- Joined
- Jan 31, 2012
- Messages
- 6,367
- Reaction score
- 134
- Points
- 63
Tarheel Baptist said:LongGone said:Tarheel Baptist said:Smellin Coffee said:Top 10 Reasons for Pastors to Avoid Politics
10. Because no one trained you properly to get involved with politics—and a little seminar, however exciting, won’t make up for that yawning deficit. (Do you think politicians can be trained to be pastors by attending a seminar?)
9. Because no one hired you to get involved with politics. (And if they did, they shouldn’t have: See #10.)
8. Because pastors are supposed to call us toward the ideal and the ultimate, while politicians have to compromise over the real and the immediate.
7. Because the Scriptures (your main area of intellectual expertise—right?) are, at best, only suggestive and regulative over the field of politics (a quite different area of intellectual expertise—right? See #10 again).
6. Because you’ll alienate a considerable part of your constituency who see political matters differently, and will hold that difference against you, thus losing the benefits of your pastoral care and authority.
5. Because you need to consider the troubling fact that you’re not alienating a considerable part of your constituency, so why is your church so uniform in its politics?
4. Because governments come and go, and you need to reserve the sacred right to prophesy to whoever is in power.
3. Because politicians come and go, and you need to reserve the sacred right to comfort whoever is not, or no longer, in power.
2. Because politics brings out the worst in people, and you’re supposed to bring out the best in people.
1. Because politics brings out the worst in people, and unless you’re an exception (like Tommy Douglas), politics will bring out the worst in you.
What a crock!
Why? We have built churches where only Republicans feel welcome
What a crock!
I wish it were.
My church has chased several families away because it is no haven for someone who doesn't toe the Rush/FOX line. I don't care what folks at church think about my politics but there have been some who couldn't stand the nasty comments and moved on.
FWIW I speak not of pastors and pulpits but potlucks and lobby conversations. Or SS discussions where Larry Loudmouth has to repeat that funny line he heard on Hannity this week. You know the guy. Can't think for himself but accuses those who disagree with him of being low information voters. So those who would see the gospel as more than lower tax rates move on to find a place where people are open to more than one opinion. Or are at least able to respect one different from their own.