Preaching And Politics

Carl Trueman (click here for info) had a previously written an article reposted a couple of years ago on the Modern Reformation website on preaching and politics which seems to becoming more and more relevant today. His primary concern seems to be the pressure that preachers are receiving when it comes to preaching on controversial issues like LGBT issues in particular and political issues in general. In the article, Trueman raises both some good points as well as points that need further examination (click here for the article). 

Some of the good points that Trueman makes include: party politics should be not be a part of preaching, that the job of living the Christian life is not to be popular, and that the whole council of God must be preached including challenges to the idols that exist in society and the churches. In addition, when preaching about sensitive issues, like LGBT issues, Trueman rightly wants preachers to avoid the two extremes of being a jerk in going off on an angry tangent against a given cultural outrage or playing to the crowd in order to avoid offending the congregation.

But, what was for his article, an important point made which should be further examined is the following:

But I am also convinced that the pastor’s first task is to point people to things above; and not to anathematize anyone in his congregation because of matters of earthly politics...

The stakes are simply too high and, Mayor Pete Buttigieg notwithstanding, the current politics of sexual identity are lethal to biblical Christianity.  At its heart, the sexual revolution is not about sex; it is actually about what constitutes the human person and for what purpose, if any, humans exist.  And to fail to make that criticism is to fail to assert a biblical anthropology and thus fatally to undermine the message of the gospel: that God in Christ triumphs over our fallenness; he does not simply affirm us in rebellion.

The problem in the first paragraph is that pastors are not to fix our focus so much on the future that we ignore the moral realities of the day. For example, pastors need to warn us about what are acceptable sexual morals for believers.  Why politics comes into play here is because a significant part of politics deals with moral issues. But unlike sexual moral issues that pastors need to warn us against, the moral issues that politics brings to the table are societal, and thus corporate, moral issues. How are we treating people who are different from us is a foundational issue in the corporate moral issues that politics alerts us to. And though Trueman is right in saying that preachers should not condemn anyone for their earthly politics, preachers should be able to admonish those in their congregation of certain political issues.

And though what Trueman well states in how we should bring up these corporate moral issues, he puts an unnecessary obstacle in the way of Christians who would otherwise treat those in the LGBT community as equals by stating how the politics of today's sex revolution is 'lethal to Biblical Christianity.' On the one hand, today's sex revolution is lethal to the spiritual life of Christians if we follow its call as individuals. 

But the politics of that revolution itself is no more lethal to Biblical Christianity than the politics of the religious plurality is . For though the tenets of both today's sex revolution and the tenets of what other religious faiths teach what is antithetical to the Christian faith, allowing those practices in society in the name of equality is not a threat to the Christian faith. In fact, to insist on full equality for both those of different religious faiths and from the LGBT community is very well consistent with the Christian faith.

So here, we need to distinguish between the moral requirements on the individual Christian from the political moral requirements on Christians as they act as members of society. As individuals, we cannot remain in the Church if we give in to either today's sex revolution or the spiritual teachings of other faiths as they touch on the Trinity and salvation. But the morals promoted in politics are not concerned with what we as individuals believe and act on. The morals promoted in politics address how we will treat fellow members of society who hold to different practices and/or religious beliefs that what we hold to.

Trueman's article provides some very good advice insights. The weakness is found in how he suggests we should view the LGBT community. His weakness is his failure to recognize, in this article, the difference between the individual moral call that the Bible places on those who would call themselves followers of Jesus from the social, and thus corporate, moral call that politics often deals with in promoting full equality for formerly marginalized groups such as the the LGBT community. 

In addition, recognizing someone's right to live or believe differently from how we live or what we believe implies nothing about whether we are affirming what someone does or believes. Just as we can recognize the right of a Muslim to follow Islam without agreeing with what Islam teaches about Christ, we can, and IMO must, recognize the right of those in the LGBT community to practice what they believe is right without agreeing with that practice.

When we understand the history of how the Church has opposed the LGBT community, it has, until recently, never been about the moral practices of the individual. It has always been about how the Church wants society to treat those from that community. 

Unfortunately, for centuries the Church has required that societies marginalize those in the LGBT community. That has caused a phantom conflict of interests for today's religiously conservative Christian who is influenced by Post Modernism. It is a phantom conflict because since it is not a necessary conflict, it is not real. And the conflict of interests says that one must affirm unbiblical sexual practices in order to avoid committing the sin of marginalizing those from the LGBT community. Again, here recognizing someone's right to practice what is unbiblical is conflated with affirming the choice to practice what is unbiblical. Post Modernism, for all of its faults, rightly tells us that such marginalization is wrong. The result of this conflict of interests is that today's religiously conservative Christians are beginning to scuttle biblical sexual mores in order to avoid the sin of persecuting those who are different.

So here, we need to follow Trueman's advice in terms of how we bring up what is morally required of us as members of society. However it seems that Trueman had in mind  how we Christians should react to the LGBT community in mind. What is suggested here is that Christians can't tolerate equality for the LGBT community. But Christians, because of their jobs for example, may not be in the position to do that. So preachers should not condemn believers for their politics. And Trueman is right, we should not condemn each other for differences in politics.

But when it comes to political positions that unnecessarily bring harm to the reputation of the Gospel, while not condemning, preachers need to be able to gently point out what political positions unnecessarily do harm to the reputation of the Gospel.