PARSONS: Well, that's a great question, Paul, and the church and pastors and scholars have differed
over that question, quite frankly, over the years. And it's not an easy question to answer.
Now, pertaining to this question are matters pertaining to the spirituality of the church. So,
if you're listening to this or Paul, if you want to do further study on this, I would recommend
that he studies that phrase, "the spirituality of the church." And also, what sort of bumps up
against this is the question about two kingdom theology and radical two kingdom theology and
what we as individual Christians are called to do and called to be a part of, what we have
as responsibilities as citizens, as citizens in this country, as citizens of the United States or
citizens of other nations and also what the church has called to do corporately or as a congregation
or as a people. And so, I would simply say because there is so much that can be dealt
with on that question, I would simply say that every pastor needs to ask this question first:
Is it wise to deal with politics in the pulpit? That's the first question. Is it wise to deal
with politics in the pulpit? Now, when I say "politics," I do not mean Christian ethics,
and I do not mean Christian principles. The truth of the matter is that we must deal with Christian
ethics and Christian principles from the pulpit, and often those have political ramifications. The
truth of the matter is many times you can give sociocultural, biblical, principled,
ethical, prescriptions from Scripture, and they will have political ramifications, but
preaching politics per se is a different matter altogether. And so, I would simply put to pastors
whether it is wise to preach politics per se from the pulpit. Now, most of our people know precisely
where I stand on issues because I preach biblical principles and my views of them, of course, and
biblical ethics and the chips fall where they may. And people are wise enough and intelligent enough
to understand and make their own conclusions as to where I stand. But I'll just say this:
our people at Saint Andrew's where you attend, our people have no idea who I vote for. I have
made it my policy over the years of ministry, I do not tell people who I vote for. The only
person in my life who knows who I vote for is my wife. Now, some people say, "Well,
that's wrong. That's inappropriate." So be it. But I believe that I want to make sure
that I am preaching the gospel and Word of God and that nothing gets in the way of that,
that nothing would in any way distract from my primary calling of preaching the gospel of Jesus
Christ and the unvarnished Word of God to God's people. And so, preaching politics is something
that some pastors have chosen to do, and I am not going to slight them for that, but we have
to be very careful and very wise as we strive to do that in a biblical way. And I would simply give
a warning as to how that's done and when that's done, because if you are more identified with
your politics than your preaching of the Word of God, then people will often come to you for your
preaching on politics, rather than your preaching of the Word of God, not always, but oftentimes.