Pulpit politics: Pastors to defy IRS | csmonitor.com.
Anyone who attends FBC knows that I would never participate in something like this. I do not publicly endorse political candidates in my role as a pastor. Apparently, a group of 35 pastors across the country decided that during sermons this past Sunday, they would endorse a presidential candidate, by name, in direct defiance of the Federal laws regarding tax-exempt status and limits on making political endorsements. Three words –
“Dumb and Dumber!”
First, pastors are not called to endorse political candidates, but to endorse “The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.” Whatever the laws of our country may be, trying to get people to vote for one candidate over another doesn’t fit in any way into the pastor’s biblical calling. Encouraging people to vote is one thing. I guess you could probably correlate that with the biblical mandate to be “salt and light.” But telling them for whom to vote is lame at best and ludicrous at worst. I wish Christians (and particularly, pastors!) would get as fired-up over the Great Commission as they are about Election 2008.
Second, making the assumption that just because the pastor says it, people are going to do it, is incredibly naive and a touch arrogant. If only it was that simple. “Hey, Pastor ______ said it, and that’s good enough for me.” Seriously. That is just not the way it goes. There are times I wish that was the case. But, people have minds of their own. (And should have!) And as I’m fond of saying, “I’m not 100% right 100% of the time.” Nobody is.
Third, it’s much wiser to address moral and ethical issues from the Bible and let people make the correlation. I did something like this over the weekend. I mentioned that if the government came into my church and demanded – by law - that I personally would have to marry men to men and women to women, I would resist. My conscience would not allow me to do this. Obviously, this is a biblically-derived position that is relevant in the 2008 campaign and makes it crystal clear where I stand on the issue of gay marriage. It’s no big leap from there to the political sphere. By the way, I believe I (as a pastor) am called to address relevant moral and ethical issues that surface in our cultural debate. That IS part of my job!
Fourth, the idea of pastoral civil disobedience on the issue of candidate endorsement seems childish and reckless to me. I know it’s part of a strategy to force a change in the law. But to do it this way, and to organize a class action among pastors to pull it off, is gratuitous grandstanding! Fellow pastors, this is embarrassing.
At FBC, I will continue to endorse Jesus only and leave the political endorsements to others!
