{"id":6904,"date":"2012-05-31T10:03:56","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T15:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theamericanjesus.net\/?p=6904"},"modified":"2012-05-31T10:03:56","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T15:03:56","slug":"politician-preachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zackhunt\/2012\/05\/politician-preachers\/","title":{"rendered":"Politician Preachers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Do you remember the story of God leading George Washington out of his tent and promising him that God would make of ole\u2019 George a great nation and that his\u00a0descendants\u00a0would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the shore?<\/p>\n

How about the story of Thomas Jefferson going up on the mountainside to receive the law from God which outlined America\u2019s covenant relationship with God?<\/p>\n

Surely, you\u2019ve at least read Benjamin Franklin\u2019s epic work, the book of Proverbs, right?<\/p>\n

If not, it\u2019s probably because you don\u2019t have a\u00a0politician\u00a0for a preacher.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m sure this phenomenon exists elsewhere in the world, but in the United States politician preachers are an epidemic. What are\u00a0politician\u00a0preachers? Well, to borrow from Stefon<\/a>, it\u2019s that thing where your pastor is really just a\u00a0politician\u00a0who happens to preach at a church every Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

Case in point, this video from one of the founding fathers of political preaching, John Hagee:<\/p>\n

<\/iframe>\n<\/p>If you moved this \u201csermon\u201d from a church to a state fair it would make for a great political rally. And that\u2019s the thing. When we read America into the Old Testament story of God\u2019s covenant relationship with Israel, Christianity quickly gets replaced by politics.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s a subtle move. The great\u00a0politician\u00a0preachers are so good at it that most of us miss it. By combining our love for God and country they are able to move freely back and forth between Biblical theology and American ideology, creating a new religio-political tapestry in which faith and politics are so intertwined that you can\u2019t tell one from the other.<\/p>\nWhen this sort of\u00a0alchemy\u00a0occurs, the inconvenient Jesus of the gospels gets left out of the equation. Sure, the\u00a0politician\u00a0preacher might evoke his name every once in a while, after all, it\u2019s good for business. But things like \u201csell all you have and give it to the poor\u201d, \u201clove you enemies\u201d, \u201cturn the other cheek\u201d, \u201cpray for those who persecute you\u201d, and \u201cput away your sword\u201d don\u2019t mix well when your beating the war drum and extolling the virtues of capitalism.<\/p>\nSo why bother with the pulpit?<\/p>\nWhy not leave ministry behind and toss the proverbial hat in the political ring?<\/p>\nI think it\u2019s the same reason that Adam and Eve took the fruit from the tree.<\/p>\nPower.<\/p>\nFew things in life hold more sway than power. Money\u2019s great, but if you\u2019ve got all the power, you don\u2019t even need money. And as a senior politican pastor leading a\u00a0congregation\u00a0of faithful\u00a0constituents\u00a0you can have both.<\/p>\nYou see, the political arena has limits. One can only hold office if you get elected. Once elected the power you wield extends only as far as the compromises you can make and the bills you can pass. Even if you manage to exert you political will, there\u2019s that pesky problem of term limits. Once out of office, who knows what will happen to all the \u201cgood\u201d you did?<\/p>\nBut the pulpit is different.<\/p>\nIf you get the right mixture of\u00a0charismatic\u00a0preacher creating a church from scratch, the possibilities are endless.<\/p>\nPolitician preachers don\u2019t have to worry about being elected. They\u2019re \u201ccalled by God\u201d and there\u2019s always a flock out there waiting to be\u00a0shepherded. Simply feed them your political brand of fiery political preaching, making sure to touch on those most sensitive areas of nationalism and faith, and you\u2019re sure to get them running for the trough.<\/p>\nWhen your\u00a0ecclesiastical\u00a0constituency\u00a0is of your own making, you need not concern yourself with the other side of the aisle. There\u2019s only one side: God\u2019s side. Everyone else is the enemy. Therefore, even the hint of compromise or working together is nothing short of treason and heresy.<\/p>\nThere\u2019s no need to work to get bills passed. As the chosen mouthpiece of God, thy will be done. You simply need to say magic words \u201cGod said\u201d or \u201cGod wants\u201d and any agenda you have you will immediately be put into action.<\/p>\nAnd, of course, perhaps best of all, there are no term limits in the pulpit. (That is, as long as you\u2019re not in an appointment system, but no good\u00a0politician\u00a0preacher would be so foolish as to submit himself to that sort of nonsense) Without term limits, you can keep on campaigning until it\u2019s time to go off to the great White House in the sky.<\/p>\nNow, let me pause and caution you about reading this as simply an attack on one particular party. It is certainly true that Republicans get the most attention for mixing faith and politics, but there are plenty of Democratic\u00a0politician\u00a0preachers out there as well.<\/p>\nThe issue here isn\u2019t right or left wings politics. It\u2019s politics period.<\/p>\nAs I said before, Jesus doesn\u2019t fit well into political preaching. The reason being that in Jesus we see a new politic, one which is completely foreign to this world and which doesn\u2019t mix well with others because it\u2019s claims to communal living, non-violence, humility, submission, grace, love, and forgiveness don\u2019t work with systems driven by control, greed, power, and violence.<\/p>\nAnd therein lies the problem with politician preachers.<\/p>\nPolitician preachers don\u2019t preach in a\u00a0vacuum. They espouse their political theology everyday to thousands, perhaps millions of people who view them as people called by God to speak the truth.<\/p>\nSo, when they start talking about America as God\u2019s chosen people and the American political and economic systems as God\u2019s preferred way of doing things, their congregational constituents naturally accept this as the gospel truth. What results then are people who, just like their\u00a0shepherd, believe that Uncle Sam\u2019s way is, in reality, Jesus\u2019 way.<\/p>\nThe ultimate outcome of this political-religious alchemy, however, is not the golden truth, but a new faith that has no space for the Jesus found in the gospels because the Jesus we encounter in the gospels demands we place all of our trust and security in him. When we follow the path of politician preachers and supplant the gospel with nationalistic ideology it simply demonstrates the reality that we do not actually place our faith, trust, and security in Jesus, but in a man-made, fallible political system.<\/p>\nThose political systems give us<\/em>, rather than God<\/em>, the power to control our\u00a0world.\u00a0Politician\u00a0preachers, then, are simply the incarnation of our own lust for power which, like Adam and Eve, seeks to place ourselves in the place of God, the very definition of idolatry.<\/p>\nIn other words, despite the gift of the gospel, we haven\u2019t learned our lesson from Adam and Eve.<\/p>\nPreachers are given a profound responsibility: to preach the gospel of Jesus. When that gospel gets corrupted or hijacked by the political aspirations of a\u00a0politician\u00a0preacher it is lost, replaced instead with something so\u00a0self-centered\u00a0and driven by power and greed that is the very opposite of \u201cThy<\/em> kingdom come, Thy<\/em> will be done on earth as it is in heaven.\u201d<\/p>\nSo, let us somehow find the courage to kick our politician preachers out of office and live as a church as if we really believe that the kingdom of God which Jesus proclaimed is something which can actually be lived out. Otherwise, this whole Christianity thing is just a massive waste of time.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\nGrace and peace,<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/theamericanjesus.net\/?page_id=2718\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Zack Hunt<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you remember the story of God leading George Washington out of his tent and promising him that God would make of ole\u2019 George a great nation and that his\u00a0descendants\u00a0would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the shore? How about the story of Thomas Jefferson going up on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3437,"featured_media":6910,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Politician Preachers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Do you remember the story of God leading George Washington out of his tent and promising him that God would make of ole' George a great nation and that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zackhunt\/2012\/05\/politician-preachers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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