A new poll of pastors’ preferences in the upcoming presidential election shows not only the divide between clergy in political terms, but also the difficulty in talking about politics, especially in church.
Half of pastors indicated a preference for former President Donald Trump, one quarter (24%) chose Vice President Kamala Harris, but another quarter (23%) refused to answer at all in the Lifeway Research survey of protestant pastors.
“The growing number of pastors unwilling to respond with their voting intentions shows how sensitive or divisive politics has become in some churches,” said Scott McConnell, Lifeway Research executive director. In a similar survey in the last election cycle, only 4% of pastors declined to answer.
This raises the question of politics in church: Is it possible to have a civil discussion in our Sunday schools and small groups? The separation of church and state has become in many places a separation of church and debate.
Is this what the founders intended?
Roger Williams was the founder of Rhode Island in 1636. He named its capital Providence, because he believed God had led him and a dozen followers there. Williams also started the first Baptist church in America in that town. It’s still there. It’s called, appropriately, First Baptist Church in America.
For many years before leaving England, Williams had fought for his freedom to worship. Two beliefs were very important to Williams that are important to us Baptists today: soul competency (the belief that each individual is responsible before God for his own personal belief in Jesus Christ as Savior), and the separation of church and state. Williams’s conviction that the government should not interfere in the practice of religion made its way into Thomas Jefferson’s writings at the founding of our nation, specifically that the government should not establish any particular religion.
I can’t say whether our times are any more divisive than Williams’s or Jefferson’s, but in our time, “separation of church and state” has come to mean in the vernacular, “I just don’t talk about politics—especially at church.” That’s an incorrect definition, but with an understandable application.
Some relationships might not stand the test of a political disagreement.
We’d like to maintain our friendships. And there are some relationships that might not stand the test of a political disagreement, even among Christian brothers and sisters. It would be a deep shame to be divided from church family members by a political issue or candidate.
So we keep quiet.
Serving an interim pastorate right now, I can honestly say, maybe it’s better for the peace of the church that we don’t discuss politics inside the church.
Talking about politics is not forbidden. And believers are needed to bring biblical truth to bear on current issues. Only endorsements are prohibited for churches claiming tax exemptions. “Separation of church and state” does not prohibit Christian engagement on the issues, if we could do it without it looking like an angry political rally.
I wish we were all mature enough to talk about the hard stuff—about morals and character and policies and preservation of life and what it means to live and behave like Jesus would in 2024.
But we’re not.
Apparently the agitated cultural ethos has so permeated the church that such discussions might not be civil. So a lot of people are simply being quiet.
I guess it’s safer that way.
Eric Reed is IBSA media editor.