This month I’m answering questions. Last Sunday, as promised, I answered questions about worship–one question, to be precise. Time now to answer another question I received, so here’s the question:
Is it detrimental to church unity to have clergy express biased political views? If so, is there opportunity for other opinions to be expressed?
OK, that’s two questions, needing two different answers. Here they are:
1. No.
2. Yes.
Maybe some explanation is in order.
The answer to question #1 may be surprising. How can biased political opinions, especially expressed by clergy, not be divisive? Everyone has stories of political opinions, either from the right or the left, delivered from the pulpit to an angry, and ultimately divided congregation. How can I say that such behavior is not destructive?
Let us begin with the adjective chosen for this question: biased. Sounds one-sided to me! Possibly unbiased clergy opinions would be welcomed–but what could those be? To be biased is to prefer one side over another, and isn’t that what having an opinion is all about? Of course, some opinions are based more on facts and logic than others. We tend to imagine ourselves (not our opponents, of course) coolly, logically and objectively weighing all the evidence, only then coming to the one logical, and probably irrefutable, opinion. But, really, who does that? We all go to our trusted sources of information, taking the facts that we think are most important, and then forming our opinions. So it is that some of us tend to favor the Republican solutions and interpretations of problems, while others of us regularly dismiss them, clinging instead to our Democratic interpretation of the facts. Rarely does anyone go back and forth between a conservative and liberal mindset–while we may make an exception for this particular issue or that, we each have our favorite approach: our bias. It’s easy to see how those who disagree with you are biased–if only they would pay attention to your facts, they would come to agree with you! What’s not so easy is that our own opinions are not as objective and indisputable as we imagine–but your opponent sees that issue very clearly!
My point is that no one, clergy or not, expresses an unbiased opinion. That’s what makes it an opinion instead of a fact. But, to get back to our question–given the reality of bias, maybe clergy just shouldn’t be offering their political opinions at all. Many people would be in agreement with that statement. It seems like a reasonable way to keep church unity intact, and it would be, if it weren’t for the implications for the Christian message.
You see the problem is, if we claim, as all Christians do, that Jesus is Lord, then that means Jesus is Lord of all. We can’t put Jesus in charge of some parts of our lives while concluding that he is irrelevant to others. That’s idolatry (putting something else in the place of God), and the Christian faith is against it. If we are going to follow Jesus, then his ways and words must inform all of life, even politics, which brings us back to bias. The bias that Christians should have is a Kingdom one. We should view everything through Kingdom-oriented glasses, evaluating problems and solutions, even politics, by how they do or do not participate in Jesus’ message and purpose. Do our politics proclaim Jesus as Lord? That’s the question that counts. Ideally, clergy and laity alike express political opinions that are biased for the Gospel alone.
So how’s that working for us?
What gets in the way is that little tendency we all have to put ourselves at the center of the universe: MY bias is Godly, yours–not so much. But here’s why it is so important to the church that we all, clergy and lay, express our biased opinions: the ensuing conversation gives us the opportunity to grow. If we try, we can listen to one another. We can, with effort and humility, hear the Spirit in the voice of another. St Benedict instructed his monks to always listen to the criticism of the outsider because it just might be that God had sent the visitor there precisely to deliver that message. Intellectually we all know that we do not get it right all the time, and that we do not have a direct line to God’s opinion. What if we acted on that understanding to listen to the opinions of others, open to the possibility that they have some message or perspective that we need to hear? That biased opinion we don’t want to hear may be exactly what we need to hear, calling us to repentance and new life. Conversely, that biased opinion may have nothing to do with God’s Kingdom, meaning there is a need to respond to it with a call to repentance and new life.
Which gets me to the second question here: Is there opportunity for other opinions to be expressed?
The Episcopal Church, generally lacking in a central authority figure, is open to different opinions. Even opinions expressed from the pulpit can and are challenged. Opportunities for disagreement range from coffee hour conversation to Bible studies and Facebook postings, or at least they should. Sometimes clergy are not happy about having their opinions challenged nor are lay people not happy about saying anything, but discomfort is not the same thing as censorship. In fact, we have an obligation to each other to talk, in agreement and disagreement. South African Archbishop and Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu says that the church is a conversation. God’s people have been talking for centuries, learning what it means to be God’s people. The truth of that call continues to unfold. Where once Christians thought it was ok, even godly, to own slaves or practice racial discrimination, we now recognize that those things are part of a fallen world, and not God’s will. How did Christians come to change their minds? Not easily, nor without conflict, but guided into this truth by the Holy Spirit. The Gospel was never about superficial unity. Unity is about walking together in love, even if we don’t completely understand or agree.
Our task is to listen for the voice of the Spirit. Is the political view you disagree with simply wrong, or is it calling you to a new understanding of Christ? Such new understandings don’t come easily–no one likes to admit to being wrong. But do we not follow the one who tells us to deny ourselves and follow him? Being wrong, even making loud mistakes is one way to do that. Maybe we should talk about it.
Your turn–if you dare: How can Christians talk politics and remain part of one Body?