Sometimes I think that the most powerful and popular denomination in America is a stealth one.
Sometimes I think that the most powerful and popular
denomination in America is a stealth one. It’s not the
Baptists or the Catholics or the Methodists or the Assemblies of
God. It’s "radio-orthodoxy"—the set of
beliefs promoted by religious broadcasting. Do you doubt the
power of radio-orthodoxy? Just try contradicting it, especially
in an election year.
The fact is, it’s hard to be a good pastor any time, but
during an election year in a country blanketed by religious
broadcasting, it gets even harder. How do we preach to and lead
our churches in a year like this—with an important and
divisive election underway? Over the years, I have tried three
main options (I’m not proud about this):
1. Ignore the election completely.
2. Remind people to vote as their Christian civic duty, and
leave it at that.
3. Preach on the moral issues related to the election about
which my congregation is already in agreement.
This year, compelled by what’s going on in our country
and world, I hope to try a fourth option:
4. Preach and educate on the moral issues related to the
election about which my congregation is not already in
agreement.
It has been said that most Christians in America are, whether
they know it or not, more or less Calvinists—simply because
of the pervasive influence of Calvinism in our history and
culture. Through radio-orthodoxy, I think it could also be said
that many if not most Christians in America are more or less
tacit members of the Religious Right. It doesn’t matter that
you preach prophetic sermons on social justice and care for the
poor, the environment, the alien, the enemy. Every day during
drive time, your people who tune into Christian radio hear
radio-orthodox broadcasts from a different vantage point, and
when your confused members have to decide who they agree
with—you or the radio preacher—most will decide the guy
behind the microphone has more authority than you. It’s a
democracy thing: Since he’s on the radio, he’s heard by
thousands; he must be right.
So, if you’re going to preach and lead during this
election year in any direction other than that of
radio-orthodoxy, and if you have even a small prophetic bone in
your body, you’ve got a tough job on your hands. How can you
do it?
As Adam Hamilton, writing in the Spring 2004 Leadership
Journal puts it, "I have watched pastors who were quite
proud of their ‘prophetic ministry’ drive churches
right into the ground…[or drive] away everyone who disagreed
with them, attracting only the likeminded to their church. What
they did not manage to do, unfortunately, was to actually
influence anyone to change." Instead, Hamilton recommends a
five-phase process, which I plan to follow this year:
1. Show respect for all positions on an issue, and for those
who hold opposing opinions. It’s tempting, especially when
one is reacting against a polemical, biased, chest-thumping
opposition, to respond in kind and opt out of the Lord’s
command about doing unto others.
2. Understand the opposing side so well that you can present
its arguments as clearly as its proponents do. Each position has
its upside and downside, as do opposing views. We tend to know our
upside and their downside, but fairness requires we
face our downside and their upside as well.
3. Begin your sermon by presenting the opposing case’s
position. Present it so compellingly that people would believe
it’s your position if you stopped your sermon midway.
4. Then present your position, rooting your position in
biblical soil, admitting your position’s downsides.
5. Confess your openness to changing your thinking—thus
modeling the teachability you hope your people will demonstrate.
This approach, Hamilton argues, is not easy. But it holds a
higher probability of changing minds than more direct,
confrontational approaches.
Let’s face it. It’s easy to preach up a sweat when
you know your congregation is thinking, "Amen! Go get
’em!" But when your congregation feels threatened,
intimidated, rebuked, insulted, discomforted, and otherwise
unsettled, it’s another matter. Think of the last time a
parishioner sent an e-mail or letter telling you how and why you
were wrong about something (which happens pretty often for many
of us). Did you immediately say, "Wow. She’s right.
I’m wrong. I have to call her and thank her for pointing out
my errors and prejudices"? Chances are, you thought of
packing up and quitting, or of firing off an angry e-mail in
return. No wonder parishioners leave when we preach to them
without necessary gentleness and respect.
I’ve been running through a thought experiment for the
last couple of years that helps me as I prepare to preach in this
election year. I imagine I’m living in Alabama or
Mississippi, and it’s 1962. I’m pastoring an all-white
church of Christians who share the views of their neighbors about
integration, equality, and the like. I would like to be truly
prophetic. One option would be for me to preach some rip-roaring
sermons that would either get me fired fast or send most of my
congregation packing for a church more to their liking, leaving
the church unable to pay my salary. Either way, I could then move
to Massachusetts and get a job there, telling the story of my
valiant stand for truth and consequent persecution among the
Southern savages, and thereby become a certified hero,
well-perched to preach similar fiery sermons against the bigotry
of people in the South, to cries of "Amen! Go get
’em!" from my New England parishioners. This would be
very good for my career and very fulfilling. I could even write
magazine articles about my exploits. But what good would it
really do?
Another option: Avoid the subject of racism for 30 or 40
years, until other larger forces have already brought a change in
the thinking of my people. Then I could preach about it with
gusto. (I recently heard Dr. John Perkins share that he was
invited to preach somewhere, and the organizer was very excited
because John would be the first black ever to preach there. John
wondered, "He’s proud about this?" Wait
long enough, and you can have all the excitement of taking risks,
with none of the risk.)
This year, I’m looking for a better option than either
thundering self-righteousness or avoidance. It will involve risk.
But it will also involve patience and gentleness and respect.
Yes, I will need to be bold and courageous, but I will also need
to be both clever as a serpent and harmless as a dove. Here are
some specifics I’m planning for this election season:
First, I’m hoping to sponsor our first-ever
"Presidential Dialogue" (not debate), where we’ll
ask members of our congregation (perhaps on a midweek evening) to
present why they’re voting for their candidate of choice.
We’ll establish some clear guidelines for the evening to
help people practice respectful dialogue. (I may invite them to
follow Adam Hamilton’s five-phase process.) In so doing,
I’m hoping that our people will be exposed to logic and
concerns from "the other side." I’ll probably give
a few words before or after about 1 Corinthians 13—being
patient and kind with one another, and so on. After all,
"the love chapter" isn’t just for weddings! My
guess is that this experience will stretch hearts to love their
differing neighbors along with stretching minds to consider their
differing perspectives.
Second, we might also encourage people to gather for the
televised presidential debates to dialogue about what they see
and how they’re impacted—from the vantage point of
biblical faith. We’ll assume that there will be divergence
of opinion; our goal will be to get people thinking with openness
to new ideas and the guidance of the Spirit. And we’ll
recommend that they unite in prayer for our leaders and our world
to end the evening.
Third, I’ll have several more or less
"prophetic" messages through the course of the year
leading up to the election. This week, for example, we’re
exploring the healing of the man with the shriveled hand (Mark
3:1-6). There, Jesus becomes angry and deeply distressed at the
stubbornness of the religious leaders. That will give me an
opportunity to talk about how religious people like us can
unintentionally find ourselves playing on the wrong
side—worshipping a shriveled "household god" (out
for me and my kin) or a paralyzing "tribal god" (out
for my country and its national interests) rather than the Living
God who loves every person, whether "us" or
"them." Later in the year, I may preach on Psalm 20 and
Isaiah 13, where trusting in horses and chariots is contrasted
with trusting in the Lord. These are biblical themes my people
probably won’t hear on the radio.
Whether the best candidate gets elected in November or not, I
hope through this process that Christians in our country will be
wiser, more thoughtful, and more biblically formed and
Spirit-guided after the election season than they are now.
That’s a challenging enough goal of preaching and pastoring
in an election year. And just between us, I hope that through
your preaching and leadership, local congregations’ respect
for their own pastors will be a little stronger, whatever their
denomination, and radio-orthodoxy’s signal will be a little
weaker.
Why? Because the gods of radio-orthodoxy tend to be of the
household and tribal type, in part, I think, because
radio-orthodoxy is funded largely through donations. And it
appears that radio-orthodox donations are best raised through
greed (prosperity gospel) and fear (watch out, or the liberals
will turn all your children into homosexual secular humanist
postmodernist relativists who don’t believe in absolute
truth). Sermon broadcasts that appeal to greed and fear tend to
render their hearers into people who are (surprise) greedy and
fearful. Tax cuts and national defense play well to people so
rendered; care for the poor and love for enemies (surprise) do
not.
But this is exactly the kind of thing you shouldn’t say
in your sermon. Or if you do, be careful, more careful than
I’ve been here.
Brian McLaren is the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge
Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland (www.crcc.org). His newest
book, A Generous Orthodoxy (Emergent/YS), will be released
in September.
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