Politics, Politics and Church with Dr. Art Lindsley

Never in my lifetime has politics felt so contentious. I know as a preacher I am given to hyperbole, but not this time. This is an ugly, visceral, palpable, and vomit-producing level. It can even make family gatherings stressful, divide generations, and kill any notion of a wonderful community. If I know anything about history, it can certainly kill a country, and not a few are suspecting that is at stake.

If that isn’t a difficult enough beginning let us add church into it. I wonder how many people would put politics on the list of things that attributed to them moving away from the church, not going to church, or being stressed by the church. This certainly was true for my father.

One of my mentors, Steve Brown, used to often say before a sermon: “I have a lot of political views and they are a lot better than yours are, but you aren’t going to hear them from the pulpit because this is a place for God’s word and we have come here to see Jesus and Him only.” I loved that for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the humor inserted into something that could otherwise be quite divisive. I followed his lead and was always careful not to get political from the pulpit. I wonder how successful I’d be now if I preached every week. Everything seems to have been thrown into the political basket.

On the other side, I had a preacher friend of mine come out publicly about his political views right down to for whom he was going to vote. Now he’s retired and I’m glad, but I was embarrassed for him. He waxed eloquently about the why’s, but I knew he was alienating people right and left, mostly only to get stroked by those who agreed with him. I prayed for his serenity.

Who can help us here? Our guest today is uniquely qualified to speak on this subject. He’s one of those Reverend Doctors, which means he has a doctoral degree and is ordained and I will let his job title suffice to let us know he is bringing more than personal opinion to this discussion. The Vice President of Theological Initiatives for the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, Dr. Art Lindsley.