Should Clergy Be Culture Warriors?

For Future Generations Podcast
Episode 37 

This take is getting more and more traction and adherence. I suppose I adhere to it also when the proviso “the vast number” is understood. However, I don’t think ideally that this should be the case. It is only needs to be the case because the vast number of Pastors today are just dumb. They may (MAY) own a conservative theological position but if they do they have virtually zero ability to translate that theology into other realms that culture embraces. It should be the case that every pastor is a cultural warrior because every pastor has been trained to think organically and so understands that culture is nothing but theology externalized as poured over a particular people. Alas, the vast number of pastors do not understand this and so the vast number of pastors should not be culture warriors. Truth be told, in my estimation, the inability of a pastor to be a culture warrior probably means in the vast number of cases that he shouldn’t even be in the pulpit.

Look, as a pastor, I am telling you, that there is no way in Hades that one can pastor his flock well and not understand the culture that he and his flock are swimming in. Do people really think that one can pastor a flock well and not understand where the pushback against the culture needs to happen as he and his flock inhabit that culture?

I am appalled at the idea that pastors shouldn’t be able to understand the wickedness (and strengths) of the culture they inhabit so as to war for Christ against the culture, when necessary, for the glory of God and the protection of the sheep.

Again, though, I understand the frustration of the well read laity who themselves are seeking to be culture warriors in their proper place (callings) all the while their idiot pastor is speaking from the pulpit in such a way that it completely undercuts what genuine culture warfare might look like.

Think about it …. do you really want to attend a Church where the pastor doesn’t speak in the name of Christ against Marxism (even Charles Spurgeon did that), against the diminishing of human life, against the Scripture’s clear teaching on immigration issues, against feminine leadership in church and culture, against the dangers of AI and trans-humanism and how they are promissory of a tyranny that would seek to roll God off His throne if not kept in check? There are countless issues that the laity should be informed via the prism of a Scriptural and Christian theological explanation.

What the church needs right now is more pastors who can be cultural warriors… not fewer.

I get it guys, that you’re frustrated by multitudinous bovine-headed clergy but the answer is not to lobby for a clergy that is culturally inert. Let’s keep in mind that throughout our Christian history clergy have been culture warriors. Reformation era and Puritan pastors led the culture warriors. John Calvin for instance created Genevan culture warring against the cultural mess that Geneva was in when he arrived in Geneva. Later history finds  John Owen as Oliver Cromwell’s chaplain. Later still, Pastor Jonas Clark trained the Minutemen and may have fired the shot heard round the world. Later again, Abraham Kuyper was Prime Minister of the Netherlands. We could go on and on citing examples where Pastors fulfilled their calling as Pastors to be cultural warriors.