I have taking a few weeks to urge you to participate fully in the political process of our town. We have a city council election coming up shortly, and I have wanted to consider some of the implications of that. And please note again that it is not the place of the church to be endorsing any candidates, or to be functioning as a partisan institution in any way.
But it is our responsibility to be urging you to be engaged in your neighborhoods, your town, and your nation as the salt and light that Jesus declared His people to be.
What are some possible objections? One is that we have been declaring for years that we in Christ Church don’t have a political agenda. Won’t this urging of everyone to register and vote make that important message seem hypocritical? No, not at all. We don’t have a political agenda, but it has become transparently obvious that a handful of activists have a political agenda for us. Making sure we are involved at this basic level means that it is much more likely that we will be able to get back to normal—preaching, teaching, administering sacraments, and not having to concern ourselves with whatever the latest cooked-up legal technicality being thrown at us is.
Another objection might be that we are trusting in the political process instead of in God. That is certainly a possible temptation, but no more a temptation than what you have to resist when you go to work to provide for your family instead of trusting God to do it, when you buy insurance instead of trusting God, or you go to a doctor instead of trusting God for healing. It is our responsibility to learn how God provides for us through means. It is our responsibility to learn how to see God in everything, and trust Him in everything.
A last objection could be that we don’t want to become like those people who eat, live, and breathe politics, and who wear funny hats at political conventions. That is right, and is one of the reasons why our political emphasis should be local—it discourages that kind of silliness. At the same time, we need to make sure that we are not trying to be too sophisticated, acting through false pride as though we are “above this kind of thing.” You are no more above it than you are above having to work for your food—even though we say that God gives us our food.