Currents Shaping My Church: War, Politics, and the Pulpit
How do you handle potentially explosive social issues when you know your congregation is not of one mind?
Erwin McManus, Cheryl Sanders, and Ken Fong
July 1, 2003
Deal with it! When something big happens in the world, I stop what I'm teaching and we deal with it. If we don't, we make ourselves irrelevant. The church often avoids controversial issues, but people want to hear meaningful issues discussed. I don't think you've dealt with an issue intelligently until you can articulate both sides in an honest and respectful way, so people on both sides say, "Yeah, he gets it; he's saying it the way I say it." Even if their position is not "biblical" and you disagree, you get a fair hearing. As Christians we often take good positions in poor ways. The answer is not "the Bible says so." Absolutely I believe in the authority of the Scriptures, but that answer is superficial; it indicates you really haven't thought through why the Bible says so. I don't try to answer the questions we're asking, but the questions they're asking. I start with the position farthest from a biblical position. I take that to its ultimate conclusion, help people process that, and then move to why God says what he says. Handling divergent opinions in that way, I help people understand that God's position is healthy, and it's right.
Public vs. pulpit debate. Because I am also a professor of Christian ethics at a university-related divinity school, I engage divisive issues in the classroom, in the pulpit, and in the public sphere. I do not feel compelled to preach about every social problem I address as an ethicist. However, I try to be aware of the impact of such issues on my parishioners, and where relevant, I address them in church. For example, I took a position against the proposed pre-emptive strike against Iraq several months before the invasion. I participated in an international press conference on the issue, and ...
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