Write About Now

This week’s New Yorker includes an article about a group of Ohio pastors, including some from our churches, who invite Republican politicians to speak at their churches, form organizations to encourage voter registration, encourage followers to elect candidates such as Ohio secretary of state Kenneth Blackwell, and exhort voters to “shine a light for Godly candidates in the 2006 election cycle.” The article follows a January New York Times article describing the concern of other Ohio pastors about the political influence of these Christian leaders and the use of tax-exempt churches to promote specific candidates and political issues.

So many things trouble me about this. For one thing, I happen to agree with those concerned Ohio preachers who filed a complaint with the IRS in January. It seems inappropriate for any religious leader to use his church building or his influence to sway members to vote certain ways on certain issues.

I also find it disheartening that expressing this opinion usually invokes wrath from fellow Christians, as if questioning the extent of a church’s involvement in political issues equals an endorsement of the opposite “side.” I have a problem with what one of these pastors, Rod Parsley, calls an “evangelical campaign” not because I necessarily disagree with the evangelical viewpoint, but because it’s out of line for Parsley to use his pulpit to recruit voters for his position.

And added to that, I personally don’t want Parsley or any other leader defining for me what the “evangelical” perspective is on a particular issue. To “shine a light for Godly candidates” presupposes the light-shiners have a corner on what defines godliness.

Yes, Ken Blackwell opposes homosexual marriage, abortion, and other hot buttons for the religious right. Did you know he’s also been accused of restricting voting rights for portions of the population that might feel differently?

Yes, George Bush is a born-again Christian. Did you know his administration created video ads with actors “reporting” his policies which they then released to television stations as objective news (Associated Press, October 2004), or that he supported Haley Barbour’s campaign for governor of Mississippi, saying Barbour is a “man of good values,” despite Barbour’s links to a white supremacist organization? (The Washington Times, The Boston Globe)

So who’s truly godly, and what barometer are we using?

At the end of the day, it’s not about political parties or who you vote for this November. As Brian McLaren writes in A Generous Orthodoxy, “To the degree [liberals and conservatives] preoccupy themselves with the question of who’s right, to the exclusion of considering whether they are truly good (as in ‘bearing good fruit’), they’re destined to fade, wither, fail. To the degree that they have sold their spiritual birthright for a political ideology, they must repent; neither left nor right leads to the higher kingdom.”

James says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” I’ll put my money—literally and figuratively—on that method of changing the world.

The inerrancy of this Biblical passage is one thing the “Patriot Pastors” and I can agree on. It hasn’t changed for thousands of years. As for Blackwell? He used to be a Democrat.