What Most “Faith And Politics” Sermons Get Entirely Wrong

'Tis the season for churches to do their "faith and politics" sermon series. It is, after all, a presidential election year, so it seems necessary for the church to talk about this issue. Yet while most pastors want to be seen to speak biblical truth into this area, unfortunately many will simply. beat around the bush. (That’s the proverbial bush, by the way, not Jeb. Please clap…)

These series typically focus on telling Christians to not divide over politics and that our disagreements should be charitable. Political differences are treated like ordinary interpersonal conflicts with calls for believers to be kind, patient, and peaceable with one another. They don't get into the specific policy or worldview issues that divide Republicans and Democrats. They tell people to get along and just be more like Jesus.

I believe this is unwise and will lead to greater problems down the road.

The problem with this approach is the unspoken assumption about priorities. They assume that what matters most is the way we talk about our disagreements rather than the substance of the disagreements themselves. They assume that the most pressing ethical concerns are tone and rhetoric rather than the policy positions and worldviews the candidates and parties stand for.

In other words, these sermon series treat the substance of the disagreements as having less moral weight than the way we speak of those disagreements. 

I understand why pastors desire to do this: they don’t want to stir up conflict in their churches. Pastors may have members of both parties in their churches and they don’t want people to leave. As there are plenty of biblical texts that urge unity in the body of Christ, it’s easy to use the “unity” texts to brush political differences aside. Furthermore, since both political parties are composed of fallen humans, it’s easy to morally equate the two parties with “there’s sin on both sides” bromides. 

This is foolish. The two political parties are both sinful, but not equally sinful. I'm not claiming the Republican party is perfect (far from it!), but the level of wickedness being championed by the Democrat party is extreme and getting worse all the time.

Political differences are not matters of opinion; they have moral weight. We should not choose who to vote for like we’d choose a restaurant or sports team to root for. Voting is an act of self-governance where the winning party will assert its policies and priorities on other people. That’s a weighty responsibility and Christians need instruction in how to think through these issues. As our political divide has grown in America, the differences between the two major parties reflect fundamentally opposed and irreconcilable ways of viewing the world.

Certainly, Christians need to express our disagreements in a godly way, but to speak as though charitable disagreement is the highest priority while ignoring the substantive differences between Republicans and Democrats is irresponsible. 

For example, a Christian Republican who opposes abortion cannot simply "charitably disagree" with a Democrat whose party supports it. They cannot simply “agree to disagree,” because the Democrat party openly and proudly celebrates abortion. Similarly, a Christian Republican who opposes LGBTQ sins cannot have unity and brotherly love with a Democrat whose party celebrates and promotes it.

Charity and unity in the body of Christ are built upon a prior commitment to truth. If someone claims to be a Christian but supports a policy of murder, my duty is not merely to express disagreement charitably. My duty is to correct a very serious error. Without agreement on these most fundamental issues of Christian ethics, unity is not possible. 

Any “unity” based on such a foundation is a false unity that prioritizes relationships over truth, which is idolatry. 2 John 6 says, “this is love, that we walk according to his commandments.” A few verses later, he says, “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works” (10-11). 

Thus, anyone who says "let's agree to disagree" is essentially demanding a "no accountability" policy for supporting sinful ideologies. 

Here's an absurd example to demonstrate my point. 

Imagine a ridiculous marriage where one spouse wants an "open marriage" (i. e., to sleep with other people) but the other does not. Can they charitably disagree? Can they just "focus on Jesus" and not allow this disagreement to divide them? Of course not. One spouse's desire for an "open marriage" forces the other spouse to concede to it against his or her will. There is no "agree to disagree" because the disagreement itself makes demands on the other spouse he/she can't live with. The issue must be resolved. It cannot be ignored.

It's the same with churches.

Churches that try to be politically neutral always end up accommodating people with loose moral convictions. This forces those with more conservative (i.e., biblical) convictions into an intolerable, false “unity” with people who will not be corrected for their unbiblical views. When pastors try to promote political neutrality, they end up further stoking the fires of partisan division by signaling to progressives that their unbiblical political views will never be challenged and will always be charitably tolerated.

They have signaled a “no-accountability” policy for sins cherished by the left, (and the candidates that champion those sins,) while alienating conservative church members who object.

Simply put, it is not possible to sustain a church policy of being "non-partisan." When that's a church's guiding principle, conservatives who insist on upholding biblical norms will grow increasingly frustrated and leave the church. They don't want to be forced into the church equivalent of an "open marriage" with progressive leftists.