Pulpit 'freedom?'

If you haven't heard — and I hope that you haven't — today was "Pulpit Freedom Sunday." For the uninitiated, it's an annual campaign by the Alliance Defense Fund to protest Internal Revenue Service rules enacted in the 1950s about politicking by churches. The organization believes, and says, that pastors aren't permitted to speak out on "moral" issues lest their churches lose their tax-exempt status.

Here's the problem: The ADF is wrong. On several fronts.

One, I don't know a church in this country that hasn't done so at some point. However, churches have historically never been directly involved in the political process anyway, and until fairly recently states barred pastors from seeking political office. Reason? The church needs to retain its independence and ability to speak God's Word regardless of whoever is in power. Two, even according to IRS rules, pastors are allowed to speak for or against candidates or office-holders in the pulpit. (That has always happened regularly in black churches.)

I suspect, however, that the ADF wants churches to have the ability to work directly for or against candidates. That's inappropriate for a number of reasons, as well as illegal.

For openers, when you examine the entire Scripture, you'll won't find a political candidate that fits every single issue, especially considering that even Christians disagree on politics. My church is as politically divided as any assembly you'll ever see; were my pastor to take sides he'd alienate half the congregation.

Second, working for specific candidates would get in the way of the church's spiritual goals, which are to demonstrate an allegiance only to a different, unseen world. Were the church to get involved in a worldly pursuit as partisan politics it would say that God Himself endorses or opposes such-and-such — in essence, putting words in His mouth.

Third, the church would forfeit its ability to speak truth to power. Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition gained strength when Bill Clinton was president but withered when George W. Bush went to the White House. (Recall that Robertson ran for president in 1988 on the Republican side.) Even before that, I never heard any pastor critique Ronald Reagan, especially the rampant corruption that took place during his administration; I suspect that's why their legitimate complaints about Clinton's tomcatting fell largely on deaf ears, especially during his impeachment.

And most important, it shows a lack of trust in God to get His work done regardless of the political leadership. This became clear to me when I hear about Christian fears whenever the Democrats get the upper hand in Congress or a Democratic candidate becomes president. Before the 2008 election I received a request to pray for the defeat of Barack Obama; I responded to a e-mail that God wouldn't answer that prayer.

The Binghamton, N.Y. church of Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry took out full-page ads in USA Today and the New York Times just before the 1992 election warning Christians not to vote for Clinton and taking donations to pay for it; for that the IRS slapped it. (I don't know what the penalty was.) At first, I resented that a church was going to tell me how to vote and wrote the church to say so; today, however, I realize that it was acting just like the world, and that's why the ADF appears to be doing as well. Churches need to be free to proclaim liberty, justice and reconciliation — a concept not always accepted by the politically obsessed.

The final frontier

I have mentioned in other entries that during services on the Sunday after last year's general election, the pastor of my interracial evangelical church had all of us African-Americans stand and then instructed the rest of the congregation lay hands on us, saying that "a spiritual stronghold has been broken."

He did that because he knew he had a politically divided congregation, with most of the whites likely supporting John McCain for president that year, indeed, two weeks previously he preached against such division during the campaign. (This is an evangelical church, after all, and polls indicated that 70 percent of white evangelicals nationally backed the Republican candidate.) By contrast, 95 percent of African-Americans, regardless of faith affiliation, supported Barack Obama.

I've been heartened with the serious efforts that have been made over the past couple of decades toward racial reconciliation among evangelicals -- the Promise Keepers started it all, of course, and some denominations and parachurch groups have made serious strides toward such harmony. However, we have yet to address the ideological differences that still exist, and until that's done we will not achieve it.

Because, bottom line, the issue is one of worldview.

When I became a Christian in 1979, the conservative movement in general and "religious right" in particular was just kicking into gear, with its primary target being government, especially the Feds. The complaint was that it had overstepped its constitutional authority by passing laws and using tax money for purposes it didn't agree with, most notably "Great Society" programs that benefited the poor. More to the point, however, conservatives demonstrated an assumption that authority, whether cultural, social or political, was their right.

