Last week I asked “What’s Next?” What arouses your curiosity, or what is confusing to you? Thank you for so many thoughtful replies! Send more!
I’ll quote a few in the next couple of months and ramble a bit. One responder wrote to me: “A danger you and any religious leader faces today is you cannot share your opinions about politics. In my view you should be allowed to speak openly about leaders or policies without fear of your church losing its tax exempt status. As a listener, it’s up to me to decide if I should agree, disagree, or disregard anything you say.”
I love the thoughts here. Back in October, the Trump Administration revealed plans to dismantle the 1954 “Johnson Amendment,” which prohibits churches from endorsing political candidates – that is, if they wish to retain their tax-exempt status. A reporter called me for comment. “A non-event,” I replied, pointing out that conservative clergy, black clergy, and Catholic clergy have been doing this all along, and that mainline Protestant clergy haven’t felt prohibited from doing so as much as we flat out haven’t wanted to do so.
As just one preacher, I’m never fearful regarding what to say or not say. Careful, yes. And I’ve been reamed out many times for what I’ve said! But I’m at peace with what I know: that I am not offering you my “opinions” about politics – or anything else for that matter. My job is to study the Bible thoroughly, weigh all we’ve learned from theologians today and throughout history, pray with discernment, and then share what I know to be God’s heart and mind on things.
God established how things should be between politics and religion back in the Bronze Age, 3,000 years before America’s Founders. The Israelites clamored for a king. Through the prophet Samuel, God warned them how it would be: the king will tax you, send you into foolish wars, seize your land, and introduce idolatry. Then God let them have their king. But with a proviso: God would always raise up God’s prophets to speak truth to power, to hold the kings accountable. Saul had Samuel, David had Nathan, Ahab had Elijah, Ahaz had Isaiah, Jehoiakim had Jeremiah, Herod had John the Baptist. This is known as the “Samuel compromise.” God wants righteous, good government, and God provides critics to hold the feet of the powerful to the fire.
I steer clear of suggesting my listeners should vote for candidate A or B, and I don’t advocate from the pulpit for or against policy C or D or Supreme Court case E or F. My expertise isn’t congressional legislation or jurisprudence. But I (along with like-minded clergy friends of mine!) regularly talk about things that might sound “political,” but they are really “theological,” because God cares about everything that matters, and the Bible has so much to say about the things we conceive of as political.
Instead of endorsing somebody running, or building a case to get somebody out of office, I try to enunciate sound, clear Biblical principles, and then trust you to do the math. It is flat out not in the vicinity of the heart of Christianity to belittle or vilify anybody, another politician, a foreigner, a class or category of people – anybody. If you take God’s word seriously, then you have to weigh what you see and decide if you can cheer for a belittler or a vilifier, or just how much of it you should really stomach. I needn’t name names; you can fill in the blanks.
Christianity has this extraordinarily compassionate and generous vision regarding our responsibility to embrace and uplift the poor, the marginalized, those who have no clout or voice. If you see a policy or an office-holder dismissing or blaming or voting to drain resources from the poor, as a Christian you should be most suspicious, and even speak up.
If you hear me sifting through Scripture to show how too much power vested in any one person is a terrible problem, if you hear me quote C.S. Lewis, who said he believes in democracy, not because the people should be entrusted with agency, but because he could never trust any fallen, sinful human being with much power at all, then I don’t need to name names. Look around at who’s got power, now or in the future. Shouldn’t power be shared (as in America’s founding dream of a balance of powers, a biblical notion if there’s ever been one)?
If I speak, as I regularly do, of political ideology as the great idolatry of our day, I don’t need or wish to name names of candidates or office holders who feed that monster. And I’d warn each of you reading not to nod and think “Yeah, those other guys sure make political ideology their idol.” What did Jesus say about fishing the speck out of the other person’s eye when a log is lodged in your own?
Always, friends, trust me that I love you. I say what I believe God wishes me to say to you out of that love. My friend is right: it’s up to you to agree, disagree or disregard. I’d ask you at least to think about it, wrestle with it, ponder – and maybe be open to a fresh, even happier and more peaceful approach.