On Tuesday, June 26, 2018, 56%+ of Oklahoma voters approved State Question No. 788 which legalized the licensed use, sale, and growth of marijuana in Oklahoma. Although described as allowing marijuana to be used for medical purposes, it is being called the most liberal state law in the nation in legalizing marijuana and is effectively an open door for recreational marijuana usage.
According to one news report, approval by the voters occurred in spite of intense opposition from Oklahoma politicians, law enforcement officials, and churches. There was intense political opposition to the proposed law from such people as U.S. Senator James Langford and from law enforcement personnel who deal with the consequences of the drug crisis every day of the week. Although there were officials from the heads of various Oklahoma denominations including the Assemblies of God, various Baptist denominations, and the Catholic Church that spoke out against State Question 788, it is very apparent that concerted opposition to the new marijuana law did not come from the rank and file pastors and congregations within those Oklahoma churches.
The fallout from this horrible law will be enormous as families are damaged or destroyed as well as the loss of many innocent lives on the state’s highways. The substantial margin of approval of State Question No. 788 is unequivocal evidence that the great majority of evangelical pastors and congregations were silent about their opposition if not secretly supportive of the law legalizing marijuana in Oklahoma.
When did the day arrive that Christian pastors and other Christian leadership no longer stand up in the church and in the community to speak God’s truth without worrying that secular listeners (and many congregation members) may not agree with even our most basic Christian beliefs?
For decades the American Evangelical church has been silent not only in the public square but in the churches themselves about societal, moral, and political issues. The truth of this observation is confirmed by an article from Christian News in August 2014 which reported the results of a survey conducted by George Barna.
Barna’s organization asked pastors across the country about their beliefs regarding the relevancy of Scripture to societal, moral and political issues, and the content of their sermons in light of their beliefs.
“What we’re finding is that when we ask them about all the key issues of the day, [90 percent of them are] telling us, ‘Yes, the Bible speaks to every one of these issues,’” Barna explained. “Then we ask them: ‘Well, are you teaching your people what the Bible says about those issues?’ and the numbers drop…to less than 10 percent of pastors who say they will speak to it.”
Barna’s group also polled pastors about what factors they use to gauge whether or not a church is successful. “There are five factors that the vast majority of pastors turn to…Attendance, giving, number of programs, number of staff, and square footage. What I’m suggesting is [those pastors] won’t probably get involved in politics because it’s very controversial. Controversy keeps people from being in the seats, controversy keeps people from giving money, from attending programs,” Barna said.[1]
Pastor Chuck Baldwin, a radio broadcaster and former presidential candidate, wrote about the results of the Barna survey in an article titled “Odds Are that Your Pastor is Keeping the Truth from You Instead of Preaching It.” Baldwin said that Barna’s research shows that most pastors deliberately refrain from speaking on the issues of the day even when they understand that Bible plainly addresses these social, moral, and political issues.
“That 90% of America’s pastors are not addressing any of the salient issues affecting Christian people’s political or societal lives should surprise no one,” Baldwin wrote. “It has been decades since even a sizable minority of pastors have bothered to educate and inform their congregations as to the Biblical principles relating to America’s political, cultural, and societal lives.”
“Please understand this: America’s malaise is directly due to the deliberate disobedience of America’s pastors—and the willingness of the Christians in the pews to tolerate the disobedience of their pastor. Nothing more! Nothing less!” Baldwin continued. “When Paul wrote his own epitaph, it read, ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.’ (II Timothy 4:7) He didn’t say, ‘I had a large congregation, we had big offerings, we had a lot of programs, I had a large staff, and we had large facilities.’”
“It is time for Christians to acknowledge that these ministers are not pastors; they are CEOs. They are not Bible teachers; they are performers. They are not shepherds; they are hirelings,” he said. “It is also time for Christians to be honest with themselves: do they want a pastor who desires to be faithful to the Scriptures, or do they want a pastor who is simply trying to be ‘successful?’”[2]
These articles were written four years ago. Given that the evangelical church continues to be powerless and weak-kneed in defending the faith in the culture, I can’t help but feel the results of a new Barna’s survey would be even worse as the morality of American culture continues to spiral downward and anti-Christian sentiment grows.
The Bible is very explicit about a Christian’s duty to warn the transgressor.
When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself. [Ezekiel 3:18-19. NIV]
Donald Stamps wrote about these two verses in his commentary, “Those who fail to warn the unfaithful will themselves be accountable to God for people’s spiritual destruction.”[3]
When pastors and other church leaders are silent, they erroneously separate the gospel from the kingdom and culture, whether intentional or not. When Pastors and other church leaders remain silent, we have left the nation’s culture to be framed without the influence of a biblical pattern, and whatever area the church does not influence will soon try to destroy the church. Put in modern terms, speaking warnings to the people is not about winning but being obedient to God for the victory is His. Christians are called to the battle regardless of the outcome of the battle while on this earth.
There are no neutral places where Christianity and the world can peacefully co-exist amidst the raging culture wars. Yet, many churches seek to cultivate great reputations and be highly esteemed in the community because they erroneously believe they will be a more effective influence for Christ. But most of the time the price of this nebulous influence and esteem is compromise and accommodation. Writing six decades ago, A. W. Tozer describes the eventual outcome of this style of seeking influence and esteem in the community.
The Christian faith, based upon the New Testament, teaches the complete antithesis between the Church and the world…It is no more than a religious platitude to say that the trouble with us today is that we have tried to bridge the gulf between two opposites, the world and the Church, and have performed an illicit marriage for which there is no biblical authority. Actually, there is no real union…When the Church joins up with the world it is the true Church no longer but only a pitiful hybrid thing, an object of smiling contempt to the world and an abomination to the Lord…
Christianity is so entangled with the spirit of the world that millions never guess how radically they have missed the New Testament pattern. Compromise is everywhere. The world is whitewashed just enough to pass inspection by blind men posing as believers, and those same believers are everlastingly seeking to gain acceptance with the world. By mutual concessions men who call themselves Christians manage to get on with men who have for the things of God nothing but contempt.[4]
Without question it is easier to keep silent and avoid controversy, but there is a price to pay for being silent just as there is a price to pay when one speaks out. Silence is complicity and complicity is the path of the coward. Pastors, church boards, and other church leadership who are silent about social, moral, and political issues of the day speak volumes to people both inside and outside the church because people will think the church has nothing to say about life beyond the church doors. Jesus was never silent but stood up to the Pharisees (whom he called a brood of vipers), the government, and even his own disciples.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and martyr for the faith during World War II and was executed in April 1945 on the direct order of Adolph Hitler. Bonhoeffer knew well the cost of silence in the church when faced with evil in the public square. He called it what it was…sin.
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil, God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.[5]
We have been silent witness of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretense; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open…Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?[6]
So where does the evangelical church in Oklahoma and across America go from here? A good place to begin would be the upcoming election season which culminates in the first week of November, and this includes the primary run-off elections to be decided over the next several weeks.
In today’s pervasive culture wars, every political race is critical from the national level down to the local community including school boards and city governments. On the national level, it appears that Christians have an opportunity to have one or two more Constitutional originalists nominated to the Supreme Court if conservatives hold the Senate. These nominees will largely decide the course of the nation over the next several decades.
The first step for church leaders is to gather and disseminate information about upcoming elections, candidates, and issues. Find out about the candidates backgrounds and beliefs, talk about the issues, and encourage people to vote their Christian values. Forget about who might be offended. Speak the truth. These actions must not be confined to just a bland one-Sunday announcement from the pulpit a week before the election. Rather, it must be a constant flow of information to the congregation and reminder of the importance of the elections. These efforts and actions should start immediately with the primary runoff elections and should start 60 to 90 days prior to the general election in November (late August or early September).
But church leaders’ efforts to educate their congregations about social, moral, and political issues of the times and to encourage them to speak and act accordingly within the culture do not end in November 2018. It must be an ongoing effort in which every church leader and congregation member become watchmen on the wall.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] Heather Clark, “Study Reveals Most American Pastors Silent on Current Issues, Christian News, August 12, 2014. https://christiannews.net/2014/08/12/study-reveals-most-american-pastors-silent-on-current-issues-despite-biblical-beliefs (accessed June 27, 2018).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Donald Stamps, Commentary – Ezekiel 3:18-19, Fire Bible – Global Study Edition, New International Version,
Gen. Ed. Donald C. Stamps, (Springfield, Missouri: Life Publishers, 2009), p. 1397.
[4] A. W. Tozer, God’s Pursuit of Man, (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: WingSpread Publishers, 1950, 1978), pp. 115-116.
[5] “20 Influential Quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” Crosswalk.com. https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/inspiring-quotes/20-influential-quotes-by-dietrich-bonhoeffer.html (accessed June 29, 2018).
[6] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Letters and Papers from Prison Quotes,” goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1153999-widerstand-und-ergebung-briefe-und-aufzeichnungen-aus-der-haft (accessed June 29, 2018).
