Faith Works: As election season approaches, here's why tend to steer clear of politics
As a praying person, a preacher on occasion filling in pulpits and an individual whose public identity is often that of a minister, I do tend to steer around political stances just as a matter of habit and to some degree by inclination.
It’s not that I don’t have political impulses, and those who know me well are aware of them. My ability to do political prognostication is notably poor, so if you want to know which way electoral winds are blowing, you really don’t want to ask me. You could infer that I’m clueless politically, which may be true. I think my real weakness is an idealism I let get in the way of my practical side when it comes to where things are going.
Late this summer and into the fall, in a general election year, politics will be weighing heavily in the atmosphere, and I will, as a religion columnist, be more likely to lean away from that. There are other opinion page writers and editorial functions that fill that space, and I’m in these pages to try and represent a perspective of faith at work in our corner of central Ohio, both churchgoing and perhaps less so, but to speak for and to people who find faith an important part of their lives.
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If you are a person of faith, I’m sure you take those viewpoints with you to the polling place, and they are part of the toolbox you use to assemble the ticket you vote for, the causes you support, the initiatives you favor.
Church folk used to be famous, or infamous if you wish, for supporting temperance causes and opposing gambling. As in a number of areas of public life, Christians in general and Protestants in particular have left those issues aside as the culture has turned decisively in favor of alcohol in all sorts of public spaces I didn’t see coming decades ago, and now we’re betting not just on lottery tickets but on our phones. Churches may speak against these sorts of behavioral choices and even restrict leadership positions or roles in the faith community based on drinking or gambling, but they don’t spend much time on public policy around them. I recall when the Ohio Council of Churches was a powerful voice against expansion of gaming, but once that train rolled over them, they shifted to other topics of justice and policy. Maybe excesses will open that door again, I don't know.
But on individual candidates, most preachers are averse to endorsement or condemnation in specific electoral races and not for reasons to do with tax status. It has been for my entire adult life in ministry a subject that clergy would avoid, other than by implication (which to be fair can end up pretty clear if you’re paying attention).
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My own aversion has, I think, a Biblical basis; Jesus doesn’t whack away at names in the Gospels. He isn’t off on Augustus or Tiberius. Jesus is threatened by Herod Antipas, whom he calls in response “that fox” which was in those days an insult, more “that unclean animal which causes trouble for good people,” which wasn’t at all inaccurate.
Jesus does say “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” which is less about the person than the office.
When should a religious leader call out a political candidate? The Antipas precedent doesn’t give us clear guidance, given that Jesus wasn’t talking in a voting context to start with. I do want to think more about faith and politics in coming weeks, before the campaigns kick all of us into high gear and loud volume.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he has plenty of political viewpoints to share, just not here. Tell him how your faith informs your citizenship at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Faith Works: Political perspectives and religious priorities
