Greetings, Valued Voters:

And then there were four.

I’ve written before about the Johnson Amendment, a piece of legislation that passed without debate in the Senate and House in 1954 and again in 1983. It simply states that religious organizations may not use any of their tax-free budget to endorse candidates or specific legislation. It is one of the reasons I am reticent to write or speak about specific candidates while serving in any official capacity as a minister of a church. But my real motivation to keep my pastoral mouth shut isn’t fear of an audit, but how quickly simple endorsement devolves into blind support. Once publicly committed, it becomes difficult to walk back that support when the anointed candidate turns out to hold some positions in conflict with other Gospel-driven values. In other words, it’s difficult as a minister of the Gospel to use my pulpit as a tool to endorse someone who is revealed to be a politician.

As a private citizen and a bit of a political junkie, I have my preferences. But as a preacher I can tell you I have no pipeline to God’s endorsements in this or any other election. I can, however, point you to the issues that should matter to Christians in every election.

Matthew 25.31-46 is quite specific; Jesus said that nations will be judged based on how they treated the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison. It’s also quite clear that Jesus had a priority regarding the treatment of children (see Luke 17.2). Unfortunately, I’m finding no candidate who unambiguously addresses the treatment of the “least of these” as a national priority.

There are those who denounce the wealthy and their abuses of power, but the vilification of the rich is not the same thing as service to the poor. Hyper-taxing the 1% does not automatically translate into food security, adequate housing, clean water, safe immigration, reasonable healthcare or dignity for the incarcerated. It only means tapping an underused source for public funding. I’ve grown weary of the rhetoric that beats up on the super-rich but fails to follow through with a call for a deep nationally-shared priority to eliminate poverty. (In fact, this particular musing was inspired by the fact that the only major candidate who included the words “poor and dispossessed” in every stump speech withdrew from the race yesterday.)

As Christians we are not called to hate the rich; we are called to love the poor. We are not challenged to disdain wealth, but to use our wealth to transform real circumstances for real people who struggle. But, of course, that kind of rhetoric doesn’t win elections. What hauls in the votes is the promise that your life will be better, no matter who you may be. Worse than that, current political rhetoric now promises not just to make your life better, but to completely devastate the lives of people you don’t like. Remember, God will judge the nations based on who they help, not who they hate.

Our problem is not in our candidates; our problem is in ourselves. As followers of Christ, we are called to use our time, imagination and love not to change political administrations, but to change voters’ hearts. Against such there is no law (Galatians 5.22-23).

Thinking more about what we vote for than whom, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor