Dear Faithful Pastors: Sounding Partisan is Upon You, Whether You Would Risk It or Not
In a recent episode of the Church Leaders Podcast, Ed Stetzer interviewed J. D. Greear on Key Points for Pastors to Remember During This Election Year. Having already studied this subject a good deal, I likely would not have given the podcast a listen. Yet I was roused from my disinterest by a tweet Stetzer posted (and later deleted), which framed the discussion of political matters in a way that is almost certain to harm the church. So, I dutifully listened to the entire 46-minute episode.
I’m pleased to report there were several things to commend. Both Stetzer and Greear affirmed that “the teachings of the Bible don’t proportionately critique the two [major political] parties.” They pointed to the “devastating” effects of the Democratic Party’s celebration of abortion, endorsement of LGBTQ insanity, and promotion of the (so-called) Equality Act, which both called “a great threat to religious liberty.” Yes, and amen to all that.
Stetzer and Greear also seem to recognize the trap of pietism, with its politics-don’t-matter approach to heavenly things divorced from their earthly implications. I was glad to hear them acknowledge that many truths in the Bible have “political dimensions” and that “good politics is a way of loving my neighbor.” These claims are undoubtedly true in view of what politics is, namely, the attempt to structure the shared life of human beings for the benefit of both the individual and society as a whole. As such, anyone in a democratic society who cares about neighbor love (Matt. 22:39–40) cannot disregard the political realm.
Nevertheless, Greear (and Stetzer, who voices his agreement with Greear on almost every point) undermines what he gets right about politics through what he gets wrong about the pastoral vocation, the message of the Scriptures, and the nature of political engagement.
Greear’s View of the Pastorate, the Gospel, and Politics
At one point in the interview, Greear says: “I think like a missionary. I don’t think like a chaplain of our society. I realize that I have a role as a chaplain, but my primary call, Acts 1:8, is to be a missionary and not to be a state priest.” He adds, “Jesus did not call me to save America. He called me to evangelize and make disciples of Americans.” Therefore, Greear says, “The focus, the tip of the spear that I’m using, is going to be the gospel itself.”
Greear explains how such a view works itself out in his ministry:
“I’m not going to let the good things of politics become the thing that keeps from the ultimate, one, primary thing that I’ve been given. And I know that the moment that I do, then I give up my one [thing].
Almost half of our city, Ed, is Democratic. And I know that, the way these things work, the moment we become labeled ‘partisan,’ then I lose fifty percent of my mission field (emphasis added). So it’s never going to make me compromise truth, but it is going to make me say, ‘I’m going to show a certain level of restraint.’”
The trouble with these statements is that, whether intentionally or not, they reduce the pastor’s job to that of a missionary instead of a shepherd called to guide souls to maturity; they truncate the message of the Scriptures to the gospel alone instead of “the whole counsel of God;” and they envision politics through the lens of evangelism to the detriment of both. Each of these is a costly error, perhaps worthy of an entire article, but I’ll content myself here to show how they work together in ways that significantly harm the church.
The Misplaced Fear of Sounding Partisan
As Greear himself says, much of his approach to politics is driven by the fear of sounding partisan. Evangelicals used to talk about “not sounding political,” but they have been soundly rebuked on that front by many authors who (rightly) point out that the gospel is inescapably political and, as such, the church is a kind of political force in the world.
Thus, the updated version of “the gospel is not political” is now “the gospel is political but not partisan.” This is true in a strict sense. The gospel is what it is, the Scriptures say what they say, and the Word of God does not bend the knee to anyone. Therefore, the gospel is not some sort of partisan stump speech for any political party. So long as politics involves imperfect men, there will always be room for scriptural assessment and critique.
The problem is that in an increasingly post-Christian society (like ours), politics is changing in drastic ways. There was a time when Christians of various stripes “on both sides of the aisle” disagreed about the best means to achieve righteous ends. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the major parties in America diverge so sharply from each other that one of them aligns far more—even if still imperfectly—with a Christian vision for the world. Even non-Christians recognize this. That is precisely why a vast majority of atheists, agnostics, and religious ‘nones’ vote Democratic.
So to all the pastors who think, “I will not risk sounding partisan,” I would say, “Sounding partisan is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.”
The Effects of Trying Not to Sound Partisan
This article really isn’t about J.D. Greear. It’s about the harm that infects a church when its pastors try not to sound partisan in an increasingly progressive culture, even for noble reasons like evangelism. When pastors do this in societies like ours, three things inevitably happen.
First, these pastors will be unable to critique one side without feeling the need to mention some danger on the other side, even if that danger is not in their sermon passage nor especially common in their church. Such pastors can’t condemn abortion without also mentioning racism, for example, even if their congregations show no signs of racist inroads. Other examples abound. The point is that pastors like these may know there is not a moral equivalence between the major political parties in America, but their people hear them saying “there are errors on both sides” so frequently that the church’s moral scales become terribly out of balance.
Second, the desire to not sound partisan is achievable only if a pastor postures himself (or the Scriptures) as being “above the fray” on some imaginary middle point between the progressive and conservative ends of the political spectrum. Yet this is not sustainable. As progressives continue sprinting to the left, the ability to maintain an appearance of not being on the right will mean pastors must move with the culture, if not in substance, at least in tone. That is to say, such pastors will be tempted to “whisper” about sins the Bible shouts down so as not to be partisan.
Finally, the attempt to appear non-partisan as an evangelistic strategy is ultimately doomed to fail. This is because progressives do not fail to give the gospel a fair hearing because of politics; they fail to heed the gospel because of hardheartedness. We cannot soft-pedal sinners into salvation by appearing to be something we’re not. Meanwhile, the attempt to appear non-partisan will drive away many conservative-leaning non-Christians, the sort of people who don’t know the Lord but who do know that abortion is murder, gay marriage is wrong, “Drag Queen Story Hour” is insane, sex-change surgery is impossible, and socialism is disastrous.
Greear seems to recognize this. At one point in the interview, he openly admits: “I know that the moment that I say this is what you should do…I know that one step is going to mean that the next week—our attendance will probably grow, just for the record—but what it will mean is that only a certain kind of person will come to our church.” Perhaps he is right. But also, perhaps “the certain kind of person” who might have come to his church is the kind to whom our Lord would have said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God (Mark 12:34). Let me introduce you to the King.”
