October 14, 2008: Endorsing A Candidate

Of the four Roman emperors who reigned during the New Testament era, three (Tiberius, Caligula and Nero) raped boys. Only Claudius might not have.

I bring up this unpleasant fact for the sake of those who seem to think that the flourishing of the church depends on having good secular leaders and laws. It doesn't. The church was born, and the gospel spread, in lands ruled by murderous thug perverts like Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, Herod Agrippa I and the emperors named above. (Even the best of the lot, Herod Agrippa II, slept with his sister!) Despite demons at the helm of secular government, the gospel was preached and the kingdom grew and tens of thousands of elect saints bowed the knee to Jesus Christ.

I'm not saying it is ok therefore to leave demons at the helm. I am saying that the cause of Christ will proceed or flounder no matter who is in charge.

That is one of the reasons I strongly oppose the action of 33 ministers who, two weeks ago, deliberately endorsed political candidates from the pulpit. (It was a protest against a 54-year-old law prohibiting non-profits from endorsing candidates. These churches may now lose their tax-exempt status.) As a citizen and private individual I certainly care who gets elected, and I'm happy to banter politics with anyone who would like to engage me about it on the side. But when I get into the pulpit I am not merely a citizen but a proclaimer of the gospel of Jesus Christ endowed with the sacred trust of exalting his name and making him known. To get distracted in the pulpit by these lesser things of politics is sin. Old-school preachers used to scotch-tape to their pulpits the text John 12:21: "We would see Jesus." They knew the temptation of taking the focus off Christ and fixing it on the relatively inconsequential, like political heroes and villains.

Rather than striking a blow for free speech by the civilly disobedient act of endorsing McCain or Obama in their September 28 sermons, it would have been better if these 33 preachers had raised their right hands and sworn, "I will not allow my political convictions to veil Christ from those who need to see him." Even from their perspective, even if they knew without error that one of these candidates was good and the other evil, how could they know whether the cause of Christ would flourish more under an Obama or a McCain administration? None of us can know that. Look at the world: western Europe has freedom of religion but nobody goes to church, while China enforces policies hostile to the faith and its churches multiply.

I have preferences, but you won't hear them in the pulpit. Part of that is because I have a Bigger Name to exalt and don't want lesser names to obscure it. Part of it too is because I seek first the kingdom of God, and am fully convinced that that kingdom can advance just as easily whether the Oval Office is occupied by humble St. Francis or Attila the Hun.