Politics In The Pulpit

Summary

So many people have been talking about the Church and politics in America lately, specifically when it comes to what we hear on Sundays. In this episode, Bishop DeDe and Adam Eichelberger discuss the intersection of faith and politics, emphasizing the importance of understanding the difference between politics and partisanship. They explore how Christians can engage in political discussions without alienating others, the role of faith in civic duty, and the need for compassion and humility in polarized conversations. The episode concludes with Bishop DeDe's encouragement to pray, seek understanding, and embody love in all interactions.

Takeaways

-Politics is about how society functions, not just government.
-Partisanship can cloud our understanding of faith-related issues.
-Jesus' teachings guide our approach to political discussions.
-We must engage in politics from a place of love and compassion.
-Avoid conflating political parties with faith-based discussions.
-Listening and understanding are crucial in polarized environments.
-We can disagree without losing our relationships.
-Faith should inform our civic duties and responsibilities.
-Prayer and humility are essential in navigating political discourse.
-We are called to love and forgive, even our enemies.


Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Faith and Politics
05:01 Understanding Politics vs. Partisanship
09:15 Navigating Polarized Conversations
15:00 The Role of Faith in Civic Duty
21:56 Engaging in Public Life as People of Faith
25:53 Final Thoughts on Faith and Politics

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:02.574)
Hello friends, welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. I'm DeDe Duncan-Probe, the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York, Canada to Pennsylvania, Utica to Elmira. I'm asked where Central New York is all the time. Right now, Central New York is where there's snow and some beautiful cold weather. I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger, our Director of Communications. And today we're gonna be speaking about faith and about a topic that I've been hearing a lot about lately.

about how we speak about our faith when it comes to political issues. And so first I want to do a little unpacking of terms because I don't want to jump in and assume that we're saying the same thing when we say the word political. Yes, political does have to do with our government and how our country runs and what policies and what resolutions are put before Congress and our president. All of those things are true and

Politics is really about how our country functions, how our society functions, and at the heart of politics is our human functioning. And so that is how I'm talking about politics, is about how things are for our society as a whole, the body politic. Now that is different, even though it's related to, it's different from partisanship. And partisanship or parties,

are the political action groups that have identities and platforms and candidates and that are arguing for a particular position. Now, as Christians and people of faith, sometimes we conflate those two things and think that if we're talking about policies and talking about human lives, then we're automatically aligning ourselves with a party or platform. And my argument to that,

would be that no, in fact, we are advocating for our faith, that we're talking about those things that are important to us. One of the sort of baselines that I use as a measure is always Jesus. As a follower of Jesus, Jesus is the online for my life, the direction for all of us. And so when we look at Matthew chapter 22, and we look at how Jesus talks about the body politic,

Bishop DeDe (02:27.168)
It gives us some understanding of how we as followers of Jesus might emulate his actions. So in Matthew 22, and I invite you to, if you have a Bible to look at it, if you don't, you don't need it for this podcast, but it might be helpful to read and consider later on. But in Matthew 22, Jesus is confronted by the religious civic leaders of the day, the Pharisees, the Sadducees. There's others there that are probably not mentioned.

And it starts off with, they're trying to trip Jesus up and it says it in the text very clearly. They're trying to trick him so that they can arrest him because he's preaching something that is disturbing the civic landscape. And they're not happy about it. And so they start off with paying taxes. people who follow Jesus pay taxes? And Jesus, if you've read this,

passage takes the coin and says whose image is it? Render to Caesar, what is Caesar's? Render to God, what is God's? And so it sounds like in that exchange Jesus is saying well the politics of the day have nothing to do with people of faith. But if you continue to read the scripture and you don't just sort of isolate that passage, you see then the Sadducees ask Jesus what his stance is about resurrection and there's a whole discourse on that. And then following on that,

There's another questioning and it gets to the point where Jesus says, look.

You are to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And the second commandment is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. And all the law and all the prophets are founded on these two things. That as people of faith, all of these discussions about machinations come down to this fundamental loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. But if we look at it, biblical scholars would tell us,

Bishop DeDe (04:31.106)
that heart, mind, soul, and strength is meant to mean all of us, all that we are, all that we have, the sum total of our life is to be about loving God and responding to God. And then the second commandment, to love our neighbors, ourself. So what does all this have to do with speaking of faith and in this present time? Well, I think it has a lot to do with how we talk in this present time about our faith. One of the things that's been happening lately at my office in Central New York,

is I've been hearing a lot about keep politics out of the pulpit. I've been told that over and over, keep politics out of the pulpit. And you listener may remember a time when you were told, don't talk about politics, money or religion. Well, we followed that directive and it has worked. We cannot talk about politics, money or religion. We've lost the faculties of many ways to have discourse about it.

because it quickly devolves into name calling or partisanship, taking sides, taking position, and we stop having a shared interest in safety or the ability for people to live. In the Diocese of Central New York, I've told many people that preachers are not to ever talk about partisanship. I don't want my clergy or preachers to talk about a party or a platform or a candidate. But I do want...

all of the preachers in central New York to have politics in the pulpit, meaning I want them talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ as it relates to our human condition, the ways in which we love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, the way we love our neighbor as ourselves, that how our society, our body politic functions is to be similar to and like Jesus, whether it's anti-racism,

whether it's honoring the dignity of all LGBTQ plus persons, whether it's honoring women and the sanctity of their bodies, whether it's all of these things that can sound like a partisan platform, but at the heart of them, especially when we talk about things like refugees and immigration, is about the human condition. Most people who hear about immigration and refugees don't actually really know

Bishop DeDe (06:55.32)
the process and what happens and how people come to this country. And so it's important as people of faith that we talk about the love of Jesus, the love of God, and that we bring our faith into the conversation as people of faith, that we preach about Jesus, the salvation of all, of God's grace, of God's compassion and mercy. Now,

I've talked for quite a bit about scripture, Adam, and I don't know, I can kind of get into the weeds with this because I love thinking about how we are and how we speak of our faith. what, I don't know if we have questions for listeners or things that have popped up for you. I'm interested.

Adam Eichelberger (07:22.087)
you

Adam Eichelberger (07:37.799)
So yeah, I do have a question and this one kind of comes from my experience as of late. So the first thing I wanted to ask is this, Bishop. I have some family members who have taken note of some listeners. When you listen to this, we're talking in the first week of February about all these things that are going on in our world. And they recently have noticed that

There was something that happened recently where some politics, as you would say, were discussed from the pulpit. And they were very upset about this. These family members of mine, we have some fundamental differences in our opinions on the role of government and how our faith informs how we work as people and as a community. I'm trying to be very delicate in how I say things.

Bishop DeDe (08:13.112)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Bishop DeDe (08:22.796)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (08:36.243)
and they were very, they seemed very upset about politics or these kinds of things being discussed from the pulpit. So I guess my question for you, Bishop, is in a world that seems to be kind of like increasingly polarized, how can we have and foster these conversations so that they're both faithful and constructive? Because I think that one of the things that maybe you and I or other people may share is

We wanna talk about these things that are so important, so critical to how we function as a society, but we also don't want to alienate folks who may be listeners, who may be hearing what's being said. So how can we have these conversations so that they're both faithful and constructive?

Bishop DeDe (09:15.01)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (09:23.198)
on that's such an important question because I think even in the asking we can hear that we have lost some ability to have those conversations. They feel threatening. I mean, in recent weeks, I don't know if they were referencing, I mean, I don't mind mentioning Bishop Mary Ann Buddy in Washington, is that her see her actual pulpit is the Washington National Cathedral.

In her sermon, a lot of people didn't hear what she said very well. She asked, she invited mercy and then talked about people being afraid. That is a very appropriate approach, invitation, and then to share this is what people are feeling. This is how people are, and to share the truth of people's feelings at this time. Now in a world that's become so polarized and so

dehumanizing, where if we disagree, we, you know, the habit is to talk about those people as if they're less than, or are somehow not as smarter, you faster, happy as we are. To stop ourselves when we feel affronted by it and say, wait, maybe I need to listen to what's being said and not my fear. I think our fear is so elevated to a fever pitch, regardless of what party you're

you're supporting, regardless of whether you're thrilled with President Trump or you're terrified, people are so polarized that any conversation at all becomes an opportunity to react with fear and instant rejection or instant affirmation. so first, I think we have to slow ourselves down. We have to slow down and say, OK, I want to react to not

out of my emotionality, but out of my cognitive ability to discern and my faithfulness, out of my faith. God calls us to prayer. And so to pray about what is said and pray about our feelings and then to talk in ways that are not alienating. It is in a world where alienation can happen just by what tennis shoes you wear. There are moments where we can't avoid that.

