Preaching and Politics

Engagement without Compromise

Trumper

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781498275170
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Today's culture war raises questions about pulpit ministry; the answers to which are often assumed but rarely thought through. Drawing on his transatlantic studies of both politics and theology, scholar-pastor Tim Trumper weighs the various homiletical approaches to political engagement. In doing so, he eschews the predominant apolitical and party-political tendencies of the day, preferring a mediating biblical-political approach that upholds the sanctity of the preacher's calling and the expository method of preaching. The result is a tract for our times, one that calls for the sermonic pre-eminence of the Kingdom of Heaven and the prophetic application of its lessons to the church and to the world.

1

A Middle Way

The Method of the Biblical-Political Approach

If Christ is the Saviour of the world, then politics, too, can be saved, that is, it can be penetrated and quickened by the grace of Christ . . . .

—Jacques Maritain,The Twilight of Civilization

This is the age of 24/7 global news coverage. It gives us immediate exposure to much that is of concern, whether it be the war on terror—what Newt Gingrich describes as the beginning of World War III—or the internecine conflict raging in the West between liberals and conservatives over Judeo-Christian values.1 These tensions significantly challenge all Christians, not least preachers who are divinely charged with interpreting earthly affairs by means of the heavenly perspective.2 As individuals we preachers are entitled to our own political opinions, and many of us hold them strongly. But this does not answer the question as to whether our public service should be politically free or politically charged. The view put forward here — based on an appreciation of the importance of expository preaching and personal transatlantic observations of the church’s response to the sociopolitical challenges of the day—is that we ministers ought not to preach more narrowly (i.e., apolitically) than Christ would wish, nor more broadly (i.e., party-politically).3 Stated otherwise, we ought to be neither “politically celibate’4 nor more akin to the political ideologue or propagandist. Rather, we must speak biblically-politically.

1. The Apolitical Approach

Characteristic of the apolitical approach is a reticence to speak in detail of the deteriorating social, cultural, and political situation of the day. Preachers of this outlook may have a high view of Scripture, but express this reticence by curtailing the scope of the teaching and application of Scripture to issues that are distinctively and exclusively spiritual. This narrowing of the content of preaching is achieved either by forgoing the consecutive exposition of the Word in favor of a diet of individual texts, by hyper-spiritualizing its content, or by refusing to follow through on certain more sensitive or controversial implications of Scripture. The obvious result is that he has no audible voice in the culture war.

This reticence is not new. It seems to me to have been the default position of many a conservative preacher in England and Wales for some time now. The position is born—ironically in the British scene given the connectedness of the church and the state—of a dualistic separation of the secular and the sacred. It issues in an ignoring of the reality of the prevailing situation, in the belief that preachers must engage spiritual issues alone.5 Martin Niemöller’s Dachau Sermons forcibly indict this belief:

The type of Christianity which isolates itself, which allows the wicked world to follow its course, and is content to hope for a better hereafter, is nothing but a caricature, a foolish cartoon. The terrestrial life of Jesus himself, as also the activity of his apostles, proves it by showing how the Gospel is a power of God which constantly urges forward to action, to work while it is still day.6

The apolitical preacher’s rallying cry “Just preach the gospel!” sounds worthy enough. Often the cry has in view, however, but the gospel’s narrower and more individualistic application: the redemption of the individual at the expense of society or the cosmos (Rom 8:22–3). The approach is regularly accompanied by a retreat into individualistic pietism. Furthermore, it includes a worthy stress on society’s need for a widespread spiritual awakening, but too often emphasizes the need for an extraordinary operation of the Holy Spirit at the expense of his everyday operations. Moreover, it ignores the calls evangelical revivals made for social action.7 Accordingly, the apolitical approach subtly dissuades Christians from speaking up proactively about society’s ills, other than in the most overt terms of the gospel (narrowly defined). Sometimes this dissuasion is rooted in the rightful belief that only the gospel can save society, but there are occasions when the apolitical approach comes across as a veil obscuring a loss of hope, faith even, amid the overwhelming odds facing the church. In such cases, the call for revival—for God to work—can substitute for a readiness in ourselves to battle for the hearts and minds of our peers.8 Rightly, John Stott calls this approach “irresponsible”:

Christian people are crying out for guidance in these areas [that is, the social, moral, and political implications of the faith]. They want to be helped to think about them as Christians. Shall we abandon them to swim in these deep waters alone? This is the way of the coward.9

The result has been disastrous. “Most Christians . . . ,” to quote Dinesh D’Souza,

have retreated into a Christian subculture where they engage Christian concerns. Then they step back into secular society, where their Christianity is kept out of sight until the next church service. Without realizing it Christians have become postmodernists of a sort: they live by the gospel of the two truths. There is religious truth, reserved for Sundays and days of worship, and there is secular truth, which applies to the rest of the time.10

One of the purposes of going into print is to challenge this retreat from civic engagement.11 Ray Pennings of the Work Research Foundation, Canada, draws our attention to the example of well-known church leader John MacArthur. According to Pennings, MacArthur opposes political activism because it denigrates the sovereignty of God over history and its events; it promotes within culture biblical values by carnal means; it creates a false sense of morality; and risks alienating unbelievers by casting them as political enemies rather than as a mission field.12 Allowing for MacArthur’s understandable reaction to the stridency of political conduct today, and upholding MacArthur’s underlying desire to uphold the spirituality of Christian living and service, Pennings nevertheless concludes that “to discourage any form of civic involvement . . . is to depart from a rich Reformed heritage.”13 With this I agree, and for reasons that will become apparent in what follows.

2. The Party-Political Approach

Alternatively, those utilizing the partisan approach frequently substitute addresses on relevant historico-political/party-political topics for the exposition of the Word. They forget, in the words of Karl Barth, that “preaching must not be a welling up of our own speech. In both form and content it must be exposition of scripture.”14 I recall, for example, reading a most fascinating autobiographical sketch by Ian R. K. Paisley, founder of Free Presbyterianism in Northern Ireland, and, until recently, the undisputed leader of the province’s Unionism. Gripped by the account I was nevertheless left with a nagging doubt as to whether the pulpit is the place for the “four windows” on his remarkable life.15 Likewise there come to mind those (often televised) “sermons” of the admirable figure, the late D. James Kennedy, which deal with topics such as the Christian roots of America and the history of evolution.16

In questioning approaches like these, I am not saying that there is never a place for topical preaching. In fact there are occasions when it would be unwise, even inappropriate, not to break off from a series of expository sermons.17 But when we do so, we are still bound to use Scripture as fully and as faithfully as we can. A topical sermon must still be a sermon, and can still maintain to a significant degree exegetical and expository qualities.

With the intensification of the present culture war, it seems the party-political approach has been gaining ground, not least in America. Most preachers, alert to the likelihood “the West is passing away” (to use Pat Buchanan’s phrase),18 and fearing for the future of traditional Judeo-Christian values, have taken to the public square in order to demand a hearing.19 These concerns are valid and most worthy of outspokenness. My argument for the biblical-political approach should not be seen to mute this concern in the slightest. What is troubling, however, is the route party-political preachers have taken over recent decades to address them. Writes John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute: “Modern Christianity, having lost sight of Christ’s teachings, has been co-opted by legalism, materiali...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Chapter 1: A Middle Way
• Chapter 2: A Spiritual Way
• Chapter 3: A Practical Way
• Conclusion
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Bibliography