Election Day is 48 hours from now. I never vote early; I always vote on Election Day. I remember as a young child going to the polling place in the Craighead County Courthouse in Lake City, AR, walking with Mom into that booth, watching her pull the big lever that closed the curtain behind us, watching her pull down the mechanical switches that recorded her vote, and then watching her pull the big lever back to its original position, opening the curtain and casting her ballot. My kids could never imagine what that is like. That piece of machinery resembled a cattle squeeze chute more than an iPad or a Scantron reader. The experience ingrained in me the solemnity of my duty to vote. Even in the small elections, you'll find me at the polling place to play my part in the body politic.
There you have it: my participation in electoral politics as a citizen. Alongside that, from the days of Jerry Falwell until the present era, I have also participated in electoral politics as a pastor. About this, I could write much. Several older pastors counseled me in the earlier days of my service as a pastor to avoid weighing in on political matters. Their concern was that doing so would damage the fellowship within the congregation and would limit the reach of the gospel beyond the congregation. That advice never swayed me. The teachings of the Bible have implications in every area of life. Our preaching should meddle in how people approach their careers, their finances, their marriages, their friendships, their celebrations, and their griefs. Any and all of those things can be provocative in the church and offensive to unbelievers. What is unique about electoral politics that we should shy away from it? Nothing I can identify. Good churches should proclaim the gospel and its many implications without fear and withing kowtowing to intimidation.
And so, in these four decades of pastoral ministry, I have not hesitated to address political matters, although I have labored to make the essence of the gospel central and to make sure that people understand the the implications are just that: implications and not the core. I can say, having looked around, that I think I sit squarely in the majority of Southern Baptist life. Considering major presidential elections and midterm elections, I have ministered through 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024, and now 2026. There has been throughout all of them, Christian Voter Guides, American Family Radio, encouragements from the pulpit and in the inboxes of congregations to vote, and myriad political discussions in Sunday School classes and across the tables at Wednesday Night Meals or Fifth Sunday Potlucks. If there has been a single one of these elections in which we stopped talking about politics, I cannot identify it, and I've lived through them all.
I don't think Southern Baptist willingness to speak up about the implications of the New Testament upon the secular order of politics has changed one whit at any point along the way.
What has changed is what we are being asked to do as pastors these days.
In the 1980s and 1990s it went along these lines: Explain why abortion is important. Explain why the protection of natural marriage (one man-one woman) is important. Explain why the LGBTQ+ movement is unnatural and damaging. Explain why Soviet Communism and atheism make for dystopian societies. Explain why the Bible speaks to these and other things, and encourage your congregation to vote their values. This is a task worthy of undertaking, and these very ideas have led me—let me be frank—to vote straight-ticket Republican over and over. As a pastor, I gladly undertook the task of explaining these issues to my congregation and encouraging them to vote accordingly.
Now, increasingly, that is no longer the task. Now what they want me to do is to convince the members of my congregation to ignore or rationalize the fact that the preferred candidate doesn't have the basic moral character that I would require before I would trust them to be my child's Boy Scout leader. Cards on the table: I have cast a vote for people like that repeatedly, having found more unsettling or repugnant the opposing candidate. I will do that again on Tuesday. But they're not just asking for my vote; they're asking for my public affirmation of those candidates.
In the 1980s, they were asking me to dial UP the consciences of my congregation to a higher level in preparation for voting. In the 2020s, they are asking me to dial DOWN the consciences of my congregation in preparation for voting. Always down.
Well, I'm not going to do that. Period. Because at that point, they're asking me to do exactly what those older pastors were asking me to do back in the day. They're asking me to downplay some of the implications of the gospel and to undo some of what the Holy Spirit is doing in convicting the world of sin. They're asking me, for the sake of a political message, to soften what I say about how people approach their careers, their finances, their marriages, their friendships, their celebrations, and their griefs. Is that a good trade? I'm not sure it is. Furthermore, it's not necessary. It's OK to say, "I can't endorse this candidate, but the alternative is so terrible that when you vote you should…"
If you are a young pastor or a young Christian, you may not remember the times before. My primary purpose in writing this post is just to let you know that it wasn't always like this. There was a day when honorable people ran for political office. There was a day in which preaching about electoral politics was congruent with discipling your congregation about how to live godly lives in this fallen world, not discongruent.
It wasn't always like this.
It doesn't have to be like this.
No comments:
Post a Comment