Clinton's Troubling Politics of Choosing Church

"We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend."
- Senator Hillary Clinton, in response to a reporter's question about Barack Obama, his church, and its fiery former pastor, The Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. (from AP article Clinton Would Have Left Obama's Pastor)

These words sent a chill down my spine.

We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend.

It wasn't enough for Senator Clinton to critique Pastor Wright.  It wasn't enough for Senator Clinton to critique Pastor Wright's role as an unpaid adviser to Senator Obama's presidential campaign.  No.  These words are much more than that.  These words go to the core of religious and political identity, and suggest that religious identity should answer to political identity.

We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend.

With these words, Senator Clinton has declared a political litmus test on the faith and religious membership of politicians and, indeed, on all Americans.

We have a choice. 

I guess we had better make the politically correct choice.  Perhaps Senator Clinton can publish a list of approved churches and approved ministers so that I can be sure that I have made the proper religious choice.

We have a choice.

On the surface Senator Clinton is right.  We who worship and affiliate with religious communities choose where we worship and with whom we affiliate.  But attending church is not a simple choice, and not one that many of us make based on political considerations.  The relationship between a believer and her faith, between a church member and her congregation, between a congregant and her pastor is not defined by a political litmus test.  Many of us attend churches and belong to faith communities despite political and theological disagreements with church and denominational leaders.  Agreement on isolated issues is not the basis of Christian community.

We have a choice.

Should Roman Catholics who support family planning and abortion abandon their faith because they worship in a church and listen to priests who ardently oppose abortion from their pulpits?  Should Roman Catholic Republicans abandon the Church because the social agenda of their church is often at odds with the GOP's policies?  Before I join a congregation, should I ask for a sampling of past sermons to evaluate the political implications of the pastor's preaching?

We have a choice.

Faith is not a matter of choice (Ephesians 2:8-9). For many of us, membership in a church (a local congregation or, for some, membership in a broader communion, denomination, or "Church") is deeply connected to faith, and as such is not so much an element of choice as one of belongedness, of being in the Body of Christ (expressed locally in a congregation) - a belongedness, a being that is a gift of God.  And so if my membership in a church is partly - largely - a gift of God, and if membership in a church is part of my participation in the Body of Christ, then how is receiving a gift of God and participating in the Body of Christ a choice?  No occasionally loud-mouthed preacher is gonna wreak the gift of God or destroy the Body of Christ.  God's presence, Christ's Body is bigger than any one preacher, than any collection of sermons.

We have a choice.

Yes, we have a choice whether to listen to preachers shout "God damn America," or who sing "God bless America."  And Senator Clinton and I would make different choices, it seems to me.  Give me the preacher who calls the nation on its sins any day over the preacher who confuses God and country.  Give me the preacher who stands in the tradition of Old Testament prophets calling political leaders to task rather than the one who fails to be moved by the suffering this great nation often leaves in its wake.  Give me the preacher who considers Religious Faith before National Patriotism, Creed before Pledge, God before Country.

We have a choice.

We have a choice between a candidate who uses religion as a wedge issue, and another candidate who uses religion as a source of hope. 

I've made my choice.

Comments

[LawAndGospel]

"We have a choice"- let's start auditioning pastors. Because we choose a congregation exculsively on a person not God? I wonder how "you brood of vipers" would play today? Could Hillary follow Jesus after that remark?

[Bob]

Nicely said. Though I think the incidence of Americans choosing churches based on political predispositions is probably higher than you do.

I agree that there is a dangerous submergence of faith below politics implicit in the senator's comment, and it's a bit chilling. She does reflect, though, the consumer focus of so much church going in the US, the consumption of religious goods and services that are expected to comfort and justify our lifestyles rather than challenge our ideas. It's not a leap from there to see political assumptions as another area in which to find the right "fit."

I am disappointed that the Senator, who appears to be a person of deep faith, would so easily accede to the "God and country" mentality of the American civil religion. I guess under stress people show themselves for what they are.

[Scott]

Well said. For those of us who are Christan before we are American, it is truly a necessity to remind ourselves that the powers will not always understand or support our callings as God's children. Thanks.

[PS]

Your commentary is excellent. I can't help but think that she hasn't thought this through. I would guess that, given her various "jobs" in the past 30 years and her travels, she hasn't been in any respect like an ordinary church member, in the trenches, on the committees, etc, in a church.

We do have the right and obligation to question and agree/disagree with anything our pastors might say. But the people in the pews will be there long after any certain pastor has moved on from that congregation.

And a pastor has the right and obligation to express what he/she sees as unbiblical behavior in the congregation or in the land.

But do we move on, go to another church, just because a pastor challenges us? I'd hope not.

[liz]

Great post. I also can't help but wonder where this mentality was when she chose to stand by her man during Monica-gate. Just as I might choose to stay married to my husband in that scenario, I might also feel bound to my church for similar reasons.

[John Petty]

I disagree. Even putting the best possible spin on Rev. Wright's remarks, I could not justify being a member of his church. Some of the stuff I can excuse, even the hyperbole--although "damning" anyone or anything from the pulpit seems awful to me.

It's that business about the government deliberately putting HIV into the black community that gets me. That's a blatant falsehood, uttered only to stoke paranoia and bitterness. That would do it for me. I'd be out of there.

[Matt Staniz]

Yes...thank you, Chris.

I just wrapped up Sunday's sermon in which I unpack the words of Jesus ("Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you") using the ELCA social statement on peace as a guideline. Part of witnessing to God's peace is being a disturbing presence when peace is sought through false means (violence, nationalism, etc.). The church must tell the truth, including when loving your country is confused with turning your country into a false god. My thought at this point is to pause as I share this and say something like "if anyone here plans to run for president some day, be warned...because you don't need to have a pastor like Jeremiah Wright to get in trouble. If the church is living out our mission, it will be counter-cultural, subversive, radical."

After staring at the sermon for about an hour and a half, I stopped short of commenting on Senator Clinton's remark (which has stunned me perhaps more than Wright). I opted to talk about how fear (identified as the barrier to peace) will be used this year to appeal to us. Candidates & political parties will wet their finger and try to guess which way the wind is blowing. Fear will continue to drive them unless the church steps into that fear, just like Jesus entered that locked room, and changes the wind.

[Chrsi]

John,

I knew you'd disagree. Two additional thoughts on the matter:

1) If a Republican or a Conservative made such a comment, the liberal blogosphere, press, and punditry would be going crazy. Imagine Bush, Cheney, or Limbaugh making such a comment. The comment is absurd and dangerous - more absurd and more dangerous than anything Rev. Wright has ever said.

2) I agree that the suggestion that the government created AIDS is whacky. But . . . placed in the context of a distrusting black community - a community for whom Tuskegee is not just a regrettable historical anecdote but clear evidence of the government's (former?) animus toward the black community - and it makes much more sense. The kind of talk that Wright offered from the pulpit is common currency in large parts of the black community . . . "Fact" and "Truth" are less important in this situation than the perception and experience of oppression, distrust, and alienation. The AIDS comments are an expression of this alienation that a huge proportion of our country's population experiences every day . . .

[John Petty]

Hi Chris,

Even within the black preaching community, Wright is known as provocative and controversial. I've met and heard several of the nation's best black preachers, and they would never say the kinds of things Wright says.

Plus, the thing kills us in November, and I don't like that either.

Sure, Republicans are worse. But we already knew that.