The Pulpit Wasn’t Made for This
- sciart0
- Jul 15
- 2 min read
Excerpt: "Growing up, I went to a politically active church that frequently had politicians visit. My pastor recognized them as visitors during the announcements, but he did not invite them to speak. He usually said the same thing: “I have my political opinions, but I won’t say them here. Ask me outside of church.” His stance was in line with an IRS regulation dating to the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, which said nonprofit organizations, including churches, could not endorse political candidates.
The IRS recently changed its rules to allow houses of worship to make such endorsements. But as a pastor of a church and a professor who teaches future ministers at a divinity school, I hope my fellow clergy won’t act on this new freedom.
This is not to say that churches should remain altogether silent on politics. I was raised in the southern Black church tradition, which did not have the luxury of separating spiritual and political matters. Our churches came into existence when slavery was the law of the land. My ancestors were forced to answer the question: Were the laws of enslavement what God intended for our people? I am grateful for those who said that God willed abolition and liberation, for those who took a political question—how to understand slavery—and answered it theologically. “The Church should concern itself solely with spiritual matters” can be uttered only by those whose ancestors never felt the sting of the whip and the chain.
Bearing witness against unjust laws is essential. Endorsing candidates, however, is likely to be destructive. Over the past two decades, I have served in churches on three continents and weighed in on political issues in print and from the pulpit. But I have never felt that making direct affirmations of political candidates was necessary to serve my congregations well. I don’t want my members to believe that being faithful to God entails voting in exactly the same way as their pastor."