When to be prophetic and when to be pastoral

Midterm elections are always important, but some can feel more important than others. This year, control of the House and the Senate is very much in question, with a variety of issues on the table that could be decisively affected, among them:

• Data centers
• Freedom of religion vs. Sharia law
• The war in Iran
• US support for Israel
• Immigration enforcement
• Democratic socialism
• Efforts to impeach the president.

How do pastors serve faithfully amid such division and distraction?

“I see my torpor and my negligence”

St. Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) is so called because he is commonly listed among the four key “doctors” of the Western Church, alongside Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome. Serving as the pope in Rome during plague, floods, and invasions, he organized church resources to feed the poor, often inviting impoverished people to his personal table. He preached the gospel from church to church and saw himself as a servant of the servants of God.

In a message addressed to his fellow clergy, he offered a transparent testimony, which I am quoting at length:

“Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman to the house of Israel.” Note that Ezekiel, whom the Lord sent to preach his word, is described as a watchman. Now a watchman always takes up his position on the heights so that he can see from a distance whatever approaches. Likewise whoever is appointed watchman to a people should live a life on the heights so that he can help them by taking a wide survey.

These words are hard to utter, for when I speak it is myself that I am reproaching. I do not preach as I should nor does my life follow the principles I preach so inadequately.

I do not deny that I am guilty, for I see my torpor and my negligence. Perhaps my very recognition of failure will win me pardon from a sympathetic judge. When I lived in a monastic community I was able to keep my tongue from idle topics and to devote my mind almost continually to the discipline of prayer. Since taking on my shoulders the burden of pastoral care, I have been unable to keep steadily recollected because my mind is distracted by many responsibilities.

I am forced to consider questions affecting churches and monasteries and often I must judge the lives and actions of individuals; at one moment I am forced to take part in certain civil affairs, next I must worry over the incursions of barbarians and fear the wolves who menace the flock entrusted to my care; now I must accept political responsibility in order to give support to those who preserve the rule of law; now I must bear patiently the villainies of brigands, and then I must confront them, yet in all charity.

My mind is sundered and torn to pieces by the many and serious things I have to think about. When I try to concentrate and gather all my intellectual resources for preaching, how can I do justice to the sacred ministry of the word? I am often compelled by the nature of my position to associate with men of the world and sometimes I relax the discipline of my speech. If I preserved the rigorously inflexible modes of utterance that my conscience dictates, I know that the weaker sort of men would recoil from me and that I could never attract them to the goal I desire for them. So I must frequently listen patiently to their aimless chatter. Because I am weak myself, I am drawn gradually into idle talk and I find myself saying the kind of thing that I didn’t even care to listen to before. I enjoy lying back where I once was loath to stumble.

Who am I—what kind of watchman am I? I do not stand on the pinnacle of achievement, I languish rather in the depths of my weakness. And yet the creator and redeemer of mankind can give me, unworthy though I be, the grace to see life whole and power to speak effectively of it. It is for love of him that I do not spare myself in preaching him.

A personal prism for politics

St. Gregory’s humble confession encourages such humility on my part and yours. Like him, we are “distracted by many responsibilities.” We are “forced to take part in certain civil affairs” and to “associate with men of the world.” We might seek to impress them with our political and cultural knowledge and to sway them toward our personal preferences regarding social issues. At least, I am. Every time I write an article on a political issue, which is often, I face Gregory’s temptations as my own.

To this end, I have developed a personal prism that has proven useful, interpreting the news and culture through this axiom: be prophetic when called by Scripture to be so, and pastoral the rest of the time.

Prophets in Scripture constantly cited their authority by stating, “Thus says the Lord. . .” We regularly read of times when God spoke directly to those he then sent to speak directly for him. A prophetic word is not just about God or for him but from him.

Now we have the Bible as the “very words of God” (1 Peter 4:11 NIV). When his word speaks clearly and directly to an issue, we must do the same and trust the consequences to his providence.

For example, I view the issues of abortion, euthanasia, and biblical marriage in this light. I consider the pro-life and traditional-marriage positions to be so biblical and urgent as to be nonnegotiable. I will seek always to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), but nonetheless to speak the clear truth of Scripture.

When addressing abortion, I bear in mind that many who read my words have chosen abortion in the past or helped others do so, so I seek to speak with compassion and understanding. However, I must declare clearly that life begins at conception and that elective abortion is unbiblical and therefore wrong. As Mother Teresa observed, “There are two victims in every abortion: a dead baby and a dead conscience.”

I see euthanasia through the same lens, as a violation of the sanctity of life. With compassion for families who have faced very difficult circumstances with regard to an infirm loved one, I need to declare that God is the author of life from conception to natural death.

Biblical marriage is a third example. I won’t take time here to outline the biblical argument that God creates us male and female and intends marriage to be the lifelong covenant between one man and one woman. But I consider this a prophetic issue framed by the clear message of God’s word.

Serving before and after the election

Many of the issues to be contested in the midterm elections are far less clear-cut. Data centers and artificial intelligence are obviously not addressed in a book written twenty centuries ago. Nor are issues regarding Islam, a religion that began six centuries after the New Testament was completed. Even the modern State of Israel is a geopolitical reality rather than the Israel of Scripture; while some interpreters equate the two, many (myself included) do not.

With such topics, there are biblical principles that apply, but not biblical precepts that intend to speak directly to them. We can address issues such as fear of the future, religious freedom and cultural wisdom, God’s love for all people (including the Jews), and so on. But we cannot speak with biblical authority to a specific issue that the Bible does not intend to address specifically.

What we can do is minister with a pastoral heart. Like St. Gregory, we can receive from God “the grace to see life whole and power to speak effectively of it.” Then we can serve every member of our flock, whatever their positions on the various issues of our day.

In practical terms, we need to serve our people before the election in such a way that we can serve them after the election. Endorsing political candidates and positions that only some of our people agree with can impoverish our ability to serve those who disagree.

When we publicly identify with particular political leaders and parties, we are often seen as endorsing everything they say and do, both now and in the future. By contrast, we can explain the issues as we see them and offer biblical wisdom rather than personal or partisan opinion.

Most of all, we can remember that our ultimate calling is to lead people into a transforming personal relationship with the living Lord Jesus. We can win elections and lose souls, or we can leverage cultural issues by using them to lead others to the love and grace of Christ.

Karl Barth was right: “Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is himself the way.”

It is a privilege beyond words to walk this way and to help others join us, to the glory of God.

 

 

Denison Forum