Megachurches, on the whole, have minimal involvement in politics. Well, this is a surprise!
As you can see, the churches are moving toward the middle. Why?
I think it’s the maturing of the church — and disillusionment with the promises of conservative politicians. Four years ago, many churches were asked to get on the George Bush bandwagon to get a constitutional amendment passed banning homosexual marriage. Literally the day after the election, Bush dropped the issue — and has nothing in his second term to support such an amendment.
This and similar experiences are teaching church leaders that politicians will use them for worldly purposes, and quite naturally, church leaders are rethinking their political involvement.
More importantly, many conservative Christians have noted the scriptural warnings against seeking worldly power. I mean, no politician is the Savior. Thus, the church is moving away from involvement in politics and taking on more of a prophetic role — announcing God’s will but not seeking to impose God’s will by becoming a part of the political machine.
And, of course, as the country has become increasingly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, any church that aligns itself with a single party drives off half of its potential converts. That’s not to say that the truth should be soft-pedaled — just that you’d better be sure it’s God’s truth and it’s his whole counsel, not just the issues the politicians want to talk about.
Thus, Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis, and Brian McLaren, among others, are having a significant impact on our thinking — at least to the extent of helping some of us learn that the Republicans aren’t always paragons of Christian virtue either.
I think there’s a lot of thinking yet to do in this area, and I’m not sold on all the ideas being pushed, but I do agree that we’ve been used and need to stop being puppets of any political party.
