Endorsing from the Pulpit
It's Still Ok to Quit a Clergy Job. Plus some links
A Lutheran (ELCA) pastor in southern Wisconsin, Jonathan Barker, decided to take the IRS at its updated word—that political endorsements by clergy in the context of worship services would no longer be grounds for losing tax exemptions—and announced an intention to endorse a hypothetical future presidential bid by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This intention contradicted the policy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and so the Rev. Barker was removed from ministry before even getting the chance to make his quasi-endorsement. This story was written up in the New York Times, and I encourage everyone here to read it. Every detail that unfolds in the story makes the picture sadder, to my mind. While I don’t know the pastor in the story (it’s possible we’ve crossed paths—we share a small world—but I can’t place him), I feel like I should pray for him and I hope he’s ok. And I think that the band-aid (or maybe fig leaf) of the Johnson Amendment being ripped off will force my church body, and others who have strong cultural rather than legal or theological imperatives to avoid “getting into politics” to reassess what we actually care about. I commend Clint’s take on this for more. It’s an important topic, and here are some ways I’m thinking about it.
The Johnson Amendment is narrow and technical in scope. It relates to official statements in official capacities in explicit electoral support of specific candidates. It does not prohibit clergy from making endorsements, or doing so while using their title or other official markers of office. Still less does it prohibit clergy or congregations to advocate on issues, even electorally relevant and controversial ones.
There is nevertheless a sort of folk understanding that it is legally risky for clergy or churches to “take positions” on matters of political controversy or to speak explicitly and directly about the actions of elected officials and candidates. This taboo is the motte to the IRS rule’s bailey. It is cultural rather than legal in origin and motive.
This cultural taboo probably derives from the history of the mainline denominations as established or semi-established churches with a mandate to minister to the whole social order. To take sides and launch stinging critiques was the role of the sect rather than the state church.
Even if this history were no longer a living force in our churches, the 20th century process of assimilation, Americanization, and the growth of a mass culture amid the relatively less-polarized partisan world of the 1950s would make “taking positions” an emotionally difficult task for most predominantly white congregations and denominations that don’t have a long affiliation with the political Right.
In electoral terms, this emotional difficulty is compounded by a two-party, first-past-the-post legislative branch and a strong, tending toward monarchical/autocratic, presidency. It is functionally impossible to render an anti-endorsement without thereby making an endorsement. By contrast, saying “Don’t vote for the National Socialist Party” in 1933 did not thereby necessarily specify whether one should instead vote Center, Social Democratic, Communist etc.
The specific rationale for a no-endorsements rule in the ELCA relates to our group exemption and the need for independence. The actual rationale is likelier to be fear of reaction by membership, key volunteers, and donors.
The fears of IRS reprisal are, however, not absolutely unfounded. The one time I can recall IRS action against a church on Johnson Amendment grounds was in 2005 when an Episcopal church was investigated for what sounded like a rather anodyne sermon critical of the Iraq War on the eve of the 2004 election—a sermon reportedly critical of both candidates that year (the church was ultimately cleared and retained its exemption). The willingness of the federal government under the current administration to engage in reprisals against universities, non-profits, and even law firms for constitutionally-protected speech and advocacy makes the vague and slippery language of the new rule untrustworthy for anyone who remembers this history.
As a matter of faith and doctrine, the question of whether a pastor may rightly make an electoral endorsement or anti-endorsement under such conditions seems to be at worst a matter of discretion and prudence. Christians and their leaders, qua Christians, have “taken sides” in most of the political controversies afflicting the societies in which they live. In hindsight we very often end up regretting or apologizing for the choices they made. I struggle to think of a historical controversy in which, looking back, it has been widely said that Christians should have been neutral.
And even today, pure neutrality is not much more than a useful fiction. A large, probably dominant, segment of American Christianity is rhetorically and operationally aligned with the Republican Party through its institutions and culture industries, even if it observes the fine distinctions of the Johnson Amendment. A smaller segment of American Christianity is broadly aligned with progressive movements and institutions (though less closely aligned with the Democratic Party as such, for reasons worth exploring separately) through its nonprofit and advocacy structures.
Nevertheless, the prudential and discretionary considerations do matter and are not in themselves theologically indifferent. Deliberately polarizing rhetorical choices in worship do not necessarily work as intended. People hold cognitive and moral biases even when they are, broadly, correct on the facts and righteous on the moral issues, and addressing our wrongs as well as our righteousness is a crucial role of the pastor. Speaking about electoral politics, like speaking about anything else, in the pastoral role is subject to the requirements and priorities imposed by the office of ordained ministry and not simply by the exigencies of current controversies. Those requirements and priorities are never reducible to being a good and useful member of an electoral coalition.
One important prudential consideration on the other side of the ledger is whether electoral endorsements “from the pulpit” matter in our current political context. It seems almost certain that they do not, at least in high-profile federal races. This point was mooted last year when the Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris was spiked. People were understandably annoyed at the trespass on editorial independence, but it was the defense of useless ground. No one is waiting to hear what the Washington Post editorial board has to say about how to vote, and vanishingly few people are waiting for their pastor to weigh in to make up their minds, either.
The enormous electoral and policy influence of the “Christian Right” has been amassed largely without the tool of direct and explicit endorsements. Those churches, networks, and media operations have shaped everything from the choice of issues to focus on to the language used to create permission for supporting seemingly un-Christian people and policies. Liberal Christian institutions have smaller, more politically diverse constituencies and are generally inept at that prioritizing, attention-driving, and rhetorical-framing work.
The likeliest short-term effect of signaling non-enforcement of the Johnson Amendment is to create more tax-exempt sluices for campaign funds. This, rather than the non-existent “moral authority” or “prophetic role” of conservative churches being used in explicit endorsements, is what will shape American politics.
The most obvious knock-on effect of turning conservative churches into Republican PACs will be to increase cynicism toward and distrust of churches.
Clergy who serve church bodies that have decided, prudentially and as a matter of discipline and good order, to refrain from electoral endorsements are obligated to abide by those decisions as they are obligated by other consensually-agreed requirements of ministry.
Clergy who can’t or won’t abide by that mutual agreement have the option of resigning their ministry and speaking about politics as a private citizen. Their opinion as private citizens and baptized members of the Body of Christ is no less important than their opinion as pastors. Giving up pastoral ministry to pursue political organizing or advocacy without the burdens of corporate ecclesial responsibility is a perfectly valid choice to make and is not in any sense a “demotion.”
As I mentioned, I don’t know the Rev. Barker and I won’t speculate about his decisions or motives. I’ll just say that while I respect and affirm his decision to accept removal from ministry, the details about the “endorsement” service he went ahead with after ceasing to be on the active roster of the ELCA made me sad. Once you’re not acting as a pastor, you’re just a person playing dress-up. The ambivalent clericalism of my denomination tends to obscure this. We don’t really know what ministry is except “authority,” and we are reluctant to draw any boundary around the role such that we are forbidden, not to do anything at all, but specifically to do anything at all as a pastor. The story of the Episcopal priest who wanted to keep being a priest but to never celebrate the Eucharist because of racism suggested the problem to me. We want our peculiar moral witness to matter in a special way because we are pastors, but it doesn’t. Mattering or being important or making a statement is not something conferred on us by ordination.
I don’t know what my denomination or anyone else should do about clergy endorsements. I am content with my own policy and scruples on this and will continue to adhere to them unless and until circumstances develop to overrule them. Where I am more confident, however, is in saying that whatever “authority” or “power” the pastoral office has today relies to some extent on a clarity and distinction of scope, on it being this but not that. People are asked to trust my proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it will not be easier for them to do that if I am also asking them to trust me with their life insurance or roof gutter needs. I can still sell insurance or roof gutters to my heart’s content, I just have to keep that part of my life distinct. Public controversies are different from life insurance, to be sure, and in certain ways we as clergy have an obligation to speak about matters that endanger the soul and conscience of our society and the lives and welfare of our neighbors. But we should take care not to believe that our sacred role can expand to fit any urgent thing we try to cram into it. People will tend to tune us out or make us into gurus. Neither is what we promised or signed up for.
