A friend sent me this piece in Salon, posted under the provocative title, “How Evangelicals Abandoned Christianity and Became ‘Conservatives’ Instead.” I was not familiar with the author, Nathaniel Manderson, who identifies himself as an evangelical pastor trained at a…
Why ‘moderate’ churches fear telling it like it is
Just over four years ago, when Donald Trump was elected president, I was working for a self-styled “moderate” Baptist church in East Tennessee. One of the (mostly) unspoken rules of this and many other moderate Baptist churches like it across…
In a contentious election year, wisdom seeks a third way
Visit a Christian church in the United States today, and you might spot two flags on the chancel: an American flag and a Christian flag. Nothing could better symbolize the reality that as Christians and Americans, we are citizens of…
The moment the Church has been working for
Objectively speaking, there has been very little in the political world that one might call good about the months leading up to the election. Now that the election is over (sort of), for Christian leaders everywhere there is at least…
Poll says most Americans want to keep political endorsements out of church
A large majority of Americans don’t want to hear political endorsements from the pulpit, according to a new report by LifeWay Research. Four out of five Americans (79 percent) do not believe it is appropriate for pastors to endorse candidates…
Getting political in the pulpit
The responsibility of the church in this current political climate should be clear. There’s no violation of separation of church and state to say from the pulpit that hitting people who disagree with us is wrong. Or excluding people who believe different things than we do should stop. Or accumulating wealth while many struggle to make a living wage cannot continue.
Politics in the pulpit: One pastor’s approach
Election years can be volatile, unpredictable, and filled with heated political rhetoric. And these days, it is not unusual for prominent pastors and local clergy to join the fray of bombastic oratory. While I do not think pastors should…
A new political imagination for today’s church
By Sam Speers and Kristopher Norris As the 2016 election cycle begins amid much pomp and fanfare, American Christians will once again face the question of how to navigate a fraught, and curious, political arena. In what has already been…