Should pastors address politics from the pulpit—or in any format that flows from their platform as spiritual leaders?
The word “pastor” is an old word that means shepherd, from the Greek, poimen. A pastor’s role is to do two things:
- lead the flock, spiritually and directionally, as we communally obey Jesus’ Great Commission and Great Commandment, and
- feed the flock, offering spiritual nourishment and protection from false belief systems.
I’m not a politician. I learned from a great example in Pastor Rick Warren, who said, “If I thought politics could save the world, I wouldn’t have become a pastor.”
One of the biggest reasons I’ve generally stayed out of partisan issues in my pastoral leadership role is because I believe it’s too easy to become a pawn. If I had promoted a candidate, that candidate in their humanness would have said or done something embarrassing, and my credibility would have been diminished.
At the same time, the gospel itself has socio-political implications, and we who guard and carry that gospel must concern ourselves with whether Christians within our culture properly relate the gospel to their surroundings.
Words like capitalism and democracy were in their infancy in biblical times and would take many centuries to develop. The writers of scripture could not have foreseen our current political climate. But they did write about topics like justice, poverty, caring for strangers, paying taxes, etc.
Pastors get to be translators of ancient wisdom and divine truth to our modern context, and that’s not an easy task.
I remember a conversation I had with a church member a couple of decades ago. He was of a completely different political persuasion than I was at the time. We talked about one president’s very public infidelity and another’s hasty rush to war without evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
We disagreed sharply on most points…And then I baptized him and his family members.
We continued to disagree AND attend the same church. We ate meals together, communing around our common faith in Jesus, AND then we voted for opposing candidates in elections.
That’s how it used to be. And in the push-pull, tug-of-war, respectful dialogue, we understood each other a little better and remained friends.
Today, things are different.
As pastors and ministry leaders, when we come up against a challenge or crisis, how can we reframe our perspective so that we do not waste the opportunity that challenge presents? In this week’s conversation on FrontStage BackStage, host Jason Daye is joined by Tod Bolsinger. Tod is the founder and principal of AE Sloan Leadership. Tod also serves as the executive director of the DePree Center Church Leadership Institute and as an associate professor at Fuller Seminary. He’s the author of the best-selling book “Canoeing the Mountains,” as well as several other books, including “How Not To Waste a Crisis.” In this episode, Tod and Jason explore some of the common default modes that we move to as leaders when we face a crisis. Tod shares how we can reframe these situations so that we can better serve the kingdom and the people to whom we’re called to minister.
In Christian counseling, the integration of spirituality and neuroscience provides a fascinating pathway to understanding and transforming the human experience. This article explores Neuroscience Informed Christian Counseling® (NICC), a unique therapeutic approach that blends biblical wisdom with cutting-edge psychological science.
