I know another political blog, what is with that? It is the current atmosphere here in the USA that is getting me into the whole politics thing I think. So, sorry about this. I am sure some of you will agree with me on these things. I am sure some of you will disagree on this.
Politics is important and church is important. At least they are important to me. I am just not comfortable when they come together in certain ways. I think that it is important for church goers to vote. I think it is important for everyone to vote, but I have mentioned that recently. I think that church goers should talk about politics and how it affects their lives. I think that people should talk about their convictions and how their beliefs guide their voting choices. I certainly allow my convictions to guide my voting choices in many ways. For example, I will not vote for someone that says that the government should pay for abortions, but I will personally vote for someone that believes in civil unions of any 2 adults (note I did not say marriage, blog on this coming sometime in the future).
So where does politics in the church fall for me? Well, I have a problem with it. A pastor holds a lot of sway over his/her congregants. A lot of people will listen to what whatever that person says and do it (some might say, “take it as gospel”). And as a result I have issues with a pastor gets up in front of the church and talks about politics. A church I used to attend in AZ had a pastor that did this more often than he claimed he did. One thing that always bothered me with him was that he would always preface it with a statement like, “I don’t talk about politics much.” But he would. And it always felt like he was saying that if you didn’t vote for the person he was mentioning or for the party he liked then we weren’t following the Lord. And I just don’t believe that. There are certainly politicians that, as Christians, should not be voted for, but a preacher, as the pastor, shouldn’t be up in front of the church railing against any of them.
This happened again this last Sunday at the church we are attending now. The pastor spent the entire “sermon” talking about how you shouldn’t vote based on whether you like or don’t like the person as a person, but you should vote for them based on their party’s platform. That is garbage. The current system we live in has 2 party’s that are both so far to each side that I don’t agree with either of them and I don’t believe either line up with Scripture. Sure there are certainly things that both sides say that have Bible backing: For example, the Republican Party are anti-abortion and the Democratic Party wants to show respect to people of all races/religions/etc. regardless of where they are from (I know some of you “Christians” out there think the Democrats hate Christians, but overall that isn’t true). Not all Republicans and Democrats agree with those statements, but that is what the party stands for. What if you agree with both of those, whom do you vote for? Is one more important than the other?
But to have a pastor bring up the “issues” of only one political side in front of the church doesn’t seem right to me. Why not mention the “issues” for the candidates on both sides? Why not mention the positives of each of the candidates? Whether you agree with them or not there are always good and bad things about both sides that can be mentioned. The role of the church is to guide people to God, not to a political side. If he wanted to have that conversation outside the church that would be perfectly fine. Now, I will say that this pastor didn’t make me feel like he was saying you had to vote a specific way or you were not following the Lord, but it was close at times.
Why can’t we figure out how to have a more central-leaning majority that has a strong voice in politics. Then maybe churches wouldn’t feel the need to have their pastors stand up in front of the church and tell them how to vote.
I want my pastor to point me to God; I want him to lead non-believers to Christ; I want Him to draw people to Jesus; not a political party and way of thinking. I think if the tribulation were to happen now (or on Election Day or the day after) that a lot of people will be surprised by who isn’t in heaven and who is in heaven if they looked at their political leanings only.
This is excellent. We just had a Bible study last month about the role of politics & the church. It was explained that it is not the church’s or Pastor’s role to tell people who to vote for or even tell them to vote in general. The church’s job is to preach and teach salvation to the people, and politics should never come from the pulpit!