Posted April 21, 2026
The US Supreme Court has announced that it will decide whether Catholic preschools in Colorado must admit LGBTQ families if they want to participate in the state’s tuition-free program. The justices will review a lower court ruling that upheld Colorado’s nondiscrimination requirement for universal preschool.
The Archdiocese of Denver, two Catholic parishes, and two parents of preschool-age children assert that since the state allows preschools to have admissions preferences for nonreligious reasons, schools should be able to serve only families who support the church’s teachings on sexuality and gender. An archdiocese official stated, “All we ask is for the ability to offer families who choose a Catholic education the same access to free preschool services that’s available at thousands of other preschools across Colorado.”
Without state subsidies, parents who want to keep their children in church preschools must pay thousands of dollars. As a result, the church said enrollment at its preschools has “swiftly declined.”
By contrast, the judge who wrote the ruling now under review by the Supreme Court stated, “It simply means that when a school takes money from the state that is meant to ensure universal education, then its doors must be open to all.”
The “America Reads the Bible” emphasis is continuing today in Washington, DC. As I noted yesterday, reading the Scriptures can be a powerful encounter with the voice of the living God.
But the Bible must be applied if its truths are to be transforming.
Our nation was founded on the declaration that “all men are created equal” and endowed by our Creator with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In such a country, it should be possible for us to live with holistic holiness, completely obedient to every dictate of Scripture.
However, our founding declaration does not prescribe such biblical thinking and living. It does not define “life,” “liberty,” or the “pursuit of happiness.” And Thomas Jefferson’s assertion that these rights are “sacred” was changed to “self-evident,” probably by Benjamin Franklin, meaning that they are grounded not in the Scriptures but in the self.
As a result, morality is under constant tension, litigation, and jurisprudence in our secularized society.
For example, as historian Joseph Ellis explains, America’s Founders did not abolish slavery, even though they knew the practice to be horrific and contradictory to their founding principles, because to do so would have split the colonies and doomed the nation before it began. Ellis similarly reports that George Washington fervently wanted to preserve the rights of Indigenous Americans, but this would have hindered the westward expansion upon which the economic future of the nation depended.
In such a culture, we are free to be biblical Christians, but we are also free not to be.
On one hand, shouldn’t a church (or any other group) be free to admit only students to its preschools who agree with its beliefs? On the other hand, should tax dollars intended to “ensure universal education” help support schools that restrict admission in this way?
As part of the “America Reads the Bible” emphasis, President Trump is expected to read from 2 Chronicles 7 tonight in the Oval Office. The text he will read includes the famous verse 14:
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
As these words make clear, the awakening our nation needs begins not with the schools, the courts, or even the Oval Office, but with the people of God. The text opens, “If my people who are called by my name . . .” In its original setting, this referred to the people of Israel. But the text is preserved in Scripture because its truth transcends this immediate context and applies to you and me today (Galatians 3:28–29).
Whatever the courts do with the juxtaposition of church and state, we must be the change we wish to see. To this end, God calls his people to:
Another famous text makes the same point in New Testament context. John 8:32 is emblazoned over libraries around Christendom: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” But there is a condition left out: Jesus stated clearly, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples . . .” (v. 31). Only then is verse 32 operative in our lives.
In other words, we must abide in God’s word to be set free by it. Because God honors the free will with which he made us in his image, his word can do in us only what we permit.
And that’s a problem.
On my bad days, I have all of Jesus I want. I am as obedient to his word as I wish to be. For me to become more obedient would mean that I stop doing what I want to do and start doing what I don’t want to do.
If you know what I mean, there’s good news: the Spirit stands ready to help us become the people the Father wants us to be.
He will not force us to make changes we are unwilling to make. But if we yield honestly to him, admitting that we need to be more obedient than we want to be and giving him permission to change our hearts, he will then do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We find ourselves with a deeper hunger for God’s word and a greater passion for living by its truth.
If we ask him to carry us further into godliness than we could travel without him, he delights to answer our prayer.
A recent article in First15, our ministry’s devotional resource, reminds us,
“God’s word is only as impactful as you are willing to be obedient.”
How impactful will God’s word be in your life today?
“Truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God.” — Jonathan Edwards
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