Returning to the Prophetic Voice of the Pulpit
The moral conscience of a nation is shaped by the exhortation of the great men it produces. It has long been the responsibility of these men to providentially guide the generations towards the glorification of God, in both personal and civic life. To shepherd the American people was to protect them from the entropic collapse of public morality while aligning them towards a transcendent good. What made them great was not solely their commitment to good theology or liturgy, but their fruit-bearing stewardship of their community. They had a deep sense of responsibility to their nation and knew how integral their role was in producing Godly statesmen and citizens. The most powerful force in our Republic is the force of political will. Someone will use that force, so it is incumbent on Christians to seize and maintain it. It is this exact battleground that the elders of our generation have surrendered.
Modernity condemns Christians who have the will to engage with the world politically. We are taught to be the peacemakers – to tread lightly and not cause offense. This “gentle and lowly” approach demands the Christian subjugate his convictions in pursuit of winsome and collaborative politics. In an era of “third-way Christianity,” it is simply uncouth to boldly campaign for a more Christ-centered government. The pastor who tries will quickly find themselves ousted from polite society as an ideological leper, often by their own congregation. The modern pastor is allowed to express political views within the boundaries of the “third way” – not left, not right, but in the middle and above. This appeals to the rational mind that gravitates towards moderate politics, perceiving the “extremities” as inherently wrong. It strips us of personal responsibility for the actions of our government and the impacts it has on our lives. We get a free pass to sit back in our self-righteousness and know that we were not one of the “extremists”. After all, if we are heaven-bound, why should we care what happens in our temporal earthly home? Because the ideology of the third way breeds apathy in the Church, it is particularly pernicious.
Long before the cancel culture of the 2010s, pastors received fierce public pressure to alter the Gospel to better suit the politics of the day. In the face of such strong opposition, the moral courage of many an elder failed. The goalposts steadily shifted from demanding Christian legislation from our representatives to surrendering political power altogether. Pastors no longer encouraged civic action in support of a Christian nation, choosing instead to relegate the responsibility of their flock to the gathering of vague cultural soft power. If we are to win souls for Christ, the theory goes, we have to present the Church in the least demanding way possible. Get them in the door with the less convicting parts of Christianity, and the rest will work itself out in time. This gave rise to the mega-pastor – Andy Stanley types that advocate for “creating churches unchurched people love to attend”. The issue of being salt without saltiness was addressed 2,000 years ago – it doesn’t work. If the goal is to make pagans comfortable in our church, we have lost what it means to be the church.
This approach to faith and governance has produced empty pews, rotting fruit, and dead faith. The soul of the nation is buckling under the pressure of an explicitly anti-Christian government while our elders capitulate. Whether by fear, apathy, or indecision, the moral conscience of the United States has been silenced. In its place, a new crop of pastors has sprung up, advocating for a gentle and lowly approach to civic responsibility, surrendering the institutions that our fathers built to appease a neo-pagan movement that fundamentally hates the Church.
Unsurprisingly, we have lost on every imaginable issue over the past 80 years. Our churches are more pagan, more managerial, more effeminate than what our grandparents inherited. The gravitational pull of egalitarianism has stripped away the distinctions of marriage, child-rearing, leadership, and pastoring. Strategically, seeking the third way only served to sap civic momentum from the Christian right while poorly containing blow after blow from the implacable political left. It allowed our enemies to chip away at the Protestant underpinnings of society and weaponize our institutions against us. There was no great debate or pitched battle to determine who gained cultural superiority in the 20th century – we were the authors of our own destruction. We became a Church that is content to “lose the battle on principle”. Our leaders have resigned themselves to the idea that avoidable political failures are actually a sign of righteousness. The denigration of society is not a result of bad governance, but proof that Christianity is “in the world, not of it”. By wrapping these political failures in Christian garb, we have convinced ourselves that the cultural current cannot be stopped, that the United States is simply destined to be a pagan nation.
Perhaps the most egregious example is the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). In a 2022 open letter, notably signed by ERLC President Brent Leatherwood, representatives of Christian pro-life organizations across the country, ostensibly anti-abortion, vocalized their opposition to an abortion abolitionist bill in Louisiana that had statewide support. These pro-life organizations not only passed on the chance to outlaw abortion in Louisiana, but they also actively campaigned against their own stated mission. If these are our champions, we don’t need enemies.
The Return of the Great American Pastor
It doesn’t have to be this way, and, in fact, it never was. The solution is simple – the return of the great American pastor. Reverend Jonathan Mayhew was described by John Adams as “the spark that ignited the American Revolution”, an honor earned by his fiery and impassioned sermons in the early days of revolutionary fervor. Mayhew was particularly concerned with the relationship between a government’s divine mandate and their responsibility to the people. Conceding that we are commanded by God to submit to our rulers, he further argues that “when no such good end can be answered by submission, there remains no argument or motive to enforce it.” If a government has set itself against the will of God, it is the moral responsibility of the Church to stand as the bulwark against moral collapse. To stay silent in the face of total depravity is to support it. Those who play along with the great lie become a part of the lie itself – there is no third way.
For a government to maintain the legitimacy of God’s divine mandate, it must legislate in a way that honors the will of God. This ensures the citizenry retains their natural rights, orients themselves towards the glorification of God, and aspires towards the building of His Kingdom. For a nation to govern in a God-fearing way, the Church must be the moral conscience of the nation. Pastors have a role in developing competent, godly men to lead. This will not happen if pastors don’t wade into the political issues that plague the country. As they say, courage is contagious. In a real way, pastors must educate their congregations not only on what leadership looks like, but also on what just political life should be.
We know this to be true on a fundamental level. William Perkins, the great Puritan, posits that “the good man of the family is a person in whom rests the private and proper government of the whole household.” He goes so far as to say that a man who cannot properly govern the home should not be permitted to govern the state. If the purpose of family leadership is the glorification of God, it follows that the purpose of civic leadership is the same. What is a nation if not a collective of individual families?
The modern American pastor can be great, but only if they break from the fetters of modern convention. We could once again have a dominant Christian culture, one that demands legislation that honors the Lord and preserves the dignity of our society. The onus is on our leaders, none more important than our pastors. But this requires pastors to once again recognize the true scope and duty of their ministry. It requires them to be assertive.
Sermons must be preached with conviction and direction, shaping the political will of our towns to align with Biblical principles, a Christian vision for social order. Young men must be exhorted, mentored, and encouraged to lead the next generation of women and children. Our elders must understand that their legacy will not be judged by the number of converts globally, but by the spiritual strength and tenacity of their own children and neighbors–the jurisdiction of their ministry. We must rediscover what it means to be a people who are invested in a future worth working towards. The men who can lead us there will be great indeed.
“To conclude: Let us all learn to be free, and to be loyal. Let us not profess ourselves vassals to the lawless pleasure of any man on earth.” – Jonathan Mayhew
