Dear ______:
Ah yes, the political question. How do you be a pastor to a congregation in dicey political times?
You are wise to consider this now, while you are in seminary. But don’t be surprised if, down the road, the dynamics life with an actual congregation prompt you to deal with it differently than you plan to.
So imagine yourself as a pastor in a hypothetical election year:
- To half your congregation one candidate looks like the only way to make the country great.
- To half your congregation, one candidate looks like a fascist.
- And both halves are talking about the same candidate.
Speaking in public about the election would understandably feel like stepping into a mine field.
Wisdom probably comes from knowing who you are. The “Who?” of pastoring has a variety of biblical and traditional answers.
Priest
In many traditions (Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and sometimes Lutheran) you would be likely to view yourself as a priest. If you don’t think of “priest” as a New Testament ministry category, Martin Luther would tell you that you are joined to Christ, our High Priest, in Baptism, and so you share his priestly ministry.
And Luther, at least, thought of a priest as a kind of mediator: speaking to God on behalf of the people in prayer, and speaking to the people on behalf of God.
That responsibility to speak on behalf of God can mean many different things. For Luther it meant giving the message of God’s gracious forgiveness in Christ. For others? Another role can come into play…
Prophet
Some think of speaking for God in terms of the biblical prophets. They take Amos or Jeremiah as their ministry model, especially in preaching. They aim to “speak truth to power.” (Though most Sunday mornings they might be described as speaking about power to the choir.)
But prophetically telling your congregation who to vote for might lead people to feel that you’ve overstepped your bounds (and I suspect the IRS might think so too).
It isn’t that they don’t think their faith has to do with politics. Rather they think you are there to help them with the faith part, and they can apply it to politics for themselves.
Shepherd
Another option is “shepherd.” These days some dislike the “shepherd” metaphor for ministry. Your congregation won’t find it flattering if they find you think of them as “sheep.” But the word “pastor” itself points to shepherding.
So let’s work with it for a minute. It may be a bit old-fashioned, but it is biblical: Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd and, as with his priesthood, we share his shepherding ministry.
If you are going to be a good shepherd you’ll need to look very carefully at your flock. You need to know them personally — by name, as Jesus said. And you will need to aim to provide them what they need, and you’ll protect them from harm. You’ll try to help them flourish.
To do that, especially in relation to political life, I recommend you consider a fourth biblical image of the pastor.
Teacher
In my denomination we recently changed the official title of our pastors. No longer “Ministers of Word and Sacrament,” we are now “Teaching Elders.”
That goes to the heart of what some of our best leaders did back in the Reformation. John Calvin thought of the Church as a school from which we always learned but never graduated.
It reflects much of the best of ministry in other traditions as well. John Chrysostom’s fourth century sermons were such remarkably useful expositions of Scripture that they have been published as Bible commentaries.
He taught them — and he really did speak truth to power, when power was actually listening, even though it led to exile.
As a teacher, you give the people nourishment from Scripture; you help them draw refreshment from the deep well of Christian teaching, and the living water of Christ himself. Then you hope they’ll be strong and wise enough to make good decisions in politics and throughout life.
A good teacher does not dictate the choices the students make outside the classroom. The good teacher informs, and equips, and nurtures skills so that the students make good choices. You help them learn the shape of the faith, and the way of Christ-like wisdom — before they face a choice or a crisis.
Being a Pastor in Dicey Political Times
You may not be able to convince someone that their favored candidate is dangerous. You might not be wise to try to do so explicitly.
But you have opportunities to teach — in the pulpit, in small groups, and one-on-one. Take the opportunities. Plan for them.
Build your members up with a solid knowledge of the Christian faith so that they will cast their votes and use their voices to support causes Jesus would love.
Show how Jesus treated women with respect, letting Mary sit and learn with the Apostles as a theologian, and treating the Woman at the Well with kindness and sending her as an evangelist — and how we should too.
Show how Jesus treated people with disabilities with respect, hearing the cries of the blind, the lepers, the paralyzed, and doing what he could to help them — and how we should too.
You can preach on how Jesus loved and served people of other ethnic and religious backgrounds. That woman at the well was a Samaritan, and so was the role model of ethical life in one of his most famous parables. He healed the daughter of the Roman Centurion and the son of a Syro-Phonecian woman. Show how he honored strangers — and how we should too.
Show how he broke down walls of division and hostility between Jew and Samaritan, Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free — and how we should too.
You can preach on how Jesus actually fed the hungry rather than sending them off to fend for themselves as his misguided disciples recommended — and how we should too.
Surely, you can tell yourself, people who are well taught in the Christian faith would not support a candidate who would denigrate women, mock the disabled, or pledge to ban people of other nations and religions.
But if they do, then love them. Continue to teach them. You are their shepherd. That’s practicing what you preach.
Blessings,
Gary
————
I’d love to send you a free copy of my new eBook on quirky and surprising saints. It’s called Role Models for Discipleship.
Click the button and I’ll send it along.
Very good! Thank for throwing in the examples at the end. Practical examples always bring things home for me.
This is a step in the right direction I think. But I think we’re going to have to be enormously wise, because if we walk into the pulpit each week acting like we don’t know what’s going on in the world — preaching as we always have (I assume sermons about the Syro-Phoenician woman have always recognized her otherness,) and living as we always have, –without sexism or bigotry, I for one would conclude that either the pastor is just trying to play it safe or really doesn’t even barely understand my anxiety. And what if the church down the road asks if we’d like to help with their sanctuary project –do we just hope that never happens?
And is this a long term strategy? What if you are living in Germany in 1935 when the Nuremberg Laws were passed. Nobody has been killed yet, but your Jewish neighbor is losing his job. Do you speak directly to that or stay with generalities about loving your neighbor? Is it the same in 1938 or 1941? When will we know it is time to say something even though it alienates “half of the congregation?” Are we really going to be silent about Bannon, or maybe hope the congregation hasn’t heard of him? Is it possible that Trump would ever cross a line that would rock this boat to pieces?
This is going to be an extraordinarily difficult time for American pastors who have been able to hold disparate people together, and have come to think that is the ideal. I think you do it as long as you can, but at some point, it just wasn’t going to be comfortable for the SS and the Roma members of your congregation to appreciate your evenhanded pastoral leadership. Sometimes your hands are forced.
Thank you Tracy! Yes certainly, there comes a season to speak far more directly. (See my open letter to the electors.) the time for what I was writing about in this post is actually several years ago. Once much of the Christian electorate cannot recognize racism, sexism, and xenophobia as problems it is too late.
Here’s a recommendation and question:
My recommendation: Take a look at “Preaching Under Hitler’s Shadow,” a collection of sermons written in opposition to the National Socialism. The center of these sermons is always the gospel and what the gospel requires of us in the civic realm — which is different from taking a side in a narrow political controversy.
My question is this: How do your various readers come down on the pro-choice vs. pro-life issue? How do they handle this issue in the pulpit?
Well, they haven’t chimed in here on that most controversial of topics, but I do know through private communications that I have readers on both sides of the issue. And for some, a strong stance against abortion “trumped” all other issues.
Thanks for the book recommendation!