{"id":22858,"date":"2012-06-28T08:30:15","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T13:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christandpopculture.com\/?p=22858"},"modified":"2012-06-28T08:30:15","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T13:30:15","slug":"under-the-sun-depoliticizing-the-pulpit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2012\/06\/under-the-sun-depoliticizing-the-pulpit\/","title":{"rendered":"Under the Sun: Depoliticizing the Pulpit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Each week in \u201cUnder the Sun,\u201d Jonathan Sircy examines the history of a cultural practice that\u2019s generating buzz at CaPC.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I warn against the politicizing of the church, I do so not to diminish her power but to increase it.\u201d \u2013 John Piper<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, it\u2019s not the task of the church as church to take political stands or provide political information.\u201d \u2013 Marvin Olasky<\/strong><\/p>\n

This November, Minnesota\u2019s voters will see the following question on their ballots: \u201cShall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the state\u2019s most prominent evangelical ministers, John Piper, said from the pulpit <\/a>he will not tell his congregation how to respond. In the same sermon, Piper argued, \u201cThose who believe that God has spoken to us truthfully in the Bible should not concede that the committed, life-long partnership and sexual relations of two men or two women is marriage. It isn\u2019t.\u201d The sermon drew press (from the StarTribune here <\/a>and from CaPC\u2019s own Brad Williams here<\/a>), but the conversations have been less about the specific issue\u2014gay marriage\u2014than the proper relationship between the church and political action.<\/p>\n

While not condemning his members\u2019 political participation, Piper made clear that he would not use his position as pastor to recommend or fight against specific candidates or legislation. That, he claimed, was up to each of the congregation\u2019s individual believers. Most importantly, Piper closed the sermon by placing himself in a 300-year-old tradition of other American ministers who similarly withstood the \u201cpoliticizing of the church.\u201d In a follow-up post at desiringgod.org<\/a>, Piper claimed to have provided \u201cseveral historical illustrations of how [his stance] has worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to read Piper\u2019s sermon closely to balk at the word \u201cseveral.\u201d Several, in this case, means two. More accurately, Piper appealed to this think-piece<\/a> by WORLD Magazine<\/em> editor Marvin Olasky who supplied the historical illustrations, and it\u2019s after reading Olasky\u2019s piece where things get even more difficult.<\/p>\n

By way of a review of Norm Mason\u2019s The Political Imperative: An Assignment from God<\/em>, Olasky urges ministers to keep their pulpits free from explicit political ties. Olasksy\u2019s choice of supporting material merits discussion. He first appeals to the 16th Century Belgic Confession, which advocated the \u201cpure preaching of the gospel.\u201d The only problem is that the word \u201cpure\u201d is exactly what\u2019s at stake in Olasky\u2019s argument, so pretending like the word obviously means \u201cdon\u2019t be political\u201d is a problem. Of course, Olasky is at pains to assure his readers that such ministerial purity does not mean that ministers should shirk their moral obligations. Olasky writes, \u201cPastors as they exegete Scripture can and should make practical applications to key moral issues such as abortion, but they should be wary of going further.\u201d Olasky maintains that such an approach is a time-honored American tradition:<\/p>\n

\n

That pattern in the 18th and 19th centuries worked exceptionally well. New England pastors in colonial times preached and taught what the Bible says about liberty, and the Sons of Liberty\u2014not a subset of any particular church\u2014eventually sponsored a tea party in Boston harbor. Pastors throughout America during those centuries preached about biblical poverty-fighting, and in city after city Christians formed organizations such as (in New York) the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Olasky\u2019s claims are, to say the least, problematic. First, there is the issue of historical accuracy. Is it, for instance, correct to say that colonial ministers walked Olasky\u2019s fine line between politicization and moral engagement with the contemporary world? Second, there is the issue of counter-examples, moments in this nation\u2019s history where Christian ministers became politically active with positive effects. Olasky completely omits the 20th century. Does this mean that Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s connection to the civil rights legislation of the 1960s was untoward? Third, there is the issue of how and why Olasky uses these specific historical examples. It\u2019s crucial that the above paragraph limits itself to American history with all the patriotism that implies. Even as America drifts further from its Christian roots, Olasky claims that ministers should paradoxically become less political; in doing so, they are actually imitating rather than denigrating their liberty-loving forebears.<\/p>\n