Adam Eichelberger (11:39.451)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (11:41.602)
because it's become so divisive. But each of us has an opportunity to listen to new sources other than our own, to rather than listen for what we do and do not agree with and become mired in our positions, to seek out what shared interests do we have. We don't have to like the way someone says something. We don't have to like the way that Bishop Buddy preached.

But we can seek to understand what was compelling her or what is compelling our fear about it. There's also been confusion to name that about whether it's appropriate that from a pulpit someone is named. In our Christian tradition, when someone is ordained or someone is married, when there's a new change and there's a prayer about it, there's often a charge, especially in terms of like with an ordination.

the preacher will give the new ordnance a charge and say, follow Jesus or speak, know, yield to Jesus. When a couple is married, we tend to talk about the three-cord union of with God being part of your marriage and to please, you know, to be, to invite the couple to consider that. So I think first we need to slow down our reactivity, which is very difficult in this heightened histrionic climate.

I think we need to recognize that when we are so quick to jump on a platform or jump on a position, we may lose track of something. I think that also there is to recognize that relationships are much like weaving fabric. It's a metaphor that's been used many times. That's much, it's like weaving fabric together. And if you put too much weight on newly woven fabric, it can rip or tear because it's not strong enough yet.

has to be woven more. And so to stay compassionate with one another. If something is too painful or too triggering for someone, then that may be something we don't discuss. We don't have to agree on everything. But we do want to say, well, here, just because we disagree, let's allow ourselves to have a relationship that's bigger than this topic that really has nothing to do.

Bishop DeDe (14:01.698)
with you or I personally. For most people, a lot of these topics aren't really what's in between them and another person. But the fear of being heard, of not being heard, the fear of being rejected, the fear of being overwhelmed, we really have to pay attention to our fear, to be compassionate about it, to recognize when we're reacting out of fear and to seek a better way.

Adam Eichelberger (14:23.803)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (14:31.205)
And this becomes a really kind of, there's a lot of work, it's a delicate act trying to work through all of this because we as a country very much value the separation of church and state. And I think that, and as you have mentioned in the podcast before, Bishop, that we as a country have kind of gotten this twisted a little bit into saying that these two things aren't allowed to intersect in any way.

Bishop DeDe (14:45.942)
Absolutely.

Bishop DeDe (14:58.946)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (15:00.557)
And it's like you said about a woven fabric, these two things are almost inextricably linked. Our faith, especially as people who profess Jesus, does feed into our civic duty, which again, you've talked about on our podcast before. And it gets hard because these things, then all of, we can kind of get into murky waters. And you talked about it a minute ago about like the partisan nature of things.

Bishop DeDe (15:05.484)
Yes.

Bishop DeDe (15:15.234)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (15:29.585)
coming out and saying things in defense of or propping up a candidate, especially in worship. And we did get a question. The listener didn't leave a name, but they did mention that they recently had attended a service. And this is something they brought up. This is pre-election. And the person who is leading the church service, this is not an Episcopal church, so everybody take a breath. But...

Bishop DeDe (15:39.021)
Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (15:46.37)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (15:52.8)
Mm-hmm. That's right.

Adam Eichelberger (15:55.751)
But the minister, the person who is leading, can't remember if they said minister or pastor, propped up a political candidate as being like divinely chosen. And that this person is doing the will of God. And I think that maybe if you could, Bishop, like how do we navigate when we find ourselves in an environment like a house of worship, we're at a place and we see that all of a sudden

Bishop DeDe (16:06.892)
Wow.

Bishop DeDe (16:12.054)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (16:24.795)
this dialogue or the preaching has gone from like you said, a charge or an exhortation to like, now we're going to point to this very specific person and say, this is the one who's gonna get it done and they're doing it on behalf of God. I think that that could be really, really dangerous if I can say so myself. Can you speak to that a little bit about what do we do when we find ourselves in those situations?

Bishop DeDe (16:34.926)
Absolutely.

Bishop DeDe (16:38.999)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (16:48.086)
Well, absolutely. mean, again, I think for me, I look at the scriptures and, you know, when Jesus is preaching, Jesus, people are offended by what Jesus says. And, and my faith is that Jesus is the son of God. And so when we're offended by what Jesus says, the first thing we need to do is to see if there's something we need to repent of. I mean,

A lot of times when you think about Jesus on the road to Emmaus with the travelers and Jesus starts talking about scripture to them and at the end of it says, you know, our heart burned within us when he was speaking. Sometimes what burns within us is a recognition that we may be just wrong and we may need to repent because we've gotten so mired in partisanship or so mired in a way of seeing things.

whether it's Christian nationalism or racism or just the way we were brought up, this is just how it was supposed to be and what do you mean this is wrong? We can get reactive because it feels so threatening and sometimes that may not be that it's threatening, it may be that we're feeling convicted and I think a formational process and this is something I think in future podcasts we'll kind of delve into more and more is how can you tell when

when there's something where it's righteous indignation, or when it's actually you're feeling convicted, how do we parse that out? Because again, in our society and in our church, we took a hiatus for quite a long time now of really talking about things with mutuality, either you're in or you're out. We got kind of mired in taking positions. And so now to talk about things from a place of point of interest.

Adam Eichelberger (18:12.071)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (18:35.618)
can feel so threatening and as if we're not being good people of faith. mean, just this morning, and this does date this podcast a little, was the prayer breakfast. And the president talked about the need to bring Jesus back into our God into our lives and talked about a new task force kind of thing. There's a lot of sort of bells and whistles that go off about the separation of church and state, about sort of having a watchdog thing, and I don't know if that's what he meant, or,

On the other hand, there's some really positive about saying, yeah, let's not forget that our faith is very important to people in this society, whether you're Christian or Jewish or Muslim, that our faith informs how we see truth. And so it's a complicated time if we keep reacting so strongly and don't stop and say, what is our shared interest?

What is it that we really want? I think we want a safe society. We want there to be the ability to thrive. We want our children to be able to get jobs and have positive futures. And so when we can see those shared interests in light of loving God with all we are and loving our neighbors, ourself, I think we step a little bit closer to how Jesus is teaching. And then to recognize that sometimes there are those places.

where we're just not gonna agree on stuff. And to allow that to be kind of okay. I don't have to agree with my neighbor on a candidate or a partisan platform to be a good neighbor. We can disagree and still bring each other a cup of coffee and sit on the porch and chat. We can still have commonalities where we still love watching Ted Lasso.

or whatever the latest television show is. We don't have to agree. And to allow some space to step back from the fear of disagreement. For too long, we've seen disagreement as significant threat to safety. It may be that both of us see parts of a good and both have good intentions, but don't agree on something. And so to allow ourselves

Bishop DeDe (20:56.546)
to have compassion for each other, to certainly set a boundary and say, look, I don't want you calling me names anymore. I don't want to be denigrated. I also am not going to call you names anymore, but we're going to agree to disagree, talk about our disagreement, and practice not becoming histrionic. Practice not either avoiding it altogether, which has not worked in the last few decades, or

Adam Eichelberger (21:15.963)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (21:24.044)
becoming coercive and you have to agree with me or then we can't have a relationship. We've gotten into these divisions that are so counterproductive in our ability to function as people of faith.

Adam Eichelberger (21:39.367)
And I think too, when we find ourselves in spaces where all of a sudden it doesn't feel like what's being said is safe, not in the sense that it's convicting us, but like we're hearing something that maybe speaks against what Jesus is asking of us as followers. And this is me speaking very specifically to us as Christians. Like it's okay to kind of be like, I'm going to maybe hit pause. I'm going to take this to somebody I trust and help unpack this.

Bishop DeDe (21:56.984)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (22:05.454)
Right. Right.

Adam Eichelberger (22:06.885)
You know, like if you're in a church service and all of sudden somebody is propping up this certain person as like a demagogue or something like that, like, okay, we need to take a minute and reel it in and maybe talk to somebody we trust. The last question I have for you, Bishop, is not one that was submitted, but I think that you and I can agree that, well, I'm going to ask in a second, but this is something you and I have both heard a lot over recent weeks, both from clergy and from lay leaders, specifically in our diocese, in our space in the Episcopal Church.

Bishop DeDe (22:15.054)
All right.

