“The thing is, you don’t have to be a “publicly” rightwing pastor, at least regarding politics. Enter the ministry and be a safe haven for right wing laymen who are doing the work. But be mindful that your calling is not to be a safe haven but administer the means of grace unto.”
Dr. Stephen Wolfe
X
“The pastor need only point the people in the right direction. No need to become a right wing voice on politics.”
Anthony Fava
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I would even say you should not be a publicly RW pastor, any more than any other adjective other than faithful. It is a mistake to enter the service of God and His people to “fix” the errors that you see. Get in there, and God will bring you whatever He decides to, and that will keep you busy enough.
Mike Daniels
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1.) I am seeing more and more of this kind of talk on social media sites and of course I mark it as rising due to the influence of baleful Wolfean (Henceforth W2K) thinking. What is a little ironic here is that Wolfe has said that the clergy need to butt out of politics since that is not their bailiwick. However, it doesn’t look like this is a sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander wisdom. It’s not ok for Pastors to speak on politics in the pulpit, per Wolfe, but apparently is ok for Wolfe to speak on the “grace realm” from his perch in the nature realm. Still, 2K thinking is inherently contradictory and hypocritical so I don’t fault Dr. Wolfe overmuch here.
2.) Wolfe’s counsel here could be reduced, distilled, and translated as advising, “You can be right wing just hide your candle under a bushel basket and preach Christianity as fire insurance and distributed the sacraments. Of course Wolfe is reducing Christianity to “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” and “here are the sacraments to remind you of that preached truth.”
3.) After writing volumes on R2K and now seeing more and more of W2K I am concluding that 2K always works to reduce and constrain the Christian faith. R2K has endlessly chirped, “Pastor’s need to stay in their lanes and stay out of economics, politics, history, family life, arts, education, etc.” Now W2K is getting pretty close to holding hands with that sentiment. Of course this reduces the clergy to being bystanders on worldview issues. The clergy, by this vision of ministry, when taken to its logical outcome has no “thus saith the Lord,” on issues such as sodomy, abortion, war, taxation, education, politics, polygamy, post-war consensus, Marxism, immigration, gun control, etc. Indeed, the clergy must shut up about these issues. A cynic might say that Wolfe wants the clergy to shut up on these issues so that his voice become disproportionately louder. However, Scripture speaks to all these issