What if church were a place where faith and politics could meet?

Do you know this old story? “An elderly gentleman was sitting on a park bench, basking in the sun, when another elderly fellow sat down. They looked at each other for a moment, but did not speak. Both men sat there, staring straight ahead. After a while, one of them heaved a big, heartfelt sigh. The other jumped up immediately and said, ‘If you're going to talk politics, I'm leaving.’"   (Found in Bits & Pieces, June 24, 1993, p. 7)

Growing up in the Southern regions of this great country, I was taught that “religion and politics don’t mix!”  I found this to be an ironic statement, because my community (and, especially my family) was both very religious and very political, and there was a lot of mixing going on.  I soon realized that this ironic statement was applied in the church in two ways: first, as a way to squelch the theological discourse concerning the intersection of faith and politics in our society; and, two, as way to remind the church that our discourse should be nonpartisan or, at least, bipartisan.  Of course, the first application is simply unhealthy, and the second is just good, common sense. The Christian church, from its inception, applied the message and mission of the Kingdom of God to a hurting world. After all, Jesus was arguably the most influential religious and political figure of his day, modeling for his disciples, as he still does for us today, the relation between personal faith and social justice in all of life (religious, political, economic, and so on).

In the forward of Adam Hamilton’s book, Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White: Thoughts on Religion, Morality, and Politics, the Rev. Jim Wallis writes: “The people I meet across the country are yearning for what I call a ‘moral center’ to our public life and political discourse, with a fundamental emphasis on the common good. … They want to actually respond to the moral choices and challenges that lie just beneath our political debates. They don’t want to just go ‘left’ or ‘right,’ but deeper. Seeking to find the moral ground on which a new consensus can be built and better decisions made is much more appealing than a weak and soulless centrism. More and more people want to see a new common-good-politics and bridge-building church. The moral center appeals to the center of people’s lives, which current political and religious options often do not. What are the real and practical issues that affect people’s daily experience and relate to what is actually going on in their everyday decisions, challenges, and choices? It’s time to create a new spiritual and political language, from a moral center, that focuses on the pressing moral questions we face today. “(pp. ix-x)

Rev. Hamilton, who is the pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, proposes a new religious and political position that he calls the “radical center,” attempting to heal the bitter debates raging in many of our nation’s churches. In our fall book study, we will consider Hamilton’s position of the “radical center” as we continue to “ReThink Church” and live into the purpose statement of FUMC: creating a loving community of faith that expresses itself through both personal spirituality and social responsibility.

In God’s love,

Greg Bergquist