Priests, pastors, and “politics”

Priests and pastors are often told that they should not become involved in politics. This is for a couple of reasons. One of them certainly is that one needs to be able to pastor to the whole congregation. If one frequently expresses political views, one is certain to eventually drive off some of the members of the congregation who will move to a community more congenial to their beliefs. But, often the other reason is the idea that there needs to be a certain separation between Church and State, and that the pastor who becomes involved in politics breaches that separation. There are also a couple of other reasons that will be mentioned later.

However, with the approval of Roe vs Wade, the generally strict separation that was kept between Church and State began to crumble, as hierarchs and priests of the Church and pastors of various groupings saw the necessity to become involved in the political process in order to push for the abolition of abortion on demand. They were often asked to pass moral judgment on issues such as pregnancy after rape and pregnancies that threatened the mother’s life. And, they were often asked to give their opinions on certain laws to eliminate or restrict abortions, whether a Christian could approve of them, or could conditionally approve of them, or had to oppose them.

This grew to the point that during the last two elections, Roman Catholic bishops and priests have been asked whether it is legitimate for certain politicians to be given the Eucharist if they either have supported abortion or if they even simply belong to a party that does not clearly oppose abortion. The same was true on a smaller scale among the Orthodox as we do not tend to have many legislators in the USA. It was also true among some of the Protestants. That is, people in the churches have asked bishops, priests, and denominational authorities to involve the disciplinary mechanism of the Church in the political process. One can claim that this was not an involvement in the political process, however, when a candidate is excluded from the Eucharist and voters are being told that they ought not to vote for a particular candidate based on moral grounds, that is clear political involvement and not merely moral.

But, this is not the only issue that has led to the involvement of churches. From stem cells through gay marriage through medical marijuana, etc., the churches have been increasingly expected to issue statements that lay out guidelines as to what a Christian may or may not approve. Often the requests are that these statements be quite specific. For instance, can a Christian oppose gay marriage but approve gay civil unions? Besides that, from the 1980’s on, the argument has been readily made that the “wall of separation of Church and State” is not one erected by the Founding Fathers, but one erected by later courts in the 20th century. The end result has been a slow diminishing of the idea that a priest or pastor should not make political statements.

But, there is a more important point that I need to make. And it has to do with statements made by various groups that this is a Christian country. More than one political action group openly starts their meetings with prayers and with clear claims that what they are doing must certainly have God’s approval and be part of what it means to be a Christian in this country. The claims of American exceptionalism are strongly based on the idea of God’s choosing this country for a special purpose. Few proponents of American exceptionalism argue for this on purely secular grounds.

My point is not to argue at this time whether these groups are correct or not. My point is that the claim that this is a Christian country and/or the claim of Christian exceptionalism based on God’s choosing this country requires that priests and pastors become involved. Whether we become involved by saying that the people are wrong or whether we become involved by agreeing with the people, we have no choice but to become involved. Whenever claims about God and about Christianity are made, there must the priests and pastors be. These are claims that involve not only scholarly theology, but also the whole practical conception of how God is working in the world. And that is the area in which we are called to speak and to exercise our pastoral care. Thus the pastor who becomes involved in these areas is becoming involved not in politics per se but in theology and morality.

In fact, I find it interesting that groups and people who say that pastors should not become involved in politics nowadays most often speak that only about priests and pastors who are supposedly on the “other side.” Thus it is not unusual for a conservative, or a liberal, group to start a meeting with a prayer led by a priest or pastor who agrees with them. That same group, whether liberal or conservative, usually will also speak against priests or pastors who are involved with any group from the “other side.” Thus their priest or pastor is doing morality while the other priest or pastor is doing politics. The reality is that the dividing lines are not so easy to draw. I am sure that if you were to ask priests or pastors on either side that they would say that they are involved in morality not politics. Some attempt to say that a priest or pastor should only be involved when there is a clear moral issue involved. Of course, most often the clear moral issue is the one with which they agree and the unclear moral issue is the one with which they disagree.

Do I have an easy solution or easy counsel? No, I do not. However, this I know. Whenever the name of Christ is used or the concept of Christianity is used, a priest or pastor must speak into and/or about that situation, even if it were only to tell the people that they should not use the name of Christ in that circumstance and/or should not claim that theirs is the only possible Christian viewpoint on that subject. In fact, I would not be surprised if the most frequent intervention that a priest or pastor needs to make is that of reminding people that their viewpoint is not the only possible Christian viewpoint on a political matter. At times this will make things a little messy. But even Saint Luke mentioned that there was no little debate at times during the life of the Apostolic Church. Let us remember that out of the many arguments of the Early Church, the Holy Spirit brought truth, whether in Jerusalem during the Acts 15 meeting or in the Seven Ecumenical Councils or in Holy Tradition. Many times arguments can be the fertile ground for the Holy Spirit to bring a harvest of truth.