Pentecostals and Politics: An Update

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.

The nacc: what it is, and how it works

• The question asks what the nacc is, and what it is doing. His answer: the website is nc.org (as the address is heard), so you can go there and get lots of information. It stands for National Apostolic Christian leadership conference. The idea is to bring together the apostolics — United Pentecostals and others of similar faith; we estimate approximately 4 million constituents in the US — to bring them together for common interest and common concerns. So we do not promote political parties or political candidates. But there are things that are very important to us: number one, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and moral values. He can give some important examples of things they're working on: in some cases they're lawsuits, and we are asked to join the lawsuit by presenting what's called a friend of the court brief — amakai curier (as the term is heard), which simply means we write a brief saying we support one side, because of these reasons. So we've joined a number of those, trying to add our voice along with a number of other Christian, conservative Christian groups. The things they're addressing are usually related to some aspect of freedom of religion — some of them are very practical (heard as 'PR iCal') — and some of them are court cases; but also, we're working with legislative issues in states, and also the US Congress: if there's a law that we feel could adversely affect churches, then we're trying to meet with legislators, to explain our position and explain the support that we have.

The current casework

• Here are recent examples. A lawsuit in Indiana, which would say: a child decides they want to be transgender — saying the parents cannot have any say-so in the matter. We're supporting parental rights: the parents have to be involved. Another example is donor privacy, where some states are warning: if you support any kind of moral values or position, they want to be able to disclose all the donors to churches, for example, for the purpose of attacking them, harassing them. Or, just — we have Tupelo Children's Mansion, which operates under all state regulations, but there's legislation that would try to nationalize this, where all homes would have to meet some federal criteria — which means things like homosexual rights, transgender rights: you could no longer have Christian values to be an influence in adoptions or placements, things like that. So we're trying to defend our rights there. Another example, of Christian colleges: there's a lawsuit where the government — right now they say they're not going to enforce it for religious colleges, but you can't really trust a promise like that — tried to pass regulations that colleges would have to again respect homosexual and transgender rights: so a Christian college dorm, if someone says I'm homosexual, they can have a right to continue being the student of the Christian college; or if someone says I'm transgender, I want to go to the opposite-sex dorm and live there, then the college would have to accommodate that. So we're trying to fight against those kinds of legislation. There's another case we're working with that's trying to deny federal income tax exemption for churches — saying churches should not have the right for an exemption. So these are the kind of issues that we are working with — and in some cases we have been successful in dealing with those.

The church's posture: no parties, no imposition — but defense where others are affected

• To the larger issue: he doesn't think the church should support candidates and political parties directly, because we should be open to everyone. We shouldn't send a message that you have to belong to this party, or support this candidate, to be accepted among us. No — we want to be a church for Democrats, Republicans, Independents, all of the above. However, we want to support religious freedom, and we want to support certain moral values. Now, in a pluralistic society, we recognize that you can't impose all biblical values upon secular people. So, for example, in America, a hundred years ago they tried prohibition, to outlaw alcohol — a moral position. Well, that didn't work: it failed; it caused more problems, crime, and so forth. So obviously, in America, adultery is legal, fornication is legal, homosexual behavior is legal, transgenderism is legal. So we're not trying to fight the battle that, say, non-Christians or unbelievers have to follow Christian teachings. We're not trying to impose Christianity upon everyone. However, when it comes to moral values: at what point do you want to defend the life of unborn people? At what point do you want to say: miners (as the word is heard) — it's one thing for an adult to choose a surgery that mutilates part of their body, but should we allow miners, children, to have life-altering, permanent hormonal treatment or surgery that will change their whole life — and should we allow that without the parents even being involved? And so, obviously, we're going to try to defend our values in those contexts, where it affects society, or it affects individuals.

