Patriotism, Politics, and Priorities

I am unashamedly patriotic. I am grateful to have been blessed to have been born in the United States of America. I’ve been to other countries and we have so much in comparison. I stand for the flag and our national anthem. I get emotional seeing veterans parade by representing all who have served to protect our freedom in this great country. I make no apologies for that.

Politics is another story. We have a representative democracy form of government which ideally is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We are free to engage in the process because we are afforded freedom of speech in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Unfortunately we have seen this process become divisive and corrupted. However that doesn’t mean that we don’t have our political positions and hopefully we vote accordingly. 

There is another component to this patriotic topic that affects the Church. It is the proclamation of the Gospel message. While this topic is so large we could never handle it in this forum, I do want to share some things that formed a position that I adopted years ago in my pastoral ministry.

I always followed the restrictions placed on tax-exempt entities like churches relative to endorsing candidates, etc. I also knew that I had a right to express my personal views. But then somethings were brought to my attention.

An attender confronted me one day that in her opinion, when there was a change in President, I publicly prayed more for the one than I had for his predecessor from a different political party. Whether or not she was accurate in her criticism doesn’t matter. Her perception is what mattered to her.

On another occasion, a member came to my office one day to inform me that he felt he was no longer able to worship here because of his divergent political beliefs. He felt out of place.  Again, whether or not his perception was accurate doesn’t matter.  What he felt mattered to him. 

Patriotism, Politics and Priorities. I wasn’t convicted about my love of country or my personal political positions. But this is what I was convicted of: If someone came to church searching for Jesus (and that is our hope) but only heard political issues, then I have grossly failed in why we were there. I decided at that point to make the presentation of Jesus the priority.

I am still patriotic and anyone who knows me well probably knows my political stance. But I hope above all else that people who experienced my pastoral ministry knew my Jesus stance. Preaching (presenting) Jesus IS the Priority. Is it yours?