Take Back the Pulpit!

On September 26th, in an event supported by the Alliance Defense Fund, pastors around the country will intentionally preach a partisan, political sermon from the pulpit, thereby putting their church in jeopardy of losing their 501c3 status. The IRS requires that churches, in order to remain as tax-exempt non-profits, refrain from support of any candidate above another and it limits what can be said about ballot measures and the like. So on September 26th various pastors will be challenging that law by supporting one presidential candidate over the other and encouraging their congregants to vote for said candidate (there were no specifics as to which candidate that would be).

For my part, I do believe that “separation of church and state” is more often than not misused and churches are unfairly discriminated against. I also feel that pastors should absolutely have the right to preach in favor of one candidate over another and to speak about the moral ramifications of secular laws and the biblical principles that should guide our voting, I just think they should proceed with caution and discretion when exercising that right.

The missionary Jordan Grooms said, “If God called you to be a missionary, don’t stoop to be a king.” His words are apropos for all pastors and those within the spheres of influence in ecclesiastical circles, especially in an election year. The essence of Grooms statement is that politics, political change, just and right laws, while good, are also temporal. No matter how good of a leader we have in office, no matter how right and needed the legislation, it can not bring heart change, sanctification, or salvation. If you want to devote your time and energy to something really worthwhile, devote it to something eternal, devote it to the mission of Jesus.
If, as sometimes happens, the worlds of government and church intersect and create an occasion in which truth needs to be spoken, then by all means the church should step up to the challenge, as it has done in the past with issues such as women’s rights, racism, and poverty, whose impetus for change in each case began with faith. But the focus of the church’s message, always, must be Christ and him crucified and raised; this is the beginning of justice, hope, and change.

We do need to take back the pulpit, but it’s not the IRS that stole it from us. Nobody stole it, we just lost it. In place of biblical preaching we have self-help seminars on one end (thanks for the advice, Osteen!) and political rallies on the other (Pat Robertson for President!). In our day and age there are various means of communication open to us (you are reading one of them right now) and as citizens of this country we should use them as we see fit. But the pulpit, and the call to pastor, is sacred and should not be used to promote our political preferences, no matter how strongly we feel about them. If you have been called to be a pastor, do not stoop to be a politician.