How to Pastor a Church Through an Election Season

Over the last few weeks, a series of high-profile moments—the presidential debate, the removal of pro-life language from the Republican party platform, the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump, and the switch of current president Joe Biden for vice president Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket—has heated up a previously ho-hum election race.

“Even for church leaders who want to keep up with current events and guide Christian engagement, the pace of this election season is overwhelming,” said Collin Hansen, The Gospel Coalition’s vice president of content and editor in chief.

It can seem like the country is splitting apart in multiple directions—by gender, by geography, by age.

Pastoring faithfully in this context can feel “like the scene in Spider-Man Homecoming when he’s holding together the ferry that’s splitting in half,” said McLean Presbyterian Church pastor Ryan Laughlin.

So what’s a pastor supposed to do? TGC asked several pastors of established churches in Washington, DC, for their best advice on how to approach politics in light of the gospel.

1. Preach the Bible and help people apply it.

About 1,500 years ago, when Rome was collapsing and refugees were pouring into North Africa, Augustine didn’t preach politics. He focused on expositing the Word week to week instead of reacting to that day’s controversies.

Most of the time, pastors don’t need to say anything specific from the pulpit other than what’s next in their preaching plan. The difficulty is deciding when to comment on current events or issues. Several DC-area pastors said preachers might be surprised by how often preaching through the Bible will naturally bring you into contact with modern cultural issues.

Handle them carefully, said Glenn Hoburg, founding pastor of Grace Downtown Church. “A pastor can make two errors here—ignore the topic or pretend he’s an expert on policy.”

That’s because policies are always a lot more complex than a headline or media sound bite can convey and because DC pastors nearly always have someone in their congregation who knows more about the bills than they do.

Policies are always a lot more complex than a headline or media sound bite can convey.

“Once you’ve been schooled by them once or twice, you think again,” Hoburg said. Instead, he focuses on preaching biblical principles and letting his congregation work out their application.

“I remember a member saying it was part of their job to research opponents during the election cycle and to dig up dirt on them,” he said. “As a Christian, they were struggling with where the line was. My sympathy has grown for people who work in this area. It’s very complex.”

After a sermon on the good Samaritan, a member at McLean asked Laughlin how he could show love to a political opponent who was attacking him in the media.

“We talked about what he might and might not say on social media,” Laughlin said. “You can be someone of conviction but also show a level of charity and restrain from dehumanizing people.”

Sometimes, you can figure out a way forward. But sometimes, you can’t.

At several DC churches, people who’d been training to work in political administration, or who’d been working for certain politicians, couldn’t in good conscience continue the work. They’ve had to look for jobs elsewhere.

2. Find healthy unity through a proper theology of the conscience.

In a polarizing country, political unity seems increasingly impossible without uniformity. Denomination and church splits can send the same message: unless we agree on everything, we can’t be together. Over the last few years, churchgoers have increasingly reported worshiping with people who share their political views.

But only 44 percent of evangelicals said they prefer a politically homogenous church, compared to 54 percent of nonevangelicals. And just 6 percent of evangelicals in 2017 said they’d strongly consider leaving a church that expressed political views different from theirs, compared to 13 percent of nonevangelicals.

So pastors need to articulate a way for Christians to be together without being the same.

“The doctrine of bearing God’s image is fundamental to what it means to be human and live alongside others who may or may not agree with you,” Laughlin said. “We need to get more mileage out of that.”

If everyone, even a non-Christian, in some way bears God’s image and is capable through common grace of right actions or discovering truth, then Christians should be both careful and charitable in dealing with others (Matt. 10:16).

When dealing with each other, Christians can think in terms of conscience, several pastors said. While there are primary issues that Christians should agree on—such as justification by faith alone, Scripture’s authority, or the Trinity—there are also secondary and tertiary issues where there’s room for disagreement.

In the same way, loving your neighbor is a direct command of Scripture that all Christians should agree on, Laughlin said. But it’s not always clear how that informs, say, immigration policy.

In Good and Bad Ways to Think About Religion and Politics, Robert Benne uses the terms “straight-line” and “jagged-line” issues. For example, a straight-line issue would be a ballot measure to make abortion illegal. In that case, it’d be easy to draw a line from the Bible—“Do not murder”—and know how to vote.

A jagged line issue is trickier—something like a ballot measure to restrict abortion after 12 weeks. Christians could either vote against it, reasoning that it would allow too many deaths, or vote for it, reasoning that some restrictions are better than none.

Emphasizing the conscience can make room in the church for healthy conversations around different points of view. Over the years, pastors in DC have tried various ways to do this.

