Politics in the Pulpit

Where do politics and the pulpit meet, or should they? Here is my reflection from Sunday's July 4th worship service:

Politics in the Pulpit
By Rev. John W. Nash
Galatians 6:7-16

Today is one of those holiday’s that is tough on many ministers. Since we believe in a God whose grace falls on all people, how do we try and combine the secular national celebration with the sacred? This is not an easy question even when the answers appear to be simple. So, for example, I’m sure than many people expected to sing at least one patriotic song during the worship today, but again that’s troublesome for me and for many others, and it’s not as if these hymns are also not without controversy. In 1966 when the Methodist church was creating a new hymnal, there was a lot of debate whether the Battle Hymn of the Republic should be included. The southern churches objected because they said it was a northern song created in opposition to the southern cause during the civil war, which it was. You can see this especially if you look at verse 4 which says “so he (meaning Jesus) dies to make men holy, let us die to make men free.” So, the southern churches saw this as an imposition of the beliefs of the northern churches onto them.

One of the other issues with the 4th of July is the Methodist relationship to the day. Some of you who have taken my class on Methodist history are aware that John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, opposed the revolution. He even published a pamphlet, although largely plagiarized, entitled A Calm Address to our American Colonies, in which he expressed his opposition to the colonists' claims of freedom. Wesley was the first theologian and church leader of any significance to come out in opposition to slavery, and he said that the colonists could not make claims about freedom when they simultaneously refused to free their own slaves. As you might imagine this did not make Wesley or Methodists popular people in America. In fact, of the ministers who were sent over by Wesley, all of them except two either returned to England or fled to English controlled territories.

One of those ministers was Martin Rodda, who was arrested and presented to George Washington after circulating royalist propaganda. When Washington asked who he was, Rodda told him that he was one of Mr. Wesley’s preachers. Washington is reported to have replied, “Mr. Wesley, I know; I respect Mr. Wesley; but Mr. Wesley I presume, never sent you to America to interfere with political matters. Mr. Wesley sent you to America to preach the gospel to the people. Now go you and mind your own proper work: preach the Gospel and leave politics to me and my brethren.” I’m sure that’s the position that some of you have as well, and it’s also one I struggle with, and really is the topic of this sermon. What is the place of politics in the pulpit?

Nowadays it seems that we can’t escape the merging of politics and religion, but, again, it’s an area I struggle with, but should I? The Methodist church has been involved in many political issues since its earliest founding. As I just mentioned, Wesley was the first major religious figure to come out in opposition to slavery, and that was the position of the early Methodist movement in both England and America. But for Wesley it was not political, it was moral. In fact it might be argued that the church’s eventual split into northern and southern denominations over this issue might be because it stopped being a moral issue and started being political, which means that it was something everyone could have a difference of opinion on, although I don’t think that’s the best definition of the difference between the two.

In addition, in 1908, the Methodist church created a Social Creed. This document has continued to change and evolve over time, and is now called the Social Principles. It contains what the official policy of the church is on many social issues. Does that mean that I should be preaching on these issues and telling you what the church’s position is on things, as is done in some churches? There are obvious problems with that position, which is simply a matter of consistency. There are two things in the social principles which are said to be incompatible to Christian teaching. Does anyone want to guess what those two things are? War and homosexuality. Now if I was to come in here and give a sermon on homosexuality being incompatible with Christian teachings, not only would I be going against the reconciling statement of this congregation, but I would also be sure to offend a lot of people and make others happy. On the flip side if I was to come in and give a sermon on war being incompatible with Christian teaching, you can also be sure that I would offend a lot of people and make others happy. Ironically, the way it would probably work out is that those who were offended on the first would be happy with the second, and vice versa.

Now I don’t think that not offending people is a good enough reason not to talk about these things. In fact, if Pastor Joel and I don’t make you squirm in your seat and leave you upset with something we had to say at least one Sunday a year then we are not doing our job, because the simple fact is the scriptures contain some very difficult commands to uphold and to carry out and often these come into direct conflict with other things that we hold dear, such as the love of our country.

