Our Regional Overseer fowarded this to us yesterday. I found it both inspiring & convicting. In case you don't know, Rich Nathan is the Lead Pastor for Vineyard Columbus in Ohio. It's one of our community's largest and is truly making an impact on that city by getting involved in practical yet profound ways. Anyway, he's also a significant voice in shaping Vineyard theology. Read it & let me know your thoughts...Note: The following is a condensed summary of the talk Pastor Rich Nathan delivered at the “Voting Our Values” rally last Thursday in Columbus, Ohio. A link to the full text appears at the end, or you can download audio of the entire speech (mp3). As I travel around the country and interact with a wide variety of evangelical leaders, I have discovered a changing landscape. I believe we are going to see an entirely new trajectory for evangelical political involvement over the next decade. Let me tick off five developments among evangelical leaders and lay people that I am particularly grateful for.
First of all, I am grateful that there is a broadening of the list of people who are now considered spokespersons for the evangelical movement. There are lots of us evangelicals who have found ourselves increasingly uncomfortable with the media’s selection of a few people of decidedly conservative politics who are regularly called our spokespeople. Whenever I hear this handful of people talk, I think, "this person doesn’t speak for me."
...Second, I’m grateful that there is a broadening of the evangelical agenda beyond the two hot-button issues of abortion and gay marriage. Evangelicals are saying, “How did we ever allow ourselves to become convinced that the entirety of the biblical agenda for our political involvement can be reduced to just two things – abortion and gay marriage?”...It is also certainly the case that we, as a society, must provide necessary support for women and children, not only during the 9 months of pregnancy, but also after. But I have to be honest with you, and tell you that I was quite disappointed with the statement on abortion that is in the “Voting God’s Politics” brochure. While the statement regarding capital punishment is absolute and unequivocal, stating “our nation’s use of the death penalty should end,” the statement on abortion waffles and calls for “common ground policies that dramatically reduce the abortion rate.” We lawyers would say that the abortion statement contains “weasel words.” I believe the statement on abortion needs to be more absolute.
...Third, I’m grateful that evangelicals are moving away from our prior unreserved, unquestioning support for American military action around the world. Many evangelicals are now saying, “How did it come to be that we who claim to follow the Prince of Peace are stauncher advocates of war than any other demographic group in America?” And even those of us who do not come from a pacifist tradition, but rather a just-war tradition, have begun to ask, “How can some of our most recent wars be considered just?” You know, St. Augustine, the father of the just war tradition, said, “We Christians may, on occasion, legitimately go to war. But we always do so with great reluctance and with tears.” Many of us evangelicals have asked ourselves: Shouldn’t we Christians be the most difficult to convince, of any group of people, regarding the legitimacy of war? Shouldn’t we have the strongest presumption against war and require the government to have the highest burden of proof before we reluctantly, and with tears, go along with war?
...Fourth, I am grateful that I am witnessing a shift among evangelicals towards the view that with God’s help, it is possible to change this world. The traditional evangelical view of the world is that the world is hopelessly fallen. Or to use the great 19th century evangelist, D.L. Moody’s line, “The world has hit an iceberg and the ship is going down. The only thing we can do is pull as many people as possible into the life boats.” So, for a century, many evangelicals have believed that it is an absolute waste of time to try to improve this fallen world, since to do so would be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. But without being naïve regarding the fallenness of this world, or the difficulty of change, there are many evangelicals who are saying, "World change is possible with God’s help."
...And fifth, I am grateful that many more evangelicals are saying, "We are not going to be in the pocket of any political party." We have woken up from our naiveté and we recognize that pre-election day promises have not translated into post-election day action. So the evangelical vote is more and more up for grabs. And that is a good thing!
Now, having stated what I’m grateful for, I need to briefly share with you three cautions regarding evangelical political involvement. I want you to notice, by the way, that my talk has more positives than negatives. The Puritans said that one of the measures of the truth of a sermon was that there would be more positives than negatives.
My first concern is to warn churches and pastors against partisan political involvements. It is impossible to be a biblical Christian without preaching on and working for justice, for the poor, or caring for the earth, or committing ourselves to peace-making, or committing ourselves to racial reconciliation, or being commitedly and consistently pro-life. But once churches and pastors begin to translate these broad value statements into very particular policy choices, we can unnecessarily divide the Body of Christ and obscure the gospel message.
...I’m also concerned when churches don’t realize that the church uses different language than the language of politics. … Churches ought to speak prophetic language, not political language. It is not wrong to speak the language of politics, the language of compromise and “half a loaf is better than none,” when we are in the political arena. But church is not that arena. In church we speak prophetic language, the language of kingdom absolutes and moral imperatives – the language of Fannie Lou Hamer and the prophets Amos and Jeremiah, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
...My third concern is that we Christians, whenever we engage in politics, remember the third and last clause of Micah 6:8. You remember Micah 6:8. “He has shown you, O people, what is good and what does the Lord require of you? To do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Christians in politics often focus on the first two statements: doing justice and loving mercy. But there is an atmosphere in which our doing justice and our loving of mercy needs to be practiced … if we Christians come towards this world as servants, bearing the basin and the towel; if we commit ourselves to doing what we believe to be the will of God with humility; if we approach each other with humility and a willingness to listen and be persuaded; to learn and to be reconcilers; if, in other words, we “walk humbly with God,” then we will be faithful witnesses to Christ and will be used by him to be healers of this world.
