Politics and Christian Evangelicals:

In recent years, Christian evangelicals have become strongly identified with certain political stances and even political parties.  This is healthy neither for politics nor the church.  It has not always been true, either, though the church has often been vocal regarding certain issues.

 

When I was a student in college and seminary, many of my friends who considered themselves evangelical still held political views that were decidedly liberal.  It was partially for that reason that I began referring to myself as a traditionalist, and not an evangelical--though my theology is decidedly evangelical.  (It is interesting how the term "evangelical" has so many different connotations for different people all the way from charismatic and contemporary worship to social conservatism  and even political liberalism.   Sometimes, the term can be more confusing than descriptive.)

 

With the nomination of Ronald Reagan for President by the Republican party in 1980 and the beginning of Jerry Falwell's "Moral Majority," Christian evangelicals increasingly began to be identified with conservative political stands and partisan politics.  With the 2000 and 2004 Presidential campaigns of George W. Bush, this identification reached a new zenith. My concern about this development has nothing to do with the issues as such.  In most cases, as should already be apparent to readers of this blog, my personal political views would usually be characterized as conservative.

 

The church is, or ought to be, primarily a spiritual institution.  For decades, those of us in mainline Protestant denominations have had to endure the spectacle of judicatories taking positions and passing resolutions on controversial issues.  This always troubled me--not least because I usually disagreed with the positions these bodies were espousing.  There was, however, a deeper reason.  Even as a teen-ager, I disliked seeing church bureaucrats using religious language and privilege to promote a decidedly political agenda.  To cloak a political position with the language of piety and sanctimony seemed very dishonest to me and even self-righteous.  As I continued my studies, of course, I realized that the Westminster Confession, then the sole theological standard of the mainline Presbyterian bodies, stated quite clearly that the church was not to take political stands on issues except in cases of national emergency or when requested for its opinion by the civil powers--a scenario which seemed highly unlikely to me then and now.  

 

This reluctance of the Westminster divines to get involved in affairs of state was based firmly on biblical examples in the New Testament.  Jesus and His disciples did not get involved in the intrigues of the Roman Empire; and the apostle Paul specifically warned Timothy not to get entangled in the affairs of the world. Of course, in the Old Testament, God's people were a political entity--being, as they were, for much of that period, a theocracy.  This situation no longer exists, and the biblical witness takes account of this.

 

During the time I spent in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, I still spoke out against the positions taken by that body on political issues--even though in the EPC, I usually agreed with the stands being taken.  It made no difference to me that I was more sympathetic to the positions of the EPC.  

 

So today, I dislike the heavy involvement of certain churches and ministries in the politics of the nation.  I find it hypocritical, however, for certain liberal pastors and religion commentators to criticize evangelical groups and pastors for doing the same thing that liberals have been doing for decades.  These left-of-center pundits act like this is a brand-new thing in the life of the church, although many of them were doing the same thing during the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war years, and the Watergate era.  

 

I do not preach on issues.  I will indicate certain applications of biblical Christian principles that might have some applications relating to political matters; but I will rarely preach an entire sermon around a current political concern.  I have, on a few instances, given part of a sermon over to some current issue if our General Assembly has taken an action which I feel requires a theological and biblical response and which, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I feel compelled to reject or affirm.  I have not, for instance, preached a sermon on abortion or any foreign policy involvements of the United States.  And although my sermon "Big God or Big Government," based on 2 Samuel 8, relates to a principle which I believe is a part of a biblical Christian worldview, I do not address specific partisan issues in that sermon.

 

I think many Christians are under the impression that if they can just get the "right people" elected, most of the problems of our nation will disappear.  This is an illusion. I love politics and elections.  When I was called to the ministry, I had narrowed my vocational choices down either to the ministry or law and politics.  When the church becomes consumed with politics, however, it is compromising its basic mission.  And the job of evangelical Christians is to spread the gospel, to be evangelical about bringing people to faith in Jesus Christ--not bringing them to faith in the Republican party!