Is it appropriate to address national tragedies in the pulpit? Is It appropriate not to?
A variety of opinions have emerged this week about whether or not pastors should have spoken about Charlie Kirk from their pulpits on Sunday. There’s no “one size fits all” answer to this question, because Kirk’s death was an event of national significance, and the local impact on individual communities is not uniform.
Some people who are highly engaged in the national conversation were personally devastated, while others in the pew next to them, who aren’t on social media and don’t follow the news carefully, had never heard of Charlie Kirk. What a pastor chooses to say or not say would largely depend on the composition of his church, and other practical matters about his personal ministry and schedule are structured.
Personally, I’m very plugged into the national conversation. I track social media trends online, and I care deeply about how Christians engage in the public square. As a pastor, I try to be aware of the people in my church, while also sympathizing with the difficulties of pastoral ministry that ordinary Christians aren’t aware of. Thus, there are a few things that pastors and parishioners should keep in mind in such moments.
First, if you’re not a pastor, it’s probably not good to be blasting your pastor as a coward or hireling on social media. Maybe he is, but social media isn’t the place to deal with that. We must obey the fifth commandment to honor our fathers and mothers, and this includes our spiritual fathers (1 Cor 4:15) who keep watch over our souls (Heb 13:17).
Second, church members don’t really understand what sermon preparation is like for their pastors. Faithful expositors of scripture spend long hours studying and preparing their messages. Some pastors write their sermons early in the week and spend the rest of their week in appointments and meetings. I was mostly finished writing my sermon last Wednesday when I learned the news that Charlie Kirk had been shot. It wrecked my afternoon. I couldn’t think about anything else. I was dealing with my personal anger and grief, knowing in the back of my mind that, in only four days’ time, I was going to have to speak to my church about something that is akin to this generation’s 9/11 or JFK assassination. If a pastor had already finished his sermon, he’d have to scrap it and start over, or rework it significantly. Some pastors, especially bi-vocational pastors, simply didn’t have the time to do that at that point. To suggest that any pastor who didn’t preach a whole sermon about it simply because someone on X said he should is absurd. And if your pastor didn’t dedicate significant time to Kirk’s murder this past Sunday, there might be a good reason for this omission.
So no, I don’t think pastors were morally obligated to preach a whole sermon about Charlie Kirk. However, I do think every pastor should have made space in the worship service to offer a word of comfort and hope, perhaps during the pastoral prayer or at some other point.
Third, and this is my biggest frustration, I’ve seen some pastors stubbornly refuse to say anything at all, defending their decision by saying things like, “pastors should preach Jesus, not Charlie Kirk!” That’s a false dichotomy. Any skilled pastor can preach about Charlie Kirk’s death while pointing people to Charlie Kirk’s savior.
I’m sure many of these pastors have no problem telling cute stories about their kids, or giving illustrations about praying for their waitress, or sharing examples of doing evangelism on an airplane. Preachers use examples from ordinary life all the time. Why should they not talk about the one thing that’s on everybody’s minds?
The nature of preaching
We need to remember the nature of preaching. Preaching is not a mere theological lecture, or political commentary, or a skyscraper (one story upon another). Also, preaching is not an evangelistic crusade, where the focus is primarily on unbelievers.
In my view, expository preaching is the best approach. It exposes God’s people to the whole counsel of God and helps them learn to read and understand the Bible for themselves. And preaching the whole counsel of God certainly includes applying the scriptures to what is happening in the real world. We’re in a real spiritual battle, and God’s people need to be equipped for the fight.
So, if a pastor refuses to talk about Charlie simply because he didn’t want to disrupt his preplanned expositional sermon, he may have made “expository preaching” an idol that prevents him from shepherding the souls of the flock in front of him. Expository preaching is a great servant but a poor master. It is the pastor’s primary tool in his preaching toolbelt, but not the only tool. A pastor is a shepherd, and expository preaching is his primary, but not exclusive, means of shepherding.
Additionally, expository preaching still involves editorial decisions every week. In my pre-planning, I think, “Do I preach verses 1-4 this week? Or preach verses 1-7? Do I dig deeper into this Greek word? Or do I focus on this other word?” I plan my expository preaching calendar months in advance, trying to anticipate the needs of my congregation from a macro perspective, then apply that perspective in my weekly preaching.
In other words, the preaching calendar is not sacrosanct. If an expositor is slavishly handcuffed to whatever text he’s scheduled to preach on this week, believing he is being faithful by not allowing current events to dictate the pulpit, then he’s simply refusing to budge from editorial decisions he made in his pre-planning when he put the preaching calendar together in the first place.
Other pastors use a lectionary, so the calendar is set by their tradition. That’s great, we should follow our traditions. But even still, lectionaries are not sacrosanct. Lectionaries are a tool in the pastor’s toolbelt. It should be perfectly acceptable, perhaps even necessary, for a pastor to switch up his preplanned sermon in moments of great national crisis. Pastors make hundreds of decisions about what to include or omit. Every wise expositor has two driving goals: to (1) glorify God and to (2) edify God’s people.
A metaphor I find helpful is that every sermon is a meal and the pastor is the chef. The pastor’s duty is to feed his people a meal from God’s word every week. We all remember Jesus’ words to the apostle Peter when he said, “feed my sheep” (John 21). Making sure his sheep were well fed was on Jesus’ heart before he ascended to the Father.
As I said, expository preaching is generally the way to go for faithful shepherds who wish to honor their Lord and feed his people a spiritually nutritious diet from God’s word. Likewise, the editorial decisions a pastor makes in both planning his preaching calendar and in preparing individual sermons can be viewed as setting the menu for his flock.
In other words, a pastor is not just responsible for providing individual sermons that are spiritually enriching, but a balanced diet, or “feed mix,” from all of God’s word. For example, I might preach a sermon this Sunday that may feel like a 2×4 between the eyes. But I also know, in advance, that next Sunday’s sermon will be a tender word of grace that feels like balm for their souls. Preplanning a preaching ministry is like a mother walking the aisles of the grocery store, selecting ingredients for the meals she will prepare to feed her family a balanced diet.
Even still, in times of emergency, we must be at least willing to change things up. Last week, I chose to scrap the sermon I was writing and preach about Charlie Kirk’s death instead. Not every pastor has the capacity and flexibility to do that, and we should have grace for faithful shepherds who are doing their best. I’m thankful that I had the flexibility in my schedule to do that. Why did I do it? Because I sensed that my people needed a particular “meal” to address a particular spiritual hunger. It seemed like Christians all around the world were hungry for such a message.
Continuing with my analogy, it seemed like everyone was in an insulin shock, as though their blood sugar had suddenly dropped to dangerous levels and they needed specific nutrients at that moment.
I think I perceived this need rightly. We had the largest single crowd we’ve ever had at my church this past Sunday. My sermon posted on YouTube is the most viewed sermon I’ve ever preached. Why is that? Because God’s people were hurting, scared, confused, and angry. Those emotional words indicate a spiritual hunger for spiritual vitamins that only a timely message from the word of God could supply. I believe everyone left nourished and encouraged. Their pain was acknowledged and addressed. Their confusion was clarified. Their anger was affirmed and also challenged. I wasn’t about to let my commitment to expository preaching prevent me from fulfilling the higher duty to feed God’s sheep.
So, I am sympathetic to those pastors who simply didn’t have the time or flexibility to preach about Kirk’s death. An acknowledgement in the pastoral prayer or other part of the service would suffice. But for those brothers who refused to address it, believing they were somehow being more faithful to God, you missed an important opportunity.
It’s not too late. God’s people are gracious. May I make a friendly suggestion? Perhaps it would be wise and helpful to say something about it next week. Maybe you could say, “I missed an opportunity last week to address something important to all of us. Please forgive me. But I’d like to say a few words about it now, and offer you a word of hope from God’s word.” Not only will most people receive this gladly, but their respect and trust in you will grow.
