The Federalist Manifesto (Pt. 1): Silence in the Pulpit
A New Political Vision for Protestantism
If you feel compelled, please respond to this post with feedback, criticism, or suggested reading. This is part 1 of a larger series of essays I am writing. I will release some of those essays in the following weeks/months when they are completed. You can subscribe to this Substack to receive these essays in your inbox.
Over the past several years I have been asking the questions related to theological study that are political in nature. It became clear to me, during my time at a certain church in my city, that certain political thought and action in the broader Evangelical church in America was a dangerous thing. Dangerous to the harmony of particular churches and dangerous to particular theological presuppositions that are scarcely mentioned in sermons and theological books and essays. And though scarcely mentioned in sermons or books, these presuppositions remain a central dogmatic tenet of modern Evangelicalism: a resolute passivity toward politics and evasion of the great moral crises of our day.
This became clear through a multitude of scenarios, conversations, and relational dynamics that I have learned are shared among many within Protestant Evangelical circles. For myself, this realization culminated in my church ecumenically partnering with another church who had a pastor that was a Democratic legislator in my state and an outspoken supporter of abortion, transgenderism, and homosexuality. My response to this partnership was one of confusion and disgust – especially because my church had been hailed for decades as being one of the only “Conservative” Christian churches in the city. It seemed that no matter what biblical argument or reasoning I came up with, nothing was sufficient for the pastors and elders within my local church to overturn their ecumenical and financial decisions and return to Biblical sanity.
Their arguments could be characterized as both resolute passivity and evasion of the great moral crises of our day. Pastors and elders failed to even engage in a Biblical conversation about politics and the extension of theological conviction in the political arena. They shut down those conversations and went as far as to label me a “half-cocked liar” and “divisive” while simultaneously discrediting me and salvaging my reputation to close friends. And while the sting of those characterizations and actions is likely to still be tender in some place in my mind, I found the whole charade to be mostly concerning because of the lack of clarity or even dialogue on the political. It was obvious that these men were baffled by the idea that their religion had any place in their politics. The extension of theology into the study of philosophy, economics, and policy was an astounding misconception on their end. It was clear to me that if a church has no active political vision, it will devolve into negative liberty consensus not out of conscious decision, but more dangerously out of unconscious indecision. This indecision and lack of direction will cause, in the minds of congregants, a concrete passive attitude and a Jonah-like evasion of the wickedness of man which will ironically turn them into wicked men.
But this is not the only way in which this dynamic can dominate a local church. Some churches do this not through slander and conscious evasion but through ethos and environment. They will never speak of the doctrines of negative liberty, but they will certainly believe them in action and inaction. They will look down upon the one who brings political issues to light in Bible studies and conversations. This kind of church is so utterly passive that it cannot even acknowledge the agreed upon negative form of liberty. There is such fear in these places of conflict and opinion that one is better off never speaking than to risk the dreadful possibility of speaking what is unspokenly prohibited. How one operates functionally within this context is beyond my analysis. But this way of living within the church is becoming more and more embedded into the fabric of social interaction within Christian circles. I have heard from many that if they even mention a political topic that feels remotely Conservative in these churches, they are promptly and bitterly shut down without explanation. My only comment on this level of passivity and evasion is that it is very similar to the passivity and evasion that comes from families with alcoholic tendencies (I know because I come from one). To bring the issue to light makes you, the one who spoke the truth, the actual issue. It is far easier to punish a person than to persist through the murky waters of unfound sin and dirt within a family – the same can be said about a church. To say nothing and to do even less than what they say is the way of this cohort. A truly resolute passivity and masterful evasion of political issues.
Some would wonder why these sacred dynamics and untold doctrines must be brought to light. Why should we discuss politics? I will go into this further in a later essay, but the simple answer is that we, human beings, are political beings. We exist within a polis (a city), and we interact with individuals within that city. How one interacts with their neighbors is the crux of the political conversation. In the modern age this is hard to understand because of the abstracted federal tyranny of the American government. But in purer societies of old, the most pressing questions of morality, politics, government, economics, and philosophy were all a part of a local conversation that had direct impact on one’s family and friends. It was not an abstract matter at all, but the most personal matter imaginable. But more importantly, it is biblical to care for your neighbors and to do what you can to bring about their flourishing in not only economic ways but also in moral ways. Many objections to coercion and force will be made here, but my responses to those can be seen later on. The only point I am making here is that politics is a conversation that naturally grows out of Biblical theology and Biblical living. To be Christian is to be alive, to be alive is to be a person, and to be a person is to be personal and relational. Politics is inherently theological and therefor inherently Biblical. This is why a resolute passivity and evasion of political and cultural issues from Christians is a seriously dangerous thing – it can bring about the destruction of real lives and real communities.
A resolute passivity has been seen in many ways and, as passivity does, it has shapeshifted and changed in its vocabulary and stance as the culture shifts and changes on its vocabulary and stances on particular issues. A prime example would that of abortion. It’s a word that has been so overused by both pro-abortion pundits and anti-abortion activists that it seems to have lost its true meaning behind an opaque and ambiguous euphemism. This evasive phraseology and vague interpretation related to words like abortion have caused much of the Evangelical and even Conservative movements across America more broadly to either soften their stances on legislation related to abortion or to abandon it on entirely pragmatic reasoning. But Christians must remember the old way of talking about the dismemberment and poisoning of infants in the womb – the old way was much more precise and accurate: it was called murder. And murder is a sin according to the Bible. But in the modern Evangelical church, not much is written on or spoken of related to the great sin of infanticide that America has committed over the past sixty years. Some estimates show 60 million babies have been slaughtered in this country – these are low estimates when considering the abortion pill and other contraceptives.
The point here is that a sin of that proportion and magnitude over that short of a period in history is unprecedented and utterly indefensible. It could easily be categorized as the worst tragedy in human history – but we Evangelicals and Conservatives refrain from proper categorization and articulation and hide behind the passive characterization of infanticide as “abortion” so not to rock the boat. It has been done for potentially noble reasons; many pastors are afraid that if they are too blunt and too truthful on the matter, people could become offended and leave their churches. This assumes that a watered-down truth is better than a full truth – of course, it is not. And it cannot be. A watered-down truth is not truth at all. If one is so resolute in their desire to be nice, the pastorate is not their proper vocation. I say this was all sincerity as I understand that the linguistic challenges brought on by the postmodernists in the past century have convinced most in the West that language and meaning have been severed eternally and the alphabet is but a myriad of symbols forever lost to the objective world.
This same point can be made about many others contemporary issues. Marriage is another popular, but prime example of a word that has lost all of its original meaning and has essentially turned into the opposite of what it once was – that is, monogamous, committed, lifelong relationships between the opposite sexes for the glory of God and the procreation of humanity. In the modern age it is simply a union between two or more persons that receive certain tax benefits. This too has become largely controversial in Evangelical circles. What is marriage? What is sex? What is the purpose of sexuality? All of these questions are ones that would have been assumed in the old world – not by everyone, but by the majority of people on the basis of mimetic reality and Natural Law. Not only is it natural for man to desire women, but it is also what is naturally mimicked because of the heritage of heterosexual marriages across cultures over the span of thousands of years of human history. Marriage has meant one thing and one thing only, but the Evangelical consensus has been to stay resolutely passive on the subject, again for more practical reasons than convictional: in order to maintain the status quo.
Though these are two topics that are critiqued by liberal pundits as tired and overworked, they remain the bedrock of Conservative and Christian thought as it regards our responsibilities to love the least of these and take responsibility for what God has given us. Further, this resolute passivity only naturally creates the foundation for cultural and political erosion on a mass scale. As a proponent of the principle of subsidiarity, I am whole heartedly bought into the idea that the most change can happen most locally. A way in which one can order society is by starting with himself and working outward, not the contrary as is so popular today. This principle requires the individual to first tend to his relationship with God and then his wife and children and then church and so on. There are levels to human relationship within the city (polis) – hence the word “politics” is simply a way of articulating relationship rules and incentives within a society.
One of the ways in which, historically, Americans were able to influence much change was through the preaching of God’s Word from the pulpit. It was believed to be said by Alexis de Tocqueville that “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
It can notably be seen that the pulpits were filled with holy fire and not ridged passivity. This was the engine that ran the machine that was America. And this is the engine that the modern Evangelical pastor, sadly, has opted out of starting – she sits idly in a junk yard when she should be roaring with power and beauty. But this lack of pulpit power has had much negative effect on the broader political climate in America over the past decade especially.
And it should not have to be asked as to what tragic reactionary policies and events could have been mitigated or even avoided if pastors, for the past century, rejected resolute passivity in favor of resolute authority and evasion of moral crisis in favor of engaging the trials and tribulations of our time? Is it lost on the American church that the Bible is all encompassing and living? Is it lost on us that the Word rightly preached still maintains within in it a supernatural power to bring about change and redemption? If it is then we must course correct immediately! Am I old fashioned for thinking that the Gospel is still infused with that righteousness and glory that has brought kings to their knees in submission to Christ and peasants from their knees to the places of high honor?
Christian, pastor, theologian; I plead with you to engage the political arena. The scene will be a bloodied one with much to correct and much more to abandon, but the fates of real men are on the line. The fates of real lives are at stake. And I say, brother, the fate of your own soul rests upon not the resolute passivity of contemporary conformity, but on the resolute and scrappy engagement with the world in which you live. All of church history has led to this – and this age in the church is surely vital. It is an age of confusion and misery. The combination of World Wars, Atomic Bombs, technological innovation, political scandal, Artificial Intelligence, and heightened political violence has led many, including myself at times, to wholeheartedly give up and bow out. But this is the world in which we live – it’s the age in which God has placed you and me. How is it that He could be mistaken to place a soldier in the wrong battle?