It would take a book-length study to support or refute Olasky\u2019s two examples, so I\u2019ll limit my comments to the colonial ministry\u2019s involvement in the Revolutionary War. In this article<\/a> from Christianity Today, Yale professor Harry Stout goes a long way towards complicating Olasky\u2019s claim that ministers maintained their political distance from the conflict with the British. Through the use of \u00a0three representative examples\u2013Jonathan Mayhew, Samuel Sherwood, and William Emerson\u2013Stout shows that colonial ministers did some exegetically adventurous work to provide the moral basis for American revolt. From the quotations Stout provides, the New England pulpits seem incredibly politicized. Stout has the scholarly credentials to support his article\u2019s claim, having written the definitive book on the topic, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England<\/em> (Oxford University Press, 1986). In his very positive review of Stout\u2019s book, historian Mark Noll points out that Stout may have located the beginning of \u201ca process of secularization in New England.\u201d Noll seems to support Olasky\u2019s and Piper\u2019s stance on the politicized pulpit; the implication of his comment is that these New England ministers won the political battle but lost the spiritual war. However, he also gives the lie to the claim that ministers Stout investigates were apolitical. As Stout notes, these ministers were constantly \u201cgoading, consoling, and impelling colonists forward in the cause of independence.\u201d This would hardly pass Olasky\u2019s muster for a depoliticized pulpit.<\/p>\n

As far as counter-examples go, it\u2019s difficult to read Olasky\u2019s piece and not think of Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s Letter from a Birmingham Jail<\/a>. Addressed to his \u201cfellow clergymen,\u201d King\u2019s letter outlines sentiments that both Olasky and Piper would agree with in principle but does so in a way that their pulpit policy would prevent. In his letter, King talks discouragingly of the \u201cwhite moderate\u201d who has let segregation and racism reign unchecked. King sees a correlation between inactive lay people and passive pastors.<\/p>\n

\n

I have heard many ministers say: \u201cThose are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.\u201d And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Part of King\u2019s appeal to his readers is that, first, he is a preacher who descends from a long line of preachers and, second, early Christians actively chose to suffer for what they believed. That is, King too appeals to history. Tellingly, however, his references are to \u201cearly Christianity.\u201d He quotes St. Augustine (\u201can unjust law is no law at all\u201d) and takes as his model of extreme love Christ himself. King knows how his political activism could be interpreted, yet he still wants his readers to see him \u201cnot as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother.\u201d King\u2019s nonviolent resistance and personal advocacy were crucial to paving the road for the Civil Rights act of 1964. In at least this case, an engaged minister had a positive effect. No matter the specific political causes, King kept the ethos of a minister, not only giving his rhetoric prophetic overtones but calling several laypeople into action.<\/p>\n

These historical complications do not on their own invalidate Olasky and Piper\u2019s position. They do, however, call into question the stories these men are telling about their positions. Both men advocate strong Christians flexing their political muscles. The problem is that they support bodily exercise while maintaining that the body\u2019s head should never enter the gym.<\/p>\n

In his sermon, Piper emphasizes that every political community \u201clegislates morality,\u201d whether that be in the form of hunting and fishing laws or constitutional amendments about marriage. Piper\u2019s point\u2014and I think it\u2019s a good one\u2014is that Christians should not be cowed by claims that they are trying to \u201clegislate\u201d good or bad behavior. All laws do that.<\/p>\n

But if all of political life is moral, then, why are Olasky and Piper so quick to say that the minister should refuse to \u201cpoliticize the pulpit\u201d? It\u2019s already politicized. Olasky is afraid that if churches mobilize Great Commission Corps, specific congregations will get the label \u201cRepublican\u201d or \u201cDemocrat,\u201d as though Piper\u2019s outright declaration about same-sex marriage is politically neutral, regardless of whether or not he says, \u201cSupport this constitutional ban.\u201d<\/p>\n

The genealogy for Piper and Olasky\u2019s position has yet to be written. I certainly have not provided it. But such a move to historical context is necessary, even if it\u2019s not to the history of America.<\/p>\n

For instance, I can easily imagine a justification for a depoliticized pulpit based on the specificity of this historical moment. We live, the minister might say, in such partisan and politically fraught times that we are liable to forget that we are more than just secular bodies. Unlike the 1960s of Rev. King, the problem is not rampant moderation but extremism. In this storm-wracked political climate, the church offers a safe haven, not from all politics, but from the constant buffeting of polemical waves and barb-filled rains.<\/p>\n

The minister would still appeal to history but in a self-conscious and humble way. The irony is that the minister who appeals to Olasky\u2019s historical examples politicizes the pulpit as much in his rally-leading comrade; it\u2019s just that he doesn\u2019t realize it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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