Should pastors be okay with church members supporting a party committed to elective abortion? That depends. Are we talking about new Christians or longstanding church members? For newcomers, their greatest need—and ours, for that matter—is continual immersion in the gospel. Greg Koukl puts it well: Jesus first catches his fish then he cleans them. In other words, we shouldn’t expect perfection in new converts (any more than we expect it in ourselves), but as they grow in grace, we should expect they’ll begin the process of getting in line with a biblical worldview. That worldview affirms that all humans have value because they bear the image of their maker—thus, the shedding of innocent blood is strictly forbidden. Longstanding church members should live out that biblical view in every area of their lives, including in their political affiliations. If they don’t, something is wrong with their alleged biblical worldview.
Suppose, for example, that it’s 1860 and fifty percent of professing Christians in your church are members of a political party dedicated to the proposition that an entire class of human beings can be enslaved or killed to meet the needs of the White race. If you were a pastor during that time, would this be okay? It might be excusable for new converts just coming to grips with a Christian worldview, but mature Christians?
Something is desperately wrong with my preaching if established church members are comfortable empowering a political party which asserts as one of its foundational principles the right to kill unborn humans. Again, no party is perfect, but on the question of fundamental human value, some parties are more in line with biblical truth than others. What’s wrong with Christian leaders saying that?
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4 comments:
Uh, what's wrong with Christian leaders saying that is that it's illegal. Churches and church leaders CAN (and should) take a stand on specific issues but can NOT endorse a particular candidate or political party. Thus, it is not legally a pastor's business whether his parishoners support one party over the other.
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=154712,00.html
http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=179432,00.html
So if you were a church leader and your people held slaves would you refrain from talking to them about that if it was illegal to do so? Obey state or God in this area?
I am not all that interested in dealing in hypotheticals. I'm just saying that if you want to be an organized church in this country and keep your tax exempt status, then you have to obey the law.
Rachel, Churches cannot officially endorse candidates or parties, but pastors can offer their own opinions about what parties stand for. Where is that forbidden? Also, in my post above, I don't mention parties by name. True, you can draw inferences from what I say, but I doubt the IRS can hold a pastor guilty for the inferences drawn by his people. He can say what I said above and let his people fill in the blanks as to which parties it applies to.
By the way, if it's true that pastors can't call a political party fundamentally evil, then I'm with Z--time to obey God rather than man. Dump the C3 status.
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