Does your pastor preach about political issues on Sunday morning? Does he endorse a party, candidate, or issue during his sermon? Many of us would answer no to those questions.
Pastor Heath Lambert disagrees. Lambert is the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida. On his recent video podcast, Truth in These Days, Dr. Lambert advocated for more preaching about political issues, not less.
He begins by comparing two Christians: Tim Keller and Charlie Kirk. Tim Keller eschewed was reluctant to publicly engage in politics from his platform. Charlie Kirk engaged in public forums to espouse a conservative political agenda.
Is this a valid comparison? No. Both were Christian believers. One man had a pastoral calling while the other was a political commentator. Lambert, as a pastor, has more in common with Keller, but seems to want to speak into political issues as a pastor.
He gives three reasons for increasing engagement in politics from the pulpit.
First, Dr. Lambert says that proclaiming the gospel requires application. “Preachers of the gospel cannot unpack the historical and theological elements of the work of Jesus and ignore the practical applications of what he has done,” he says. If Lambert is calling for increased emphasis on discipleship in our churches, we can agree. All too often the church can be interested in large numbers and increased baptism statistics without expending effort in moving those church members and new converts toward a closer walk with Jesus. Discipleship does include how the Christian interacts with the world around him. In this context, Christians need to learn the tenets of the Christian worldview. This is the primary task of the pulpit ministry: preaching Christ and proclaiming the Christian worldview.
Second, Pastor Lambert suggests that political chaos requires divine truth. It is clear that our politics is divided on many issues. The major political parties disagree on the role of government, “gender ideology,” taxes, immigration, abortion, voter ID, and a whole host of issues. The news media heightens the division in our politics for the sake of ratings. “The reason our society is in a mess is because our culture embraces sin and calls it righteousness,” Lambert says. The divisions in our politics are the result, not the cause, of problems in our society. Sin in our society is not the result of our political system but the result of individuals in our society embracing attitudes and behaviors which go against the word and standard of God. Sin separates us from God and the solution to that separation is not increased political activity, but salvation that comes from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Societal change requires individual change. Individual change comes from the gospel and the application of the Christian worldview to individuals. Christian churches need to become centers of the gospel, apologetics, and discipleship, not arms of a political philosophy or party.
Finally, Lambert’s final point is that ignoring politics leads nowhere good. Dr. Lambert gives three options for Christians concerning political engagement:
· Ignore politics
· Address issues incorrectly
· Engage issues of politics faithfully
Pastors, he says, “must do the hard work of seeking carefully to understand the issues in our culture and then working vigilantly to understand the way God addresses them in his Word.” God has revealed everything He wants us to know about Himself and how He wants people to live in the Bible. We, as pastors and teachers, must do the hard work of interpretation. Is it possible for faithful pastors and teachers to come up different answers on secondary or tertiary issues? Yes. What happens if a pastor in Dr. Lambert’s own Baptist Association does the hard work of hermeneutics and derives a different answer on a political issue? He doesn’t answer that question. One must be concerned that a pastor has his mind already made up on an issue involving politics and uses the Bible for reinforcement.
Heath Lambert believes his calling to preach the gospel involves engaging from the pulpit on the pressing political issues that face us as citizens. I am, however, reminded of the words of Paul, “But our citizenship is in heaven—and we also eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ…” (Phil. 3:20, NET). The Christian’s primary citizenship and allegiance is to heaven. Being a Christian means following Jesus, not the temporary trends of politics. The primary job of the pastor is to preach and apply the gospel in the pulpit.
Mark Riser - Apologist 