Punching Preachers, Right and Left
Postures and picking teams in a political season
There’s an ongoing conversation among pastors and Christian leaders, some online and some offline, about the prophetic posture. In an election year, it has become more heightened. It goes like this: which political direction should we primarily aim our fire when encouraging our fellow Christians? This conversation hosted by my friend Patrick Miller is a good example.
What is meant by “punching right” or “punching left”? It’s about the direction of our prophetic warnings to believers. So, for instance, talk about character and truthfulness in politics tends to be directed toward the Right given the flaws of the Republican nominee. Quite often, even well-meaning admonitions toward tone and excessive partisanship (admonitions that are both necessary and Scriptural) seem to only have one target: politically active conservative Christians.
At the same time, conversations about issues, specifically marriage, family, and sanctity of life issues almost always are directed toward the left, given the left’s full-on embrace of policies such as the redefinition of marriage, the fluidity of gender, and abortion on demand. Warnings about being captive to the culture tend to have one audience: evangelicals tempted to soften the edges of Christian ethics to make their Christianity more palatable. These warnings, too, are both necessary and Scriptural.
Increasingly, there is a critique by some leaders of the content of mainstream evangelical discourse on politics that it tends to punch right more than it punches left. As if the worst possible posture for a faithful Christian is to be a conservative who has conservative political opinions and acts on those with their voices and their votes. A related critique is that the kind of “Jesus is neither left nor right” boilerplate language is perhaps naive and outdated, given the asymmetry of the two political parties.
This critique is valid, but it lacks a bit of nuance. First, we can affirm that a lot of the warnings about partisanship seem to make politically conservative Christians feel as if they are doing something wrong by expressing and acting on Republican-leaning political ideas. I also agree that the two parties are farther apart than ever before. I’ve always been a Reagan-style conservative so I’ve never been tempted by Democratic party ideas. But today, it’s not a stretch to say that the Democratic party has become a champion of ideas that Christians cannot, in good conscience, support.
So given this reality, how should our prophetic content about the culture adjust? Should it be 70-30 Right/Left punching? Here are a few considerations:
First, this sounds like a cliche, but we should apply the truth of Scripture wherever it lands. If the church is to be “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15) than we cannot pull our punches simply based on what “side” it offends. We just can’t. At the same time, we shouldn’t try to artificially construct a left/right equal opportunity critique every time we open our mouths so that we are not “seen” as too partisan.
Second, I think it’s actually ok to identify primarily with one political side. I think it’s fine to be a member of a political party, provided we understand that allegiance to be subservient to our allegiance to the kingdom of God. Yet even if our understanding of political and social issues that arise from Scripture put us on one end of the spectrum, that doesn’t mean we should offer zero critiques of the side or party where we most closely identify. I don’t think the parties are symetrical in their promotion of evil, but that doesn’t mean evil can’t come from the side we believe is most good. We don’t have to defend evil even if it comes from the person who might get our vote or a commentator with whom we might agree on most political questions. Heresy and untruth can enter through the front door or the back door. Satan is crafty.
Third, let’s acknowledge that some of this is geographically and culturally situated. A pastor who shepherds people in a ruby red county will get a lot less pushback when talking about things like abortion or marriage or gender confusion. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t regularly teach on those things because those things are in Scripture. Yet he should not hesitate to challenge his red-leaning members and red-leaning community on injustice they are tempted to baptize and or behaviors they are tempted to indulge. Similarly, a pastor in a deep blue county will not get much pushback when speaking of ecomic injustices or talking about care for the poor. He should still regularly do that because these things are, too, also in Scripture. But a pastor in a blue state should also not hesitate to regularly teach on abortion and same-sex marriage, etc even if that costs him. Let’s also acknowledge that these two pastors—one in a red county and one in a blue county—might sometimes sound stylistically different based on their audience and we should have grace for one another’s unique context and calling. Yet they must speak the same truth. In season and out of season.
Fourth, we need to rethink our concept of mission field. I’ve written about this before, but we often believe, in North America, that our only mission field is the one to our left. So we’ve (rightly) crafted our messages to communicate truth in love to that audience for the purpose of seeing them embrace Christ as Savior and Lord. We should still do this. And yet there is a vast mission field to our right. Here’s a bit of what I wrote on that a few month ago for World:
Put it all together and it could be that in our good and important work to evangelize and disciple the lost to our left, we should also consider ministry to those to our right, the blue-collar, perhaps right-wing people who also need Jesus. Our Savior’s ministry reached all classes of society, from respected elites like Nicodemus to despised people whom most folks passed by, such as the man by the pool of Bethesda. The invitation into the family isn’t restricted by ZIP code.
What does it look like to reach a mission field to our right? At the very least, it means we don’t view the unchurched right wing folks in our communities as “deplorables” as many do, but as people, like our mission field to the left, who need love and to hear the message of the gospel. This also means that our proclamation of truth should not shy away from speaking against the sinful pathologies in that cohort. This too, takes courage, just as it takes courage to speak against the false ideologies of our neighbors to our left. Coddling the sins of our mission field isn’t loving.
Peter instructs us to: “have an answer for every person for the hope that lies within you (1 Peter 3:15-17).” Every person, left, right, center, deserves to hear the lifesaving gospel message and to be discipled into the way of Christ. And yes, our tone toward both mission fields should be one of “gentleness and kindness” (1 Peter 3:15-17).” The fruit of the spirit is a visible sign to an unbelieving world that we are in Christ. We speak the truth as it is, without being unnecessarily provocative, with a love that is courageous enough to say what is right and a love, not disdain, for the people God puts in our sphere of influence.
Be sure to check out my book, Agents of Grace for more on this discussion.
It’s not too late to plan for advent season. Check out two resources:
The Characters of Christmas by Moody Press
My kids’ book, Jesus and the Characters of Christmas by Harvest House