The Church and Politics

The political season is well under way here in the good ole U. S. of A.

And I must admit that I am kind of a political junkie. I majored in Poli-Sci as an undergraduate at UCLA and I try to stay current on political issues.

But when it comes to my role as Pastor, I try to keep my political leanings out of the pulpit. I am concerned that I might abuse my authority. I'm also concerned with communicating to anyone that they must share my political philosophy in order to be saved. My job is to teach the Word and to preach the Gospel, not politics.

And one of the distressing "branding" problems for Christians and especially Evangelicals in the US today is related to politics. In the 80's, Evangelicals discovered that they could grab the levers of political power and exert their influence through such groups as Moral Majority and Christian Coalition. Pastors are frequently lured by their relationships to political leaders into becoming political advocates. And the message that the world gets is that Christians are just interested in power and that they are just too political.

Yet I can't tell you how many hours I've spent in pastors' prayer meetings praying for governmental agencies to approve some facility for a church. The same politicians who are courting the friendship of churches become the biggest enemies of churches when their tax-base is threatened.

In Romans 13, Paul gives instructions to the Roman church about their relationship to the governing authorities. What is amazing is that Paul probably wrote this during the reign of one of the most despotic emperors in history, Nero. He tells the Roman churches to "submit" to the authorities, to "do what is right" (be law abiding citizens) and pay whatever taxes are due.

But the church of Paul's time was a small and obscure sect of Judaism in the eyes of Rome. They were not in a place to influence government policies. They were simply trying to live as an exemplary community, maintaining a positive reputation so that the testimony of Christ was enhanced. They wanted to be an aroma, not a stench (to quote Rich Buhler).

It was only after Constantine that Christianity assumed a new relationship to the state in the West. The church was no longer being persecuted, but was now tempted to rely on political power rather than the power of God to grow. And so it has been in the West ever since.

In Europe, church power and state power became inseparable. Thus, the motivation for the framers of the U.S. constitution to put into the first amendment the ban on the establishment of a state religion and a ban on any limitations to the free exercise of religion (commonly called the wall of separation, although that language is from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danville Baptists).

So how then are we to live? I believe we can learn a lesson from Paul. Let us seek to be good citizens whose presence is an enriching and positive one that can be felt and seen by those around us. As a group, let us resist the temptation to grab the levers of power and try to implement a social agenda through politics. But let us take our citizenship seriously by becoming informed on issues and contributing our part, whether that is by voting, serving jury duty or simply attending local council and PTA meetings.

And yes, we can expect and, indeed, should pray for those Christians whose calling is to politics. May they be the moralizing influence in society that gifted and called vocations in all other fields should be.

But let us resist the temptation to try to implement our moralizing influence through politics. When we do that, we become just another competing power and we lose our fragrance in society.