Why I Don’t Get Political at Church

I am asked from time to time why I am not more political from the pulpit. I am also thanked from time to time that I am not political from the pulpit. It is not that I don’t have political opinions, it is just that I live in a country where political opinion is pretty evenly divided. The moment I become political, I believe I lose the ability to tell half the population about Jesus in an effective way. My goal and hope is to introduce as many people as I can to Jesus.

This does not mean that I think Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics, it just means that I think as “the Church” we need to be careful that we are not perceived as just conservatives or just liberals. I read an article about this very idea yesterday. The following is an excerpt from an article called “Young Adults Doing Religion on Their Own? Blame It on Politics” which was posted on Inside Politics Daily on February 25, 2010:

“Young Americans are dropping out of religion at an alarming rate of 5-6 times the historic rate (30-40 percent have no religion today versus 5-10 percent a generation ago).”

And now their explanation:

“But youth’s religious disaffection is largely due to discomfort with religiosity having been tied to conservative politics.”

They are hardly the first social scientists to link conservative politics and disengagement with organized religion. Back in 2002, Berkeley professors Michael Hout and Claude Fischer took the same line in the American Sociological Review:

“We seek to explain why American adults became increasingly likely to express no religious preference as the 1990s unfolded. Briefly summarized, we find that the increase was not connected to a loss of religious piety, and that it was connected to politics. In the 1990s many people who had weak attachments to religion and either moderate or liberal political views found themselves at odds with the conservative political agenda of the Christian Right and reacted by renouncing their weak attachment to organized religion.”

So, having said all that, let’s talk about health care, jobs, the economy, national debt, taxes…or, take a minute just to pray and have a Jesus Moment thankful that He is in control.

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1. What is the Motivation?
2. Blogging, Facebook, Twitter and the Church?
3. Being the Church

Tags: Christianity, Jesus, Jesus moment, political, politics

Category: A Jesus Moment Ramblings