Bishop DeDe (22:29.55)
and

Adam Eichelberger (22:36.135)
But I think this is something that's kind of applicable to anybody who is involved in the work of the church, no matter what your denomination may be. Are there specific ways that we, as both clergy and lay people, can engage in public life while remaining true to the church's mission?

Bishop DeDe (22:59.022)
It's such a good question. And I think each listener in your own heart, you're going to have to find your kind of balance with that to never forget that we are to conform ourselves to the gospel, not to conform the gospel to ourselves. And so first and foremost, we need to pay attention to where the sort of the

the borders are of possibility. But I think secondly, the ways in which we sort of navigate that land is when we feel, when we feel the stable, like there are some things that are just not negotiable. With a baptismal covenant, we talk about the dignity of all people. So if someone is denigrating transgender people, not negotiable. It's a full stop, don't get to do it.

You can feel deep feelings about the world and about policies and about how things should be handled. But when it comes to the dignity of humans, alarm bells should go off because we've gone across a barrier. If we're talking about refugees and immigrants, scripture gives us no ability to just want to send them all away. That isn't in our playbook.

Adam Eichelberger (24:20.198)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (24:21.63)
that's across a border. So sometimes we have to recognize that there are things that are out of bounds. Just like in a baseball game, there are things when the ball goes out of bounds. And when someone says something, we're like, okay, so for me, that crossed a boundary. I don't wanna, I can't be part of that. But I think each of us has to navigate that with our own conscience. And it can be very difficult to do. We're tricky people.

I mean, a lot of times we can really convince ourselves of all kinds of things. And then I think we've all had the experience. We've thought something just with all our heart, we thought something and later on we learned new information and realized how wrong we were. I think when we, if we can to start from a place of repentance, we're not God. There's one God, God loves us and is in control and guiding us.

Adam Eichelberger (24:49.735)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (25:17.992)
Our call is not to to arbit all truth. Our call is to attune our hearts to God's truth. Our call is to be God's people seeking God's ways. And so to stay in that frame of learning and listening and seeking God and having hearts that desire God above all else, I think that will help us in this time when

The temptation is to get caught up in things outside of God.

Adam Eichelberger (25:53.575)
That's really good. So Bishop, when it comes to politics and the pulpit, what are some of your, what are some of your kind of like final thoughts for those of us who are seeing what's going on in our country and in our community and, we obviously have concerns or we obviously have questions. What are your final thoughts for us on this?

Bishop DeDe (26:17.358)
Well, pray, you know, pray a lot. I think we need to pray for each other. Curiosity and humility, as I say it all the time, need to make a comeback. To be curious before we're offended, to ask questions before we're offended, to ask ourselves if we're willing to be wrong here, to not believe everything we think. We may be wrong about some things. We may be right about some things, but to...

Adam Eichelberger (26:19.751)
Mm.

Bishop DeDe (26:45.816)
to God be the glory literally. And so for those who are preaching, if you feel inspired to say something that you're afraid of the reception, then I think there's sometimes power in naming that saying, you know, I really felt inspired by this, but when I felt inspired to preach this, I wasn't sure how y'all would feel about it. So I wanna say this is a safe space for us to explore it together and not have this theological idea become a wedge between our relationship.

because we love each other, to preach from a place of curiosity, but especially invitation. We're not preaching from a place of you're a sinner and you need to repent. We're preaching from a place of we're all sinners and God calls us to repentance. And so together we can be the body of Christ that as Paul says, incites one another to good works, that where there's correction for one another, but from God.

not from our opinions. And most of all, that when we find ourselves mired in positions or partisanship, to look up and realize that God loves us, God commands us to love our enemies. Imagine that. God calls us to pray for our enemies, the people who wish us harm, to seek there what is best for them. The Christian life is a hard, disciplined endeavor.

And so to be patient with ourselves and one another as we walk this path. So dear listener, this may have raised all kinds of questions and concerns for you. I invite you to respond with questions and further topics on this. I think it's going to take us a little bit to unpack all that is about what's happening in the world today. But my prayer for all of us is that we will remember that we are called to love.

We're called to forgiveness and we're called to repentance. May we seek to be humble and may we seek to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves in this time when so much is swirling around. Know that you are loved, that God loves you. May you be blessed, be a blessing and we'll speak soon.