“In a previous election cycle, we brought in different speakers each week to address different topics,” Laughlin said. “The speakers were excellent, but the format didn’t always lend itself to a balanced conversation.”

If he did it again, he’d probably opt for a panel.

Panels have worked well at Grace Downtown, Hoburg said. They’ve also hosted classes and cohorts created by two church members.

One caveat: When considering different points of view, guard against assuming the right way is somewhere in the middle. While it’s tempting to be centrist, that allows the left and right to define biblical morality. Instead, seek the Bible’s guidance. When your congregation does that together, it can be a beautiful witness.

“We don’t establish that unity—it’s based on the Trinity, and has to be taken with all seriousness,” Hoburg said. “Jesus made it clear our love and unity becomes the way we are salt and light in the world.”

3. Encourage political vocations that are submitted to Christ.

“The Reformed understanding is that the state is a God-established sphere, a place where the just will of God is enforced and common good is guarded,” Hoburg said. “It needs to be affirmed as a good and necessary thing.”

Doing that can guard us from cynicism or dismissing other people’s passions, he said.

Emphasizing the conscience can make room in the church for healthy conversations around different points of view.

“Earlier on in my ministry, I didn’t acknowledge that enough,” he said. “I saw the ugly side of politics—I almost went to ‘Repent of your idols because you’re too passionate.’ But people that come to DC don’t just make a wrong turn and end up here. They come here for a purpose because they care about some issue.”

Instead of shutting down someone’s zeal, he said, pastors can keep politics in perspective by pointing people to an even greater love—Christ and his church.

That’s already happening.

“I get it,” Laughlin said. “DC can seem like a mess from the outside. But one of the privileges of serving as a pastor here is knowing so many really earnest Christians care deeply about the country; hold their views with humility; are incredibly thoughtful, biblical thinkers; and are giving time, energy, and talent to work in our nation’s capital.”

There are more than 60 churches in the TGC directory within 10 miles of Washington, DC.

“It’s hard not to be encouraged when you see that,” he said. “I’m grateful, excited, and encouraged that they are able, with wisdom and good counsel and the Holy Spirit, to be an ambassador for Christ in this time and place.”

4. Encourage local political engagement, even if you live in DC.

The best tip DC pastors have for healthy political engagement is to look for real needs in your neighborhood or town—even if that’s the nation’s capital. Hoburg encourages people to “work at a food pantry or pregnancy center, or get on city council.”

Taking action can blunt the frustration of living in a broken system—it feels better to organize a coat drive for the homeless or a diaper drive for a pregnancy center than to read social media posts or watch the news.

And stepping into various situations—a public school, an immigration office, a food pantry—can help people to understand the motivations of those on the other side, even if they don’t agree with them, Hoburg said.

“If you are interacting with a person who disagrees with you, but you like that person or see he or she is a believer, that helps lower the anxiety,” Laughlin said.

Those situations give Christians an opportunity to put biblical ethics into practice, he said. “For example, if you’re on the local school board and talking about curricula you think is wrong, you can speak clearly but not in a dehumanizing way,” he said. “We can talk about patience or longsuffering, but working alongside someone you disagree with forces you to figure out how to do it.”

Taking action can blunt the frustration of living in a broken system.

Hoburg agrees.

“You have to have Spirit-led maturity to sit with someone with whom you disagree and not be driven crazy by it,” he said. “When your heart is beating and your blood pressure goes up, you can calm down by telling the gospel to yourself.”

5. Pray for leaders in power, even if you don’t like them.

Several DC-area churches pray publicly for the president every week. For some visitors, that can be hard to hear—it might seem like the congregation is waving a certain political flag.

But praying for your leaders is consistent with Scripture (1 Tim. 2:1–4). It also disciples the congregation in how to pray for one’s leaders and, sometimes, one’s enemies.

Willingness to pray can also be a diagnostic of your heart: Can you pray for your enemies? Can you ask the Lord to save them, heal them, bless them?

6. Trust in God’s sovereignty when things don’t go your way.

Hoburg has other diagnostic questions: Where does your sense of security come from? Does powerlessness in the political sphere scare you? If so, why?

“As I preach and teach and shepherd, I’m trying to get to our deeper anxieties because those are tied to our hopes and our idolatries,” he said. “What are you fearful about? Where is your hope? What is your anchor?”

Those can be difficult questions for people who may lose their jobs or have to move if their candidate doesn’t win. They may even be tough for those whose lives are less immediately affected. One tip: Remind them God is sovereign and that he’s good. If that’s cold comfort, try asking them to talk to their kids about the sovereignty and goodness of God.

Sometimes translating and applying theology can be a helpful way to remember it’s true.

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