Posted on 2/10/2012 by Warren Bird in the Books Blog
As another pivotal election approaches, there is no shortage of articles on the question of whether pastors are legally allowed to speak out about politics, such as this insightful overview by Jim Garlow. It seems we can.
Likewise many have argued that personal faith must inform the values we bring into public policy, such as this excerpt from Personal Faith, Public Policy by Pastor Harry Jackson and lobbyist Tony Perkins. Others argue strongly that Christians must speak up, such as Tom Minnery’s challenging book, Why You Can’t Stay Silent
Now my friend Mike Slaughter has just co-authored a book that explores the partisan church divide: what happens when Christians are strongly identified with a particular political party -- ANY party. The title is Hijacked because, the book argues, “there has been a growing tendency to conflate one's theological commitments with one's political ideology.” As a consequence, partisan politics has infiltrated our churches and political commitments are creating unnecessary divisions and a political discourse that is growing more rancorous and increasingly uncivil. Of most concern, these trends generally tend to obscure the properly holistic nature of the Gospel of Christ and turn people off to Christianity altogether.
The more biblical approach, according to Hijacked, is that “Jesus is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, conservative nor liberal. Jesus refused to sell out to the religious and political systems of his day. He stood in prophetic tension with both, and we as his followers must learn to do the same” (xviii). Throughout the book, the emphasis is on each of us being known as Christian first, and someone identified with a particular political party second, and even as we put our identity in Christ first, to live in unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ with whom we may disagree politically.
The three authors are Mike Slaughter, lead pastor of Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church ; Charles Gutenson, faculty at Asbury Seminary and former staffer at Sojourners; and Robert P. Jones, on staff with the Public Religion Research Institute.
By Warren Bird
Warren Bird, Ph.D., is Research Director for Leadership Network and co-author of 24 books on various aspects of church health and innovation.
Comments
I haven’t read the book yet, but I hope it will help others in the way that Chuck has helped me as a professor at Asbury Seminary.
I had Chuck Gutenson for a couple classes at Asbury. I was at there during the ramp up to the second gulf war and Chuck challenged the predominate thinking that supported invading Iraq. As someone who felt being a Christian meant voting Republican, I was annoyed. But there was something in Chuck’s writings that gave me pause and I knew that I needed to wrestle with the issue more. I saved one of his posts under the title “Gutenson’s rant” to come back to later. As I finished seminary I had two hours left and asked Chuck if he would let me do a two hour independent study with him. I shared my misgivings about his stance, but asked if he could assign me material by theologians who were not left-wing wackos, but who were respected by those who disagreed with them. He agreed.
Out of all the courses I took, those two hours of credit were by far some of the most excruciating and beneficial. Weeks of Yoder, Hauerwas, and others….writing papers…sleepless nights…lots of emailing back and forth…I slowly had to concede that some of my deeply held political views were in direct conflict with Scripture.
I’ve never been committed to either party since. If Jesus is King, Caesar, Bush and Obama are not.