Our pastor started off this year by announcing that it would be a year of “shaking.” Man, he was right. It’s also been a year of illumination and separation, especially in the church. Some of it hasn’t been pretty.
I imagine some churches are acting exactly like a church Denise and I know about here in Denver. We had gone to this church a couple of times, but we stopped when people began inserting gratuitous political messages into the services. No big deal; we’ve always belonged to Colorado Christian Fellowship, and even though we visit other places, we always have a home there, where the Truth of God is always foremost in the message. Our pastor has been pretty clear that as Christians we are aliens in the world and will undoubtedly find fault with any political party if we look hard enough.
Nevertheless, we had occasionally kept up on this other church to see what it was up to. Well, we noticed in October the church had suddenly stopped doing in-person services, opting to stream online instead. If you scan the various messages in October, you find out that the reason was because several of the staff and congregation had tested positive for COVID-19. At the time, the pastor there said the closure was due to his desire to keep everyone safe. Okay, so far so good. There is absolutely no reason that “church” has to be held in a building. Our pastor has been live-streaming since the whole thing began, and we’ve only grown larger as a congregation.
Then – quite suddenly after the election – everything in that other church changed. Despite having closed due to the virus in the church, the pastor now blamed the Governor and county officials for creating rules requiring his church to be shut down (in point of fact, the counties really do these things on their own, and it would actually likely be better to have the Governor issue some sort of a statewide rule). He spoke of being “at war” with those who want to keep people from meeting in person. He spoke of “draining the swamp.” He spoke of the “horrible” and “dark time” caused by the “discouraging” and “disappointing” election. He equated not tithing with “looting,” a word thrown around quite frequently in certain political circles and perhaps hinting at a major reason why churches like his balk at closing their doors. Instead of talking about God’s will, he spoke about meetings with his attorneys, the First Amendment, and civil disobedience. The previous justification of “member safety” was lost as blamed others for their situation. I actually saw him laugh while pondering whether his congregation would ever wear a mask, even if they were asked. This had nothing to do with safety. In short, this church went full-on-political.
And this is the illumination and separation happening in the churches. Some are focused on God, and some are focused on political ramblings.
No time for any elaboration today, but we’ll soon have more to say about “political Christians” and churches, like the one above, which has decided to incorporate so much political rhetoric into its message. Moreover, in the future we’ll have plenty to say about so-called Christian “prophets,” who claim to speak for God but who focus mostly on politics and – whether right or wrong in their prophesies – drive people away from their search for God. But for now, just realize that church leaders who emphasize a mainly political message, implying, basically, that God somehow can’t do His will without we humans voting a particular way, have no business being church leaders because they have lost sight of an inclusive and supreme God who is at work with us, in us, and for us.
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