Reading List
Jon Malesic, writing to college students:
Set yourself up for better focus. Keep your laptop in your bag during class, even when everyone else has theirs out. Get a five-subject notebook, and take notes by hand. This tried-and-true method really works. Write down what seems important. Try to express the lecture content in your own words. When you do, it will become yourknowledge, residing in your brain. Alongside your notes, write down your thoughts and questions. Then raise your hand and voice them. Your classmates will be glad you did; they will be wondering the same things.
It’s striking to realize how anti-humanist had become even before the AI wave really crashed on us in this light (also see Phil Christman on another side of the college-teaching enterprise).
John McWhorter on Springsteen (we just hit the 50th anniversary of Born to Run):
As engrossed as I was, I kept having to remind myself to listen to the music. What grabbed my ear was the lyrics. That had been my mistake all these years — waiting for these songs to be, primarily, songs, as if they were Schubert lieder. For me, Springsteen’s work is poetry with musical accompaniment. Realizing that helped me understand something important about him, but something important about America, too.
Jost Zetzsche on a fascinating Bible translation inventory in The Christian Century:
The 40,000 speakers of Highland Tzeltal in southern Mexico do not have more than one word for “wisdom,” but they make interesting distinctions that illuminate the word in English as well as in Tzeltal. When the language team translated the book of Proverbs, they variously used p’ijil-o’tanil for “heart wisdom,” p’ijil c’op for “word wisdom” (also used for “knowledge”), and p’ijil jol for “head wisdom” (also used for “insight” or “understanding”) for the single Hebrew term in the original text. Highland Tzeltal speakers explore both “heart wisdom” and “head wisdom” in Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of heart wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is head wisdom.” In Proverbs 1:7, Tzeltal speakers can compare head wisdom with word wisdom: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of head wisdom; fools despise word wisdom and instruction.”
Now when I see the English word wisdom (or the Hebrew חָכְמָה) in my Bible reading, I’m deeply thankful for the more granular view Highland Tzeltal has given me, and I wonder how I ever managed to get by without differentiating between the wisdom that can be communicated and studied, the wisdom that presents the accumulation of what has been acquired, and wisdom that points to the spiritual world.
Vivek Maru on carbon projects in Sierra Leone:
In theory, even if mega-plantations and mines wreak havoc on the communities that host them, the projects could generate public revenue which could in turn improve infrastructure and basic services. But in practice Sierra Leone exemplifies what economists call the “natural resource curse.” Resources have left the country; poverty has remained.
Namati, the legal empowerment organization I started alongside Sonkita Conteh, Daniel Sesay, and Bakarr Attawia in 2012, has supported communities to deal with these companies. We've helped people reverse land grabs, seek remedies to unlawful pollution, and negotiate fair deals. We worked on over 300 such cases since 2012; out of that grassroots work grew a movement that envisioned and won one of the most progressive land laws in the world, the Customary Land Rights Act.
Lots of interesting thoughts! My parents were deeply angry when their Lutheran pastor talked about politics from the pulpit during the last election. They thought he should have "stayed in his lane". Regardless of denomination, the clergy are oftentimes seen as just another knowledge worker--my accountant knows about taxes, my stylist knows about hair, my clergyperson knows about God stuff.
I appreciate this essay and while I don’t know Jonathan, I hope he is okay as well. It’s not quite true that he was removed. He was urged not to make the endorsement so he removed himself to make it. Would he have been removed if he had gone ahead and endorsed from the pulpit? We’ll never know.
You lay the issues out very well.