Pray, vote — and the Bible's own people in government

• He made a list of some of the things — and we can't, we don't generally take policy positions, because there are nuances there; so, as a church, we don't. But we encourage our people to get involved. I think everyone should pray for our government — that's biblical. In Bible times, they weren't living under democracy, so they couldn't really vote; but since we are under democracy, I believe it is our responsibility to have influence — and one way we do that is a vote. So I encourage every Christian to register to vote, and to vote, and to vote for people they think will best fulfill these important principles. And no candidate is perfect — that's why we can't necessarily unreservedly support any candidate, because they may say or do things we disagree with. And so, as a church, we have to reserve our influence, to speak with moral clarity regarding any situation: even if it's a candidate that we generally think is doing a good job, if they say or do something contrary to our values, we need to be able to say: that doesn't represent us; we don't agree with that; or, that's not the church. So we have to have enough distance to say that.
• But I think, you know, even in the Bible, we find people getting involved in society, in the sense they could. So, in the Old Testament, we had people like Esther, Daniel, Shadrach, meach, Abednego (the names as heard), Joseph — all involved in high positions in government. In the New Testament, we had Cornelius, a Roman captain; we had, you know, Paul asserted his rights as a Roman citizen, his legal rights as a citizen; you have the Ethiopian unic (as heard), who was a treasurer of his country, which is a pretty notable position. And then also you have an interesting reference: arus (the name as heard) was a church member who held a high political office in Corinth, according to Romans 16:23 — it's variously translated: the NIV says the city's director of public works, or the NLT, the city treasurer. So Christians can have influence, in positions of influence; they can be in government. Well, that would indicate they could also vote; they could support candidates, and so forth.

Scriptures: Romans 16:23

The priority issues

• When it comes to us preaching involvement, and choosing involvement, or choosing who to vote for, here are some of the things he feels would be important issues. Freedoms of religion, speech, press, peaceful assembly: we should support those rights, because they're fundamental human rights — and also we need them in order for the church to function. Civil rights for everyone, every race and ethnicity. Equal justice under the law for everyone, every race and ethnicity. When we are able to have influence, we will support pro-life positions, and we will support our ability to advocate for pro-life — and for our medical personnel to act only in accordance with their conscience, not be forced to violate their own conscience. Protecting the moral stance of churches and Christian institutions (heard once as 'chrisan institution'): so again, orphanages, children's homes, counseling services, churches, schools, universities — we should be able to — we're not trying to impose our morality on secular people, but we want to preserve our ability to live a moral life according to our own teachings, and for our institutions to uphold our own moral teachings. That's important. And therefore we want to appoint judges who will uphold our rights, and uphold the Constitution as originally written. Of course, we're interested in defending our nation against terrorism and state aggression. Supporting the rule of law; supporting law enforcement officers — of course, with accountability; they're not above the law. But the Bible teaches us, in Romans 13, also First Peter chapter 2, that we should be law-abiding citizens and support the rule of law. That doesn't mean every political decision is correct, or every law officer is correct — but the principle of supporting law and order is important for Christians. We support Israel's right to exist — again, that doesn't mean we have to support every Israeli government, or every policy of every Israeli government; but we do support the nation of Israel to exist. Economic freedom and opportunity — including opportunities for minorities, and assistance to the poor. Improving schools and educational choices. Fair and effective immigration policies — that's a big subject. Medical and health insurance reforms. Less government regulation, and more local freedom. Reasonable environmental protections — that's a broad thing. And policies to support marriage and families. So the nacc is not going to deal with all of those — but we are going to particularly focus on things that are important for our religious freedom, and for our churches and other Christian institutions to operate according to our own moral values.

Scriptures: Romans 13; 1 Peter 2

Alliances, prayer — and his own hand in the briefs

• So, as he said in conclusion: we are forging an alliance, to support legal cases, with the alliance defending freedom and other groups, to protect our political rights as Christians — and then also working with legislators, to make sure that our rights are protected in any legislation that's passed, on the state and national levels. And we have seen some success in these endeavors. And it's important for us to pray for our nation, and to support these efforts as we're able. The follow-up question: he mentioned the friend of the court briefs, and many people are aware of his legal training — has he had a hand in helping write some of those? His answer: well, to this point, I haven't actually constructed them. But I am connected to a network, that they will send me cases, and I consult with the leaders of the nacc; we decide which cases we want to make as our priority. So while I don't write them, I do read their briefs, and decide whether we think it's something we want to support or not.

Scripture index: Romans 16:23; Romans 13; 1 Peter 2.