American Christianity

Exciting news!

jamescalvindavis

Big news for friends and followers of this site! As of July 1, 2026, I will be drawing my 25 years of teaching at Middlebury College to a close. The wonderful people of Central Presbyterian Church in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, have called me to be their pastor and head of staff. While I will miss my colleagues, friends, and students at Middlebury, I am so excited for this opportunity to preach weekly and engage in the project of Capacious Christianity with such a great congregation. Plus, Elizabeth and I will be returning to our Pennsylvania roots! Included below is video of last Sunday’s service at Central, where I preached and the congregation voted on my call. See for yourself what a vibrant community “Central on the Square” is!

IRS just removed limits on church involvement in politics

jamescalvindavis

Why that’s great news for liberal Christianity

Church and State: A sermon preached at the Congregational Church of Middlebury (VT) on July 13, 2025

Texts: 1 Samuel 8:4–22a; Romans 13:1–7

Friends, I would like to think with you this morning about two things that the aphorism tells us we should never discuss in polite company, certainly not together: religion and politics. You may have seen that the IRS released a policy change this past week on churches and other tax-exempt charitable organizations engaging in partisan politics. For decades, churches have been barred from endorsing particular candidates for public office, at risk of losing their tax-exempt status. This is a result of the so-called Johnson Amendment of 1954, and it has been the policy of the IRS ever since: churches cannot endorse specific partisan candidates for public office. But that prohibition has been skirted and violated by churches without much repercussion, sometimes creatively and more recently rather boldly. Conservative evangelical organizations have sued to change the policy, and this week, the IRS said OK. Churches can engage in partisan politics with no penalty.

It will surely come as a surprise to some of you that I think this is a remarkably good development. I will make the argument this morning for why I think it is a good development—more precisely, I will make four arguments: a theological argument, a historical argument, a practical argument, and, finally, a moral argument.

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Capacious Christianity

jamescalvindavis

A Pentecost sermon preached at the Congregational Church of Middlebury, VT, on June 8, 2025

Friends, I want to suggest to you today that we are ripe for a new Pentecost. The world in our moment needs people who are set afire and possessed with a message of grace and hospitality and inclusion, to push against the destructive trinity of arrogance, fear, and dehumanization that now reigns. We need a new Pentecost. We need the rebirth of capacious Christianity.

Click the link below to watch the full sermon:
https://www.facebook.com/MiddUCC/videos/3955528118003925

Wondrous Love

jamescalvindavis

A sermon delivered at Putnam United Presbyterian Church (NY) 3/24/2024
Palm Sunday

Holy Week can be a particularly difficult week for Christians to focus, because there is a lot going liturgically and theologically. This one week puts before us the trajectory of Jesus’ final days, from popular hero to humiliated scapegoat. We witness the crowds hearing what they wanted to hear and seeing what they wanted to see in Jesus early in the week, only to reject him when they realized he was preaching a kingdom message that would challenge them, not placate them. They realized that he was unwilling to play the game that other would-be political leaders played. He would not promise to overthrow the Romans and their vermin sympathizers on day 1 of his rule. Instead, he talked on and on about a kingdom of love and righteousness and peace. And for this, the people’s chants of “Hosanna in the highest!” turned into mob taunts to hang him, and they abandoned him to the brutal devices of the Roman Empire.

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