Maintaining Our Prophetic Distance - (also with the politicians)

God has not only called us as His redeemed people to be a "royal priesthood" (I Peter 2:9), functioning as priests to the world, but He has also called us to be His prophetic voice. We are to be His oracle ("mouthpiece") to the world system. The Church is to "speak truth to power."

For the Church to carry out its prophetic role to the earthly seats of political power it must keep its "prophetic distance." I am referring to the loving distance from society that a spokesman of God must maintain in order to be effective. We all know that you cannot speak powerfully and objectively to a man if you desperately need something from him. You will alter your message to please him in order to obtain whatever you need from him, be it money, acceptance, or entrance into the "inner circle of power" for example. To be a true oracle of God, you must maintain prophetic distance. It is the way you must position yourself, apart from society, so you can speak effectively into it.

I am afraid that over the past quarter of a century the evangelical wing of the Church has been lured into the trap of becoming enmeshed with the agenda of the right wing of the U.S. political establishment. As the evangelical author, Stephen Mansfield, stated recently in USA TODAY: "Quickly defined by what they were against rather than the good they hoped to do, evangelicals became increasingly identified as a people of faith-based rage, as haters in the name of Christ. They became more Rush Limbaugh than Billy Graham, more Ayn Rand than the Apostle Paul. They became the Republican Party at prayer."

Now, it is not that I don't understand how this came about. Much of it stems from the awakening among evangelicals concerning the rights of the unborn. Many of us found ourselves in the political arena because of the abortion issue. Since this issue has to a large degree separated the two parties in our nation, we found ourselves choosing sides. Soon other issues began to pop up on our "political radar screen." Gay marriage, prayer in school, and a host of other things became important issues for us. Before we knew it, we had "baptized" the Republican Party. (Let me make a full confession. I am an evangelical and I do not speak as one who has been on the sidelines. I have been associated with the "Christian Right" and have sat in meetings with many of its founding fathers. In addition, I have blessed a few Republican fundraising banquets and worked for their candidates.)

As a consequence, I believe we have lost our prophetic distance, and instead have become the "court prophets," who are quick to put our endorsement on candidates who acknowledge our importance. We have often become the "useful idiots" of those who want to further their hold on political power. Make no mistake about it, power is extremely enticing, and the allurement of political power has drawn men away from seeking first the Kingdom of God. Jesus was confronted with this temptation in the wilderness.

I believe in the separation of the church and state, though not in the way that is commonly understood today, but in this sense; that the church must not seek to be the state, but instead, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., the church must become "the conscience of the state." This is the essence of what it means to be God's prophet to the king. We are called to be Nathan to King David. We must be far enough removed that we can point our finger, not in self righteousness, but as God's spokesman, and say "Thou art the man" (II Sam. 12:7).

Allow me to quote Bennan Manning who, in his book Abba's Child, has called us to maintaining this prophetic distance with these words: "Uncritical acceptance of any party line is an idolatrous abdication of one's core identity as Abba's child. Neither liberal fairy dust nor conservative hardball addresses human dignity, which is often dressed in rags. Abba's children find a third option. They are guided by God's Word and by it alone. All religious and political systems, Right and Left alike, are the work of human beings. Abba's children will not sell their birthright for any mess of pottage, conservative or liberal. They hold fast to their freedom in Christ to live the gospel-uncontaminated by cultural dreck, political flotsam, and the filigreed hypocrisies of bullying religion."

May God give us the grace, as His redeemed community, to maintain our prophetic distance.