CGI Can’t Decide About Whether or Not to Allow Politics in Church!
Lonnie Hendrix
The leadership of the Church of God International continues to try to straddle the fence on whether pastors and members should be involved in secular politics. Folks like Jeff Reed, Mike James, and Vance Stinson argue in favor of neutrality - while folks like Bill Watson, Adrian Davis, and Murray Palmatier see absolutely nothing wrong with their partisanship. Indeed, in spite of severe criticism, the politicians continue to be loud and proud about their foray into that realm. In reality, although most of the membership of CGI is very conservative and very Republican, the membership remains very divided on the issue of political involvement on a corporate level. Moreover, neither side appears to be satisfied with the leadership’s wishy-washy “neutrality.” In other words, it feels awfully lukewarm within CGI these days!
Although the Church of God International’s leadership has apparently decided to mothball their Armor of God program and have removed Bill Watson from their payroll, in the latest edition of their Prove All Things: Politics and Voting webcast (Reed and James) interviewed ACOG member and proud Montana Republican, Bill Lussenheide. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Mr. Lussenheide, he is completely comfortable with his role as a partisan officeholder and supports the Republican Party’s platform in his state “one hundred percent!” In other words, he feels absolutely no conflict between the religion he professes and fully participating in partisan politics! Indeed, just like Ohio Bill, this Montana Bill believes that he is defending his faith and proclaiming the Gospel through his participation in the political process.
Speaking of that other Bill, Mr. Watson recently defended his own messaging on politics on his News Alert Blog on CGI Medina, Ohio’s website. Bill wrote: “I recently read an article by Caroline Woods (from The Blaze) that was rather interesting, especially since I have been accused of being ‘political’ more times than I can count. There are people today that think the pulpit should be exclusively reserved to address the Bible and only the Bible. They claim, to use the pulpit to address social issues, underscored by the Bible, is wrong and is out of order. That those pastors, should simply remain on point and only speak on Christian Living––stay away from social issues!” He went on to point out that pastors have addressed current events throughout the history of the United States (the old they did it before me excuse). Mr. Watson continued: “Keep in mind, those who shrink back in ‘cowardice’ from addressing the issues of our day forget; it’s not the Church that has become political, but rather, politics has become more excessive in violating our religion and God’s Church needs to stand firm and show our people their sins (Isa 58:1).” Watson clearly believes himself to be courageous and right, and that he consequently can’t be wrong in what he is doing!
If that doesn’t sound like circular reasoning to you, it should! In a recent post on my own blog The Allure of Politics for Christians, I pointed out that “In their desire to promote righteousness and God's will, Christians have too often found themselves drawn into the political systems of this world. Unfortunately, instead of influencing things in a better direction, the Christian often finds him/herself participating in a process which interrupts his/her focus on God, distorts the distinction between good and evil and causes him/her to compromise with the dictates of his/her faith and conscience. One candidate or policy seems to be the right one at the time we are considering the alternatives, but we often learn later that our choice(s) produced unintended negative consequences. In other words, in our attempt to avert an evil outcome, we often set the stage for an even worse future than the one we were trying to avoid!”
Next, I proceeded to point out many of the Biblical warnings against participating in the affairs of this world and to avoid being drawn into idolatry of the state. I also pointed out that Christ NEVER challenged or criticized Rome or its representatives in Judea, that he reserved his harshest rhetoric for the Jewish religious leaders of his day. Finally, I concluded with some advice that I think folks within CGI’s leadership would do well to heed: “Unfortunately, we Christians sometimes forget that we are strangers and pilgrims on this earth, and that our primary citizenship resides in heaven (Hebrews 11:13-16). Our salvation, spiritual and physical, is found in God's plan. In short, the political systems which humankind has devised are flawed, and they will fail someday. We must not forget that our faith and hope is found in God, and him alone! (Psalm 118:8)” While there is certainly nothing wrong with setting a good example and helping others in the here and now, it is NOT our commission or responsibility as Christians to fix the flawed political systems of this world!
