Theocracy for me, but not for thee

This past Sunday, most American Christians attended church to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For many, it was likely the one day out of the week when they didn’t have partisan politics on their minds and instead came to worship their risen King.

But in one church in New York City, Easter was an occasion to mix politics and religion in an especially awkward and heretical manner. At the Christian Cultural Center, a megachurch pastored by A.R. Bernard, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was inexplicably given time in the pulpit and, like politicians are wont to do, awkwardly mixed the sacred with the profane in over-the-top praise of newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Lord knows, it took too long to get here,” the Senate majority leader said. “But now that we’re here, there’s no going back. The stone has been rolled away from the tomb! And all those good things we hoped and prayed for will come to pass! So Happy Easter!”

Happy Easter indeed, but not for the reasons Schumer, who is Jewish, might assume. The appointment of Supreme Court justices is important but not in the ultimate way Schumer thinks. The stone rolled away 2,000 years ago from a borrowed grave outside Jerusalem isn’t a ratification of our political aspirations but the dawn of God’s new kingdom age, the sign that the enemy powers have been defeated and that Christ, not a political party, is supreme. The empty tomb isn’t a cheap symbol to be wielded in service of partisan hackery but is the visible sign of salvation by faith in Christ.

It’s shameful for a pastor to allow his pulpit to be hijacked in this way by a politician who heretically compared the rising of Jesus with the appointment of a Supreme Court justice. Much ink has been spilled about the danger of Christian nationalism in recent years, much of it directed at conservative evangelicals. Some of the critiques were appropriate, a necessary rebuke against a temptation to wed the temporal with the eternal. And yet, the nationalism charge is often leveled in a one-sided way at conservative evangelicals, while overt displays of party loyalty in more liberal-leaning circles go largely unnoticed. It does not take a detective to explain this mystery: When religion is used to justify the politics of progressives, religion is OK. But if one dares to couch any conservative policy with religious language, well then, you’re a Christian nationalist deserving a barrage of denouncement.

This isn’t to say that pastors and churches should withdraw from the public square. On the contrary, we should bring our faith to bear on the public debates of the age and steward well our role as citizens in a representative democracy. To obey Jesus’ words to love our neighbors as ourselves requires us to use our voices and our votes to shape the society in which our neighbors live. To be silent about injustices that prey on human dignity while we have influence is to acquiesce to them.

And the gospel itself is inherently political. In the first century, to declare that Jesus, and not Caesar, was Lord of all was a political statement that had significant social ramifications—even the risk of martyrdom. Today, that declaration is no less controversial. Pastors should not refrain from equipping their people to apply Scripture to cultural and political issues, helping to form courageous Christian consciences to live in a world that largely rejects Christianity.

Yet, while the implications of our gospel are political, the inference from our pulpits shouldn’t be partisan. Our people may advocate, organize, and vote Monday thru Saturday, but on Sunday, the Lord’s Day, the sacred preaching of the Word shouldn’t be confused by party talking points and cheap rhetoric. God is after something more important when His people gather every seven days. He has promised that the faithful preaching of Scripture will do a work no political party can accomplish. Politicians may move votes, but only the Spirit can move hearts.