Last week, I was invited to serve on a panel of Little Rock clergy to mobilize pastors, churches and citizens to engage the political process and vote. Here’s what I said about why Christian people should engage the political process.
By and large, I believe most Christian churches are really good at benevolence and caring for those in need. Churches are good at feeding the hungry, housing the homeless and tending the sick.
But we cannot benevolence our way out of problems we’ve injusticed our way into.
Preston Clegg
If my congregation feeds 10 hungry people in a year but supports public policies that create 100 more, we are none the closer to the reign of God.
If my congregation houses 10 homeless families in a year, but supports policies that create 1,000 more, we are none the closer to the reign of God.
If my congregation visits 100 sick people in a given year in the hospital, but supports policies that prevent 100,000 people from accessing adequate health care, are we really people of good news who tend to the sick?
We cannot benevolence our way out of problems we’ve injusticed our way into.
I believe this message with all my heart, and not only when I’m asked to speak on a panel. I think the church’s silence about political corruption and unjust policy has hindered our witness in our culture.
Many people see a maddening dissonance between the virtues we espouse and policies we support, and this misalignment undercuts the church’s work and voice in the world.
Many people cannot understand how folks can pray and work for peace but be unsupportive of sensible gun-control measures.
Many people cannot understand how the church can read scores of biblical texts that command us to be hospitable to immigrants and strangers — even seeing Christ in them — while being silent about our political dysfunction in terms of just and generous immigration policy.
Many people cannot understand how those devoted to love can support a politics of division and derision.
There is no use pretending all policies are morally neutral. Some policies help people, uplift the vulnerable and foster an atmosphere of justice and fairness. Some policies hurt people, oppress the vulnerable and foster an atmosphere of inequity and despair. Still other policies have disastrous impacts with the best of intentions.
For these reasons, it’s not benevolence or justice. It’s benevolence and justice. It’s not only caring for people in need but asking why people are in need. As Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, it’s not just helping our neighbor in need out of the ditch, but also recognizing that, when there are many neighbors in the ditch, something is wrong with the road. So who will tend the road?
“Justice is love correcting everything that is not love.”
Justice is tending the road. Justice is love correcting everything that is not love. Justice is at the core of our faith. The prophet Micah declares what God requires of us is to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.
So, please allow me to encourage you to engage the political process this election season. Be sure you are registered to vote and create a plan for doing so. Be sure your neighbors, family and friends are registered and have a plan too.
Let us bring our good news to bear on the political process so we can create a culture of wholesale justice rather than merely piecemeal benevolence.
Let us walk in the footsteps of Jesus, who both tended the needs before him and announced God’s reign in our midst.
Let us speak up with the integrity of our whole lives, lest our silence be a witness against us.
May it be so in this season and always.
Preston Clegg serves as pastor of Second Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark. He has served churches in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Christian ministry from Williams Baptist College in Walnut Ridge, Ark., then both master of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees from George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University.