Pastors, Politics and Pot (Oh My!)

I was recently asked if a line in a sermon, referencing “egos swimming in a sea of privilege,” was about a particular political candidate. As it happens, I served on Long Island for the last several years, with a constant stream of news stories about sociopathic excess in the Hamptons, and that was what I had in view as I wrote. In the same way, this Sunday’s references to misogyny had nothing to do with the fact that we have the first female presidential candidate in our nation’s history, and everything to do with the fact that I am a feminist, something you will also have noted in my use of inclusive imagery for God.

This raises an important set of questions, especially in an electoral season that seems more divisive and fraught than any I have experienced in my lifetime. Many a pastor has been accused of politics (defined as anything about which a particular congregant disagrees) or been informed that being political in church is “against the law.” This bears some exploration.

Freedom of religion is a founding principle of our nation, though “separation of church and state,” a phrase used by Jefferson in a letter to Baptists in 1802, doesn’t exist in the Constitution. But we are all served by religious liberty, even if New England Congregationalists were initially on the wrong side of this discourse. However, there is no prohibition on churches being political.

Politics simply means the ways we organize our society, hopefully for the common good. Biblical statements like “feed the hungry,” “welcome the immigrant,” “pay the laborer fair wages” and “do justice” are inherently political. In fact, we celebrate a protest march every spring, for Jesus’ peaceful entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday can only be understood as a response to the entry of the Roman governor and his legion from the opposite direction every Passover, probably on the very same day.

US law does not prohibit churches from being political in this sense. If it had, our own religious trajectory would have been banned long ago. Congregationalists were active in the Abolitionist movement against slavery, and were early feminists, ordaining a woman in 1853. Since the merger that formed the United Church of Christ in 1957 (and which this congregation joined in 1961), we have been leaders in the campaign for LGBT human rights. Local congregations and the wider church continue in this tradition of Justice and Prophetic Witness, including recent actions against pipelines and a current boycott of Wendy’s.

US Tax Code states that you cannot be a tax-exempt organization and engage in partisan politics, an unfortunate intersection of state and faith. Evangelicals and the Catholic Church have aggressively crossed this line during recent election cycles in hope of over-turning the rules, all to no avail. But their faith, like our faith, is not controlled by the Tax Code.

Even so, you will not hear me endorse a party or candidate from the pulpit. This is just common sense. While churches tend to attract like-minded people, we are also a diverse group, sinners and saints, imperfect and blessed.

Things become stickier with issues that are not partisan, or when I try to meet my obligation to be an engaged and informed citizen, for the office carries a certain moral authority, and some people have difficulty separating a pastor’s personal opinion from the public stance of the church. An example of one such issue is Question 1 on this fall’s state ballot, a call for the legalization of recreational marijuana.

Now you might have come to a different conclusion, and that’s okay, but I personally support Question 1. I do so because of my experience. Because of my faith, and because I find it a rational response to our current situation. I lived in New York for years, home of draconian drug laws. I’ve seen the ways racism plays into drug enforcement and sentencing. I have watched the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” tactics turn black boys with a dime bag into career criminals. My own family has been touched by the heroin epidemic, something that might not have happened if there had been regulated access to marijuana. I know enough history to know that prohibition doesn’t work. And hey, the tax revenue couldn’t hurt…

I’ve been asked to sign on to a movement of clergy supporting Question 1, an ecumenical group that includes UCC, Presbyterian and Methodist ministers. Even though I would do so on my own behalf, as an engaged and informed citizen that wishes to make the world a better place, I have hesitated, afraid that speaking these truths would be seen as divisive. I will be in dialogue with you and with your elected representatives in church leadership in the days and weeks ahead.

It would be so much easier if it was a question like “Shall we recycle?”

You have my promise that I will preach the gospel, that I will not abuse your trust by engaging in partisan politics in my role as your pastor, and that I will be careful in judging when I can speak as a citizen, when I should speak with the moral authority of the office, and when such speech could be misperceived as the position of the church.

As we journey together, I ask that you hold me in prayer, that I might “speak truth with love,” an ordination vow for UCC ministers.
Blessings,
Gary