by David Robertson on substack
A Response to a Common Criticism
The lady was quite insistent on speaking to me. She wanted to tell me what was wrong with my sermon. “I was going along fine until you brought politics into it, and then I switched off.” “What politics did I bring?” “When you started speaking about gender issues.” We had been looking at Psalm 12 and talking about how there is no one who speaks truth, and how in today’s society we are increasingly living by lies. As well as mentioning the lies told in the church, I’d spoken of the lies told in the society, and given five examples of each. One of these is the lie that you can change gender, and that gender is mutable, purely a social construct. I referenced the upcoming census in which that is taught, but it is a lie, and it is a harmful lie.
Was I bringing politics into the pulpit? And should I have avoided doing so? There is a real difficulty here. The world has changed. In the old world, the world in which many of us grew up, what we meant by politics was party politics. And in most of the Western world, except for the USA, the answer has always been given in Reformed churches, “No. We are not a political organization. We do not advocate for one political party.” Any minister who preached politics from his pulpit rather than preach Christ and His Word would be neglecting his duty, and indeed, in my view, should be subject to admonishment, rebuke, and even discipline. The pulpit is not a place for us to express our own opinions or our own politics. We are there to proclaim the Word of God.
In the old world, you could often go to a church and have no idea how the minister voted. Our church in Dundee, St. Peter’s, was used as a polling station, I remember one classic election when I went outside, and at the entrance, as they were allowed to be, there were banners, posters, and people encouraging people to vote for their particular party. As it happened, two of the campaigners were from my congregation. I thought it quite amusing that the Conservative person thought I would be voting for them, and the Labor person thought I’d be voting for them.
The question here is not party politics, but what happens if the world has changed? We no longer live in the old world. What happens when everything becomes political? What happens when the government begins to tell us what is right and wrong, and what is good and evil? There is going to be an inevitable clash when you preach the scriptures. In this Brave New World, it is impossible for the faithful minister not to be accused of preaching politics. If teaching what Christ taught about marriage, or men and women, is politics – so be it. Preach it brother!