by Rodney Kennedy

Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. He pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years, after which he served as interim pastor of ABC USA churches in Illinois, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania. He is now a full-time writer, and lives in Louisiana. His eighth book, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, has very recently been published (and sometime in the next few months we will have a rightingamerica Q and A with the author). 

Author’s Note: While I don’t believe the Bible draws straight lines to our politics, I do believe there are analogical and imaginative connections available. For sixty years I have written sermonically. By that I mean writing without a text presents extraordinary challenges for me. Therefore I have written this article in the sermon genre. It helps me think more critically. The text for “Politics and Religion” is James 3:13 – 4:3, 7-8.

Introduction

Politics and religion never mixed when I was a young preacher. Preachers of my ilk – Southern Baptists – were told in very certain terms to stay out of politics. The adage was to preach anything, but don’t talk about politics, sex, or money. 

As the decades passed in a blur, money entered the conversation of the church. For some churches, money ascended above the gospel. In fact, the gospel acquired a defining word: “Prosperity.” Preachers who claim the “social gospel” is no gospel have no qualms about embracing the “prosperity gospel.” How odd!

Then preachers discovered “sex” would attract a crowd, even in church. Some pastors flirted with the excesses of sexual language with a perverted rhetoric. Other pastors attacked homosexuality and abortion. Sex invaded the pulpit even as denominations grappled with sexual abuse and misbehavior cases piling up against leaders. 

But even after all these revolutionary changes, politics remained mostly on the outside looking in as far as the church was concerned. Then evangelicals discovered politics. Now, the merger of faith and politics makes it hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. When you mix bad religion with bad politics, you should know you have a problem. 

A Question for All Politicians 

James asks of us a question that fits like a fine leather glove with American politicians: “Who is wise and understanding among you?” Political campaigns always leave me wondering if any are wise and understanding among us. Each side smears the other candidate with unspeakable accusations. The skeptical observer comes to believe that there are none that do good, “no, not one.” 

James connects wisdom with a good life and good works. How’s that for moral virtue? Strong Christian character? That’s not part of any political agenda. The evangelicals, America’s most political Christian group, has decided character no longer matters. As Rev. Robert Jeffress put it, “What matters are this president’s wonderful policies.” Forget character. Winning is what matters. 

James shines a bright light on our darkness: “Those conflicts and disputes among you” nail us to the floor. We have conflicts and disputes climbing the walls, flowing in the streets, and corrupting Congress and even the Supreme Court. 

Paul Krugman has written that 

The fact is that a large segment of the U. S. electorate has bought into an apocalyptic vision of America that bears no relationship to the reality of how the other half thinks, behaves, or lives. We don’t have to speculate whether this dystopian fantasy might lead to political violence and attempts to overthrow democracy; it already has. And it’s probably going to get worse. 

Faith in democracy is fractured. Our climate is political alienation, demagoguery, violence, and advancing authoritarianism. You can dress this American “hog” in religious robes, give it biblical authority, put a gold ring in its nose, give it an American flag and teach it to sing “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and it will still be a “hog.” 

Nearly half of Americans believe the U. S. is likely to cease to be a democracy in the future. Politicians have become demolition experts, bomb throwers, and fearmongers. They evince a nihilistic pathos. They promise, according to rhetorical professor Robert L. Ivie, a kind of “salvation by demolition.” Vitriol pours forth from every mouth with political distrust and anger, vitriol that ravages democratic norms and values, undermines civic culture, and inhibits deliberation. 

One of our cultural critics (of all people, Jerry Springer) says we should have seen it coming: 

We have raised two generations of Americans who believe that anything the government does is horrible, all politicians are corrupt, ah . . .. Washington is evil. And then every commercial we ever see, politically, on frankly on both sides of the aisle . . .. is how the other guy is a bum, the other guy should be in jail, the other guy is a pervert, whatever. Well, if you raise two generations of kids to believe that about our own government . . . you can’t then be surprised that eventually someone would run for president who is absolutely anti-government. . .. So, we should have seen it coming that eventually someone would run for president who was an entertainer and totally against government. 

It’s 20 centuries after, but this sounds like James. 

Naming Our Political Sins 

James names our political sins: bitter envy and selfish ambition. He condemns our political practices: bragging and lying. This text, wow, it may be too hot to preach, too much truth for a Sunday morning crowd. The preacher may need security guards. There will be people running from the sanctuary, covering their ears as they hear the truth. 

If James is right, and I think he is, then our political ways have turned us into “earthly, unspiritual, and devilish” creatures. Not one to leave us hanging, James shows us the consequences of our political sins of bitter envy and selfish ambition: Disorder and wickedness of every kind. 

Evangelical churches are up to their steeples in secular politics. Tim Alberta, in The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory demonstrates how politics has poisoned the evangelical church. A great dis-ease afflicts the churches over the mix of religion and politics. 

God Chooses Sides 

The answer to “bad politics” is “good religion.” In God’s mind religion and politics mix; economics too. “Good news for the poor” is good religion and good economics. Jesus said so. 

God chooses sides. God sides with the poor, with those who suffer deprivation and oppression. God never sides with tyrants and oppressors and dictators and human rights abusers. If God were neutral, God would be indifferent and malevolent. But God chooses a side. “I have seen the affliction of my people and have heard their cry.” 

God chooses sides, and it may not be the side many Christians are on. Do religious people ever stop to think, “What if we are not on God’s side?” Do you think evangelicals lose sleep over being on the side of lying, cheating, and defrauding others? I doubt it. People can be smug about being on God’s side. 

For example, in Leviticus 19 God sides with the immigrants. The Bible calls them various names like “aliens,” “strangers,” and “sojourners.” Evangelical preachers who like to play with Hebrew words have gone to extraordinary lengths to make “alien” not mean immigrant. What a piece of humbuggery! 

Look, read the text: 

When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. You shall not cheat in measuring length, weight, or quantity. You shall have honest balances, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. You shall keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and observe them: I am the Lord.

God chooses sides and God’s choice is to be on the side of justice. And please note how God connects treatment of immigrants with economics. Immigrants are our neighbors, and we are to have honest, hospitable relations with them. 

We Must Choose Sides 

Let me help you a bit here. God expects us to choose sides. Joshua puts it in plain speech: 

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

When American “hogs” are at the trough and eating all the food, we cannot be neutral. When American “sharks” are eating up all the wealth, we cannot be neutral. We can try to be neutral, but God always sides with “widows, orphans, and aliens” (read: illegal immigrants). Pick a side.

Can we claim to know God if we don’t join her on the side of the oppressed? If you are screaming about “Marxism,” “communism,” and “socialism” you are not on the side of the poor, the oppressed, or the immigrant. If you are believing conspiracy theories about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio stealing cats and dogs and eating them, you are not on God’s side. 

If you are shouting, “we are going to totally stop this invasion. This invasion is destroying the fabric of our country,” you are not on God’s side. If you are spreading lies that immigrants are driving up the price of houses in America, you are not on God’s side. 

If you are ranting, “They’re coming from the Congo. They’re coming from Africa. They’re coming from the Middle East. They’re coming from all over the world — Asia,” you sound like the deranged false prophet Paula White-Cain chanting that angels were coming from the coasts of Africa and South America to save the 2020 election for Trump. 

God is on the side of justice. Mary, the blessed mother of our Lord, knew this in her pondering heart: 

He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away (Luke 1:52 – 53). 

If Donald Trump ever read Mary’s prayer, he would have called her a Marxist. What Trump and MAGA fail to realize is that “Stalinism is to Marxism what the Ku Klux Klan is to Christianity; a manipulation of the chief symbols, yet diametrically opposed to the central values” (Cornel West). 

God doesn’t side with the status quo 

Walter Brueggemann offers us a prophetic perspective: 

Culture characteristically traffics in established truth about which there is general agreement among the parties that matter: the state, the church, the corporate structure, the academy, and so on. These several institutions are skillful in articulating and maintaining truth that can readily be seen as allied with status quo power. 

One of the hardest things Christians struggle to admit is that God is against the status quo. In our case, millions of Americans are also guilty of thinking God wants to bring back an unjust and racist status quo. What else can “Make America Great Again” mean? That little word, “again” contains the entire history of American oppression against women, African Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants. “Again” is contrary to the will and word of God. An unjust America can’t be great. An inhospitable America can’t be great. A hateful, prejudiced, exclusive America can’t be great. A racist America can’t be great. Make America great again is an empty slogan preaching a fake gospel to a scared people. 

Conclusion

As Christians, there’s no way for us to stay out of politics. With confidence in justice we take our stand with the poor, the oppressed, and the immigrant. Our politics will be the politics of Moses, the prophets, and Jesus. Our politics will aim toward the ultimate realization of God’s will: The first Jubilee in history. 

So until we create Jubilee – where all ill-gotten gains are returned, where all stolen property is restored, where all debts at exorbitant interest rates are forgiven, where the poor are given back what belonged to them in the first place – we will be in politics until “justice rolls down like mighty waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” 

And if that make you call me a “socialist,” feel free to vent. But I’m telling you that I am a Christian attempting to bring about the prayer Jesus taught me: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven.” AMEN!