even though both parties will find some of their priorities constrained by any reasonable solution.

Throughout my years in law, business, and leading churches, I’ve learned that no challenge can be overcome without energy, purpose, and a readiness to face discomfort. This is especially true for issues we’ve let slide for too long, which then cause financial and other difficulties that are tough to fix. In my experience, delaying action on problems right in front of us isn’t a wise choice. Problems won’t improve on their own—they tend to grow without deliberate action. Applying this perspective to our national debt is simple and straightforward: This problem has been increasing while we’ve been hesitant to act. It’s time we stop watching the problem get bigger and start addressing it.

Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] US Government Spending.com at https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/debt_deficit_history (downloaded June 18, 2026).

[2] Bipartisan Policy Tracker, Deficit Tracker, https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/deficit-tracker/ (downloaded June 18, 2026).

[3] See, The Cato Institute, “Here’s the Solution to the Deficit. Hint: It Isn’t Taxes” (March 13, 2026) https://www.cato.org/commentary/heres-solution-deficit-hint-it-isnt-taxes (Downloaded June 30, 2026).

[4] Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “CBO’s February 2026 Budget and Economic Outlook” February 11, 2026) https://www.crfb.org/papers/cbos-february-2026-budget-and-economic-outlook (Downloaded June 30, 2026).

[5] See Congressional Budget Office “Options for Reducing the Deficit 2025 to 2034” (December 12, 2024), https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60557 (downloaded June 30, 2026).