An Open Letter to Pastors Who “Don’t Do Politics”

Dear Faithful Shepherds,

Goodness knows, it’s hard out there nowadays for church leadership in America. Tensions are high, and the air is thick with opinions. Nobody has a polite disagreement anymore; every conversation about current events has the potential to devolve into a 3 AM Waffle House fight.

So, I completely understand your desire to avoid politics. Any pastor who has his priorities straight is going to want to keep the gospel as the Main Thing, and when that’s your perspective, it’s easy to see politics as an inflammatory, unnecessary distraction. You wouldn’t bring it up any more than you would preach a sermon series on who has the best bar-b-q or why Android is really better than the iPhone.

But while your motives for staying out of the cage fight of American politics may have been perfectly reasonable in the past, I urge you to take another look at that fight, how it affects the lives of your congregation, and the proper role of the church in it.

Many years ago, someone whom I don’t feel like googling right now coined the phrase, “The personal is political.” Even though that may only sound like a sticker on the backpack of a pink-haired college sophomore, it’s an idea that has completely saturated every aspect of life in America. Every day, all day long, anything you do is potentially fraught with political implications, from the books you read to the clothes you wear to the restaurant where you choose to enjoy a delicious chicken sandwich. There are a lot of our countrymen who think that the act of just going to a church is itself a political statement.

You can’t watch your faithful church members run that gauntlet all week and then pretend like it doesn’t exist on Sunday. It’s not all just arguments on Facebook; people are fighting real battles with their kids’ schools, with their HR department at work, with family members who are out to ruin every holiday gathering. Ignoring these struggles seems at best oblivious and at worst simply uncaring.

It doesn’t mean that you have to exegete out God’s position on every 0.25% increase in state excise taxes. But when politics extends its tentacles into everything, it’s not surprising when political fights fall into good vs. evil territory, and those fights are definitely the business of the church. 

Christians who can’t leave their house without being browbeaten about how everything they believe is stupid and hateful aren’t going to show up at church hoping for commentary from #TeamNeutral. They are looking for guidance down a very narrow and treacherous path. Does that involve choosing sides? Yes, of course it does. The only people who say that everyone is equally at fault are the people who are actually at fault.

By pooh-poohing political discussions, you also deny your congregation the chance to wrestle with the issues involved from a biblical perspective. We should be thinking about all these things biblically. In what other area of life do pastors hope to inspire more biblical-mindedness by never talking about it?

Church Member: “We sure are having a lot of problems with stealing in our congregation lately.”

Pastor: “Well, then, I’d better not say anything about it from the pulpit. Wouldn’t want anyone to think I was choosing sides between people who believe stealing is a sin and people who run global internet scams.”

Church Member: “Darn right, Pastor! Now let me just jot down your social security number and I’ll get outta your hair.”

The state of American politics today is not the result of too much input from the church. What we’re seeing there is the same thing that happens anywhere that Christians refuse to engage. We have left a great void, and into that void have rushed people who aren’t shy about choosing up sides and aren’t squeamish about fighting for their standards.

I would never presume to tell you what you should preach. You have been called and anointed into leadership. How you choose to fulfill that anointing is entirely between you and God. But you are not called to silence. About anything.

So I urge you, pastors, to understand your calling in the context of the time and place you are called. We are blessed to be in the position to influence the politics of our nation. Give your flock the encouragement, the fortitude, and the guidance they need to use that influence to the glory of God.