African-Americans, on the other hand, historically have had different issues. Most identify with the civil-rights movement, which used the Federal government, including court decisions and legal remedies, to obtain justice (because state and local authorities opposed their efforts). And they -- we -- didn't have the same access to the power structure; thus, it had to be done through moral appeals.

Sadly, in part for that reason, the civil-rights movement eventually pitted one set of Christians against another set of Christians. Martin Luther King Jr., who in 1955 was just a local pastor in Montgomery, Ala., was later denounced as a Communist, and the resentment among white conservatives became so strong toward the national Democratic Party for supporting civil rights that in 1966 the Republican Party, practically non-existent in the South then but already leaning to the right nationally, saw an opening and began running candidates there.

That's the reason that you almost never see African-Americans on Christian TV or hear them on Christian radio; when you do it's in support of the "approved" viewpoint that doesn't accurately reflect the overall views of the black community -- which generally aren't right-wing. I find very interesting that conservatives talk about reaching out to the black community but simply to put a "black face" -- and yes, you can take that as a pun -- on policies and attitudes most blacks just don't accept.

Talk-show blowhard Rush Limbaugh said that, after Obama won that high percentage of the black vote, his color was the primary reason that African-Americans voted for him. Nonsense -- had McCain been black and Obama white, blacks (even evangelicals) would still have voted for Obama, overwhelmingly, or turned out for Hillary Clinton in virtually identical numbers had she won the Democratic nomination. And I'm sure you noticed that the anti-Obama "tea party" movement that got started in April is virtually all-white -- think that's a coincidence? African-Americans just don't have the fear of government that white conservatives do.

For there to be true reconciliation between black and white evangelical Christians, whites have to understand the views and histories of their black brothers and sisters and not believe that they have the last word when it comes to social and political involvement. (For what its worth, African-Americans already understand the conservative view and have rejected it; it's up to the conservatives to find out why.)

Truth and reconciliation

Lately I've been rereading several sections of "A Testament of Hope," a collection of writings and speeches of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who as most of you know has been a major influence on my Christian life. And in the process, I was reminded of an important truth: There can be no reconciliation without truth.

During his day, King was often accused of divisiveness and creating problems that didn't exist -- comments like "Our Negroes were happy until those outsiders came in and started causing trouble!" Unfortunately for them, King's critics were so shut off from reality that they didn't realize that the unjust system that they were defending with their lives actually caused resentment towards them.

Any serious Christian should understand this. After all, before you can reconcile with God through Jesus Christ you have to recognize that you have made shipwreck of your life -- which can be can be hard to admit when you see things as going well. Consider your first reaction when you're confronted with your sin -- you probably defended yourself because, frankly, the idea that you were wrong is unpalatable.

One of the first worship songs I learned on the Georgia Tech campus 30 years ago was "Come, Let Us Reason Together," based on Isaiah 1:18. However, consider what he wrote before that:

¹⁰ Hear the word of the LORD,
you rulers of Sodom;
listen to the law of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!
¹¹ "The multitude of your sacrifices —
what are they to me?" says the LORD.
"I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
¹² When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
¹³ Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your evil assemblies.
¹⁴ Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts
my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
¹⁵ When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;
¹⁶ wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds
out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,
¹⁷ learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.
Now, is God being "divisive?" No, He's telling it like it is -- at the risk of offending his audience. And sometimes confrontation is necessary in the process.

Some years ago I made the following analogy to a friend of Armenian heritage. Now, the Armenian people have historically had issues with the Turks, and let's say that the Turks came to the Armenians and said, "We wish to reconcile with you, but we don't want to admit to anything we did wrong, nor will we change our attitudes about you." Ridiculous, right? Yet that's just what some people are proposing because admitting that they were at fault causes them discomfort.

One of the demonstrators protesting the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. in 1957 admitted a few years ago on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to the black students who were trying to enter the school, "We were ignorant." A woman demonstrator said tearfully that she later taught her own children to act differently. Wonderful moments, to be sure -- but which could never happened without confrontation.