Reflections on the Connections Between Faith and Politics June 2, 2008

Well, I have never wanted to be boring from the pulpit, and it is clear to me that my sermon from May 18th touched a lot of nerves. If you were not in church, don’t despair. You can know either hear it or now see it on our website.

In that particular sermon I started by saying that I wanted us to “come alongside” the congregations in the United Church of Church, whose president and senior leader had asked all the congregations of that denomination to talk about race relations on that day in response to The Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons. Since Rev. Wright’s sermons had been shown for the last three months in the media, the U.C.C. has had to face a public relations challenge. You will, of course, remember that Rev. Wright is a U.C.C. minister.

One concerned parishioner wrote that he didn’t believe that the issue was about race, but about a “spiritual leader committing the sin of breaking two of the Ten Commandments on the pulpit, in order to make a point. (1. Bearing false witness and 2. Taking the Lord’s name in vain.” He went on to write, “My concern is that by your taking on the request from the UCC president to speak about race last Sunday, without addressing the issue above, could appear as an endorsement of Rev. Wright’s words and actions. I would hope that you would not sanction the use of such words, or such actions, from the pulpit or any other place, by a minister of any other ‘ordinary’ person. I would like to know your position on this aspect of the issue and have your dissect the dynamic situation surrounding the Rev. Wright for all of us, either singularly, or as a panel of clergy.”

I think that these are fair questions, and I will choose to address them singularly. If any of you should desire to find out what any of our other clergy think or feel, I know that they would be glad to hear from you.

I will admit that I am not a big media person—that probably doesn’t come as a surprise to most of you. I try to keep up as best I can, but I tend to be more of a reader than a watcher. I know that if I am going to do the class next year—the Gospel 360—with much credibility and currency then my habits will need to change. By not commenting on Rev. Wright’s sermons, I was in no way giving any kind of sanction to his sermons, to his language, to his examples, to his positions. Being a preacher myself, I know that you must sometimes speak to the brink, that is, you must speak in big ways, in startling ways, in challenging ways, in sometimes confrontational ways, to get people’s attention. The scriptures are full of such examples, and even Jesus himself often resorted to rhetorical-hyperbole in order to get his point across. One example of this is when he said that we needed to hate our father and mother and everyone else in order to follow him. Jesus does not mean these words literally, for that, of course, would be inviting his disciples to break one of the Ten Commandments. Jesus was using this very confrontational language in order to tell us that he must be first in our lives.

Let us return to Rev. Wright. As much as I understand using big language to wake people up, to shake them up, I also know that the preacher must be very careful about not saying things so big that he or she stops making sense, that he or she doesn’t begin to sounds like just a ranting fool, that he or she doesn’t become so offensive that people shut down. Do I support him using the Lord’s name in vain from the pulpit? Of course not. Now, let us pause for a moment here. Using the Lord’s name in vain doesn’t simply mean using God’s name along with a swear word. That is just simplistic. Using the Lord’s name in vain means using the Lord’s name and connecting it to causes and issues and stances that are not about the Lord’s desires for our lives. Using the Lord’s name in vain happens when we pray for things that we have no business praying for, when we try to use the Lord to substantiate our own needs or positions. Let us face it: we have all used the Lord’s name in vain. Moving on. Or do I support Rev. Wright bearing false witness from the pulpit or anywhere else? Again, no. I think it was irresponsible for him to suggest that the United States government may have had a hand in creating the AIDS epidemic; I thought his comments that attack on the World Trade Center arose from crimes of American foreign policy were unguarded and inflammatory; I thought him calling down God’s wrath upon this nation frightful and unfaithful. Now, having said all that, and having, I hope, distanced myself from him, I would still—as I said in the sermon—like to invite us to think about whether or not this very angry man might, just might, have something for us to consider.

I am sure by now that most of you have seen or read that Senator Obama has now resigned his membership from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. After Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest, gave a guest sermon mocking Senator Hilary Clinton for crying in New Hampshire, while also suggesting that she felt “entitled” to the nomination because she is white—this sermon was given at Obama’s church—Obama really had no choice but to resign. I believe his leaving was not just an expedient and political move, but also a wise and faithful one.


This past weekend the Houston Chronicle ran an editorial titled “Pastor Problems: Partisan preaching adds little value to presidential campaigns—and much to regret.” The gist that I derived from this article was that all the candidates would do well to keep their distance from their pastors, except perhaps for private issues, that that we, the electorate, would do well to build a wall between church and state. Although I would never want a theocracy of any type of stripe, and although there are some connections between the religious right and the political right that make me uncomfortable, and although I see many difficult challenges on how religion and politics intersect and speak to each other, I would not ever want to entirely or totally divorce religion from the political realm. I have never, and will never, tell you how to vote or who to vote for, but I have and I will invite you to have a conversation between your religious convictions and your political views. If we do not make that connection, if we do not have that conversation, both our religion and our politics will be impoverished. If we don’t try to connect our faith to our politics, the church has just retreated into being a “holy huddle,” focused on the “by and by,” so heavenly directed that it isn’t much earthly good. Such a faith, such eviscerated faith, is not the Biblical faith. Such a faith has no connection to all the great prophets, no connection to the Genesis narrative when God created everything, including the political realm, no connection with the God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son. The voice of the churches made a faithful difference during the civil rights movement and in the abolition of slavery movements in both England and the United States.

That is probably enough for now, except I would ask you to be praying right now and in the days ahead for all of the candidates, for this nation and all of its people, for healthy and strong leadership to emerge, and for our relationship and leadership in the world. Lord, have mercy. JWN