It's election season again. Actually, it never ceases to be election season in our politics-obsessed culture — and in politics-obsessed evangelical America.
I have been thinking a lot about the intersection of evangelicals and politics. In a new book coming out this winter, I suggest that there are now three competing evangelical visions related to public life: the evangelical right, left and center. It is possible to identify these visions with particular people, organizations and policy priorities. In the book, I also consider the enduring appeal of evangelical perspectives on public and political engagement that primarily counsel distance or even withdrawal.
Here I propose some “rules for the game” for evangelical engagement with politics in the upcoming election season. These rules apply to all evangelical Christian leaders without regard to their political affiliation or their place on the evangelical spectrum.
The fundamental principles governing the political engagement of leaders representing Christian churches or “the Christian Church” must be the lordship of Christ and the consequent political independence of the church in terms of earthly politics. The goal of those working as explicitly Christian leaders or representatives of Christian organizations is to bear faithful Christian public witness so that the Lord might be pleased. Therefore all who serve as Christian leaders must fiercely protect that mission by refusing to compromise their political independence in both their words and their actions. The only way for us to do this is to remind ourselves constantly that we have an audience of one and that we are accountable to Christ alone.
These key principles generate the following proposal for specific rules governing the public engagement of all who serve churches or lead parachurch organizations not explicitly organized as lobbying groups. These “Christian leaders” include pastors, missionaries, evangelists, youth ministers, denominational officials, parachurch leaders, college presidents, and Christian ethics professors, among others.
1. Christian leaders must not officially or unofficially endorse political candidates or a political party.
2. Christian leaders must not distribute essentially partisan or single-issue voter guides that purport to be apolitical or nonpartisan.
3. Christian leaders must not publicly handicap or comment upon the political horse race.
4. Christian leaders must not provide private or public advice to particular politicians, parties, or campaigns concerning how they can strategize in order to win evangelical or Christian votes.
5. Christian leaders must not calibrate their public teachings or writings in order to affect the outcome of political elections or to gain and hold the support of politicians.
6. Christian leaders must not attend political rallies or campaign events of one candidate or party unless they are prepared to attend rallies and events of all candidates and parties.
7. Christian leaders must not invite political candidates to speak in church pulpits or on church grounds unless they are prepared to invite all political candidates of all parties to do so.
8. Christian leaders must not identify the potential or actual victory of any politician as a victory for God or God's kingdom.
9. Christian leaders must limit their direct contact with politicians or staff in order to avoid even the appearance of undue loyalty or involvement.
10. Christian leaders must not engage in voter registration campaigns or get out the vote efforts aimed at mobilizing the voters of one political party rather than another.
11. Christian leaders must not direct the funds of their organizations toward direct or indirect support for a particular political candidate or party.
12. Christian leaders may not sidestep these rules by drawing a distinction between their activities as a “private individual” over against their service in their public role.
13. Christian leaders must offer Christian proclamation related to the large number of public issues clearly addressed by biblical principles or direct biblical teaching.
14. Christian leaders must encourage Christian people toward active citizenship, including studying the issues and the candidates and testing policy stances and candidates according to biblical criteria.
15. Christian leaders must model and encourage respectful and civil discourse related to significant public issues as well as political candidates.
16. Christian leaders must model and encourage prayer for God-ordained government, its leaders and their policies.
17. Christian leaders must teach and model respect for the constitutional relationship between religion and the state as spelled out in the First Amendment.
Who will offer some revisions? Who will come up with the other three to make it an even twenty? Who will join me in committing themselves to these rules for the 2008 election?
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— David Gushee is university fellow and Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. www.davidgushee.com.