We should not be silent

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

You heard earlier in the show about pastors urging other Christians to vote on a ballot initiative. Christians often wonder about what their level of political engagement should be: when, how, even if they should be involved. WORLD Commentator Daniel Darling has some points to consider.

DANIEL DARLING: In a question-and-answer session with college students in 1949, theologian Carl F. H. Henry was asked, “I don’t think the Christian ought to have anything at all to do with politics, do you?”

Henry had a quick response: “Why not found a monastery? I know a chap who wants to sell some real estate out near the desert.”

Henry’s point was that faithful Christians cannot escape politics. We don’t live in a monastery.

Two years earlier, Henry had published The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism.

Fundamentalists had rightly rejected the liberal social gospel that divided mainline Protestantism. But Henry feared they were overcorrecting. They were withdrawing from the world rather than applying the truth of Scripture to its pressing problems.

Henry would spend the next half-century urging Christians to take seriously their responsibilities in the world. He helped found Christianity Today and became a leading voice for modern evangelicalism.

But he wasn't content with Christians simply lobbing complaints at the culture.

In 1991, just after the Gulf War, Henry reached for a military analogy. Iraq had fired notoriously inaccurate Scud missiles. Henry thought Christians could be just as haphazard in their cultural engagement.

AUDIO: [CARL F. H. HENRY]

“We need to stop just firing sporadic Scud missiles into the culture, trying to intimidate it at this point or that point. We need Desert Storm logistics and strategy.” (possible aside: “Are you speaking as the ‘mother of all theologians?” to laughter. This may go over listeners’ heads.)

And Henry was specific about where Christians ought to engage.

AUDIO: [CCARL F. H. HENRY]

“What has happened to public education? What has happened to the mass media, literature, and the arts? And what has happened to the political arena? And if God has given you gifts and a calling—that’s the area into which ... to address yourself.”

Henry knew something about Christians practicing politics. His son Paul served for years as a Republican congressman from Michigan.

But Henry distinguished between the responsibility of Christians as citizens and the particular calling of pastors. He urged pastors to address moral issues with Scriptural clarity, while cautioning against getting too deep into legislation or political endorsements.

That distinction still matters.

What should church members expect from their pastor when it comes to politics?

Pastors should not hesitate to apply the Word of God to issues of grave moral concern. They should do this with courage and conviction. We should not be silent where Scripture is not silent. And we should urge the people of God to steward their citizenship in a way that honors the Lord.

Yet church members should not expect on Sunday what they get throughout the week on social media, podcasts, and cable news.

Pastors are not pundits.

They have a mandate to “feed the flock of God,” as Peter writes in his first epistle, and to preach the Word “in season and out of season,” as Paul instructs Timothy.

It is the Word of God alone that is “living and active” in the hearts of men and women.

In any age, Christianity has something to offer the world—both a message of salvation by faith in the risen Christ, and a worldview superior to the ideologies and narratives that capture the hearts of men.

For WORLD, I’m Daniel Darling.

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