Bishop Minerva Carcano, who is the bishop for Arizona, is the point person for the council of bishops on the issue of immigration and has been long before the recent events which have taken place in my home state. After giving a speech on immigration reform several years ago in Washington DC, when she returned to her office Bishop Carcano reported that she had received literally thousands of faxes in opposition to what she had said. She and her staff read each one because she respected the people’s right to have their voices heard, but she said each fax contained the same line, so she knew the fax campaign had been orchestrated by someone. Each fax said, “What kind of American are you?”

Her response was that she was a proud America, that America has give4n her opportunities that she would not have had in other places like the ability to become the first Hispanic female bishop in the Church. But, she said she did not see the church’s responsibility to be assisting in and upholding the American government. Instead, she said, it is the church’s responsibility to announce and establish the kingdom of God. That is what we are called to do and to be as a church, and when American policy supports that end then we also support it, but when it is opposed to the message of the kingdom of God then we must also oppose it. Now Bishop Carcano is one of the truly prophetic voices in this denomination, but bishops have a little more prerogative to say such things then do pastors in local congregations, and so I again return to my quandary, what is the role of politics in the pulpit?

Much as we might like to, unfortunately, I don’t think it is a question we can escape, because as Bishop Carcano said we called to announce and establish the kingdom of God and that is inherently a political position. Part of the problem is that we have lost the radical political nature of Jesus’ message with the passage of time, but in the 1st century to proclaim Jesus as Lord was to make a political statement because it was to claim allegiance to Christ and not to the emperor. To talk about the kingdom of God in the 1st century was to make a political statement, because the Romans did not refer to themselves as an empire, as we do. Instead, they called themselves the kingdom of Rome. So to claim allegiance to another kingdom and to say that you were working on bringing that kingdom into existence was to make a political statement. To challenge the priests and the scribes was to make a political statement. To claim that Samaritans and other gentiles were God’s children and part of the God’s plan was to make a political statement. All of these things challenged and provoked the powers that be, which is the reason that Jesus was executed as an enemy of the state. The gospel message was inherently political, but is the same true today?

Bishop Gaspar Domingos, who is from Angola, was the guest preacher at Annual Conference. He reported that in Angola, 60% of the population has no access to clean running water. In addition, there are only 2 doctors per 25,000 people. Compare that to the 575 per 25,000 people in the US. In the US, the infant mortality rate, which is still significantly high when compared to other industrialized nations, is 6.37 per 1000 births. In Angola, their infant mortality rate is 184.5 per 1000 births, and in addition only ¼ of all children born make it to the age of 5. 750 out of every 1000 children born never see their fifth birthday. I think I would be negligent in my duties as a minister in proclaiming the gospel and preaching about the kingdom if I did not talk about that and say that we, as the church, should do something about it. But to me this is moral not political. And most of you would probably agree with me, but that’s thousands of miles away and so it’s probably easier to be dispassionate about it. So let’s go closer to home, and since I’ve already talked about Bishop Carcano let’s discuss immigration reform.

Are immigration issues moral or political? God says to the people of Israel, “you were once a stranger in a strange land,” and so they are told that they are to welcome the stranger as they would welcome God. In the story of Joseph and his brothers we are told that because of a famine in their country that the ancient Israelites went to Egypt for better economic opportunities. Sound familiar? And we are followers of Jesus Christ, who was himself an illegal immigrant having been taken by Joseph and Mary to escape Herod’s command to have all the young males killed and so they fled into Egypt. Good thing Egypt didn’t have strict immigration control. And so we hear these things, but where does that leave us? I’m sure that even in talking about this issue has upset some of you and you feel that I am abusing my power, and maybe so, but here’s where I run into my quandary. As I said, for me this is a moral question not a political one, but I know that many will not agree with that position or what I have to say and so I struggle. When is it right to provide a prophetic voice calling us to live out our ideals? When is it right to call us to account to announce and establish the kingdom of God? When do I give voice to the voiceless? And when do I remain silent?

Adam Hamilton, who is the senior pastor at the largest United Methodist church in the country, once preached a sermon and said that he believed the church needed to be welcoming and affirming of gay, lesbian and transgendered people, and he lost 800 members of the church. That was not a message they wanted to hear. Now don’t get me wrong, liberals are just as guilty of being upset when something contradicts them as conservatives are. We all want to believe that we believe the right things, otherwise why would we believe it? No one wants to think they are wrong, especially about something as important as our faith. And so all too often, and again this is true across the spectrum of beliefs, we start with where we are and what we believe and work backward to give us our conception of who and what God is, instead of starting with who God is and then working forward to create our theology. The result is that we end of creating God in our image, rather than being created in the image of God.

I’m sure we’ve all heard of churches preaching strict political messages, even telling their members whom they should be voting for, which I believe is totally inappropriate. But I would also agree with the Rev. Reggie Joiner, who is a conservative evangelical, who said, “When the church is doing what it is designed to do, there are, finally, social implications.” If it was not the for the role of the church in announcing and establishing the kingdom of God on the issues of slavery, civil rights and the environment, among many social issues, were would we be today? That all happened because someone like John Wesley and Martin Luther King, Jr., were willing to stand up in their pulpit and say this is not right and we need to do something about it. But I remain troubled by the potentialities of what this means because if you don’t like what I say you have several options. One is that you can sit in your pew stewing waiting for the bishop to move me to another church, or you can leave, but that is not what I want.

I don’t want a congregation that only agrees with me. Unfortunately that’s what all too many of our churches have become and that’s wrong. If all the liberals go to one group of churches and all the conservatives go to another group and all the moderates are in still a third group and each Sunday during worship we only hear things that we agree with then we are not hearing the word of God and we are being stifled not only in our faith but also in our relationship with God. If the church is broken up into liberal, conservative and moderate then we are lost. If preachers are only preaching to the choir, so to speak, then we might as well shut the doors, because we cannot be effective, we cannot be the church if we are only hearing things that comfort us or with which we already agree. Jesus certainly had words of assurance but he also had words of challenge, and often harsh words.

We as a body of Christ need to be strong enough to have differences of opinion, to be able to express them openly and honestly, to truly listen to each other and sometimes to just be able to agree to disagree and still respect the other person. If we in the church cannot engage in principled and open disagreement then why would we ever be surprised that it is not being done in the rest of the society? If we in the church cannot agree to get along regardless of where we stand, how can we ever possibly begin to move forward to a more civil engagement in the rest of our lives? But, we also must be willing to hear things that we don’t want to hear and be willing to change as a result. And I have to say I am just as guilty of ignoring this last one as anyone.

I recently began reading a book and at the beginning the author named James Dobson as one of his heroes. James Dobson, for those of you unfamiliar with him is the founder and head of Focus on the Family. Now I have lots of problems with what Mr. Dobson has to say, and I do not believe that he is focusing on my family or those of my closest friends, and so reading his praise of Dobson almost put the book down. But I stopped myself and kept reading remembering that just because I may not agree with everything he has to say does not mean that I cannot get something out of it. And so I kept reading and I have been all the better for it.

In the end, I am still not sure what the correct answer is, or even if there is one. But, I do know there are times when I will be called to make statements from the pulpit consequences be damned. I do not yet have any guidelines for when that will be. All I can do is trust in God in providing me with the answers. But I also trust in God’s grace and God’s spirit to move amongst each of us so that we can truly hear God’s word and do what God is calling us to do. In know that all of us must be occasionally challenged in our faith, otherwise we grow complacent and our faith becomes about us and not about God. We as the church are also called to announce and establish the kingdom of God and sometimes that must mean that we are political, even if we don’t see it that way.

But, what I am also reminded of is that on Communion Sundays, when together we participate in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup that we remember not only Christ’s mighty acts on our behalf, but that we are also re-membered as the body of Christ. That we overcome all those things which divide and separate us and we are reunited at the table as one, as the body of Christ and that as long as we can break bread together that there is nothing which can separate us. And as Benjamin Franklin said to the continental congress when debating the issue of separation from England, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Amen.