Tag Archives: Christian

Three Ways to Sway Your Red-State Pastor from Blessing the Radical Right

If you are progressive and live in a politically deep red state you may wonder sometimes just how the atmosphere became, and remains, so pervasively radical and right-wing. It’s not by accident.

In part, it is due to Christian pastors who play into the hands of the power grab that is under way by radicals on the far right, funded by many wealthy people and organized by the Koch Brothers “octopus” of influence.

For a few pastors, siding with the radical right is cynical, intentional, and motivated by a desire for personal power. But, for the largest portion, the drift toward overt or subtle blessing of the radical right is so incremental that it goes unnoticed even by them until someone like you brings it to their attention.

Here are the three ways that progressives can disrupt this corrupting influence on your pastor, Christian faith, and elected government:

Realize that in your red state, there are people in your congregation who are demanding compliance with right-wing ideology. Every pastor that I have known in my red state deals with a constant barrage of demands from people who want the church to bless, promote, and comply with their political ideology.

Take action by expressing your objections to any accommodation or promotion of right-wing ideology with which you genuinely disagree.   No matter where they fall along the liberal-conservative-evangelical-Pentecostal spectrum of Christian expression, your pastor needs to know that “everyone” does not have the same political views as those right-wing folks who make weekly demands for political purity.

Follow up and persist so that your pastor remembers that there are many different opinions about solutions to political problems in your country, state, and town/city. As individuals among other individuals in America, Christians may contribute to solutions; but, there is no “Christian” solution to problems in a democracy. Right-wing purists want to insist that there is. Pastors must allow for political issues to be worked out in the public sphere that includes many more than are in your congregation or even belief system.

Smart pastors with integrity will welcome your counterbalance of pressure that will allow them to tell the right-wing purists that there are other people in their congregation who do not agree and must be considered, also. They will welcome the reminder that they are in the uniquely neutral position of being in the culture while not being completely of it.

Some smart ones don’t need intervention at all. My strongly evangelical pastor regularly claims in his sermons that Jesus is not a Republican or a Democrat and demands that people leave him alone about it. Ha!

On the other hand, pastors who are hungry for personal acclaim and approval, or who don’t want to see the difference between right-wing political ideology and conservative Christian expression, simply do not deserve your support. They are neither effective leaders of the Christian Faith or of the political sphere. Once you are convinced that they are intent upon only blessing a certain brand of secular politics, then it’s time to go. There is never any need to attack. Just be calm, but clear about why with that pastor and others who ask.

It is important that you not engage in a large conflict with other members of your congregation with whom you disagree. It will be energy wasted on tearing up a congregation instead of expressing your faith in a different congregation whose ministry you can truly support. Save that fight for your democracy, which is where the active debate over political ideas is legitimate, necessary, and expected.

End Note: I have been a teacher in Oklahoma for the last 19 years. Before that, I was a Methodist pastor here for 17 years. I know personally how hard it is to be a pastor in a red state. So, this is no attack on pastors. In fact, it is a process that will liberate them.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: More Than a Cardboard Cutout

For a history teacher, one of the easiest, yet most damning mistakes is to allow the history of the United States to become safe, sanitized, vanilla, and sloganized.  I have never met a history teacher who wants to be credited with such an offense to the discipline; but, it does happen even to the most vigilant.

It is so much easier to play the end only of King’s “I Have A Dream” speech and let students engage in a vacuous exercise such as writing a letter to him.  About what?  The inevitable questions surface:
“Who was that dude, again?”
“What was he dreamin’ about?”
Other teachers, administrators, and curriculum supervisors will love it, though.  It’s just what anyone who has not taught history imagines is good history teaching.  It plays well in meetings and the teachers’ lounge over lunch.

But we know better.

Instead, the history teacher can choose to keep actual people in history alive in the fullness of who they were rather than a few safe soundbites or a cardboard cutout stood up in the corner .

Life, and so, history is untidy, uneven, often offensive to someone.  That’s why this audio of King’s “A Knock At Midnight” is so much more appropriate and powerful to remember and use.  It is confessional.  It shows King, the man who fears for the lives of his wife and children.  It reveals the fervent Christian who struggles with the call to faith and action.  It also reveals the sheer brutality, violence, and, yes, evil that he faced day-to-day in a place where the ruling class had one “Christian” persona in the day, and entirely another at night.

History in all of it’s fullness is far more interesting and engaging to our students, but far more irritating to others who want to twist it to fit their own current agendas.

It is the history teacher’s job to keep untwisting history. Our students will be truly inspired to live full lives of meaning if we do.  The cardboard cutout can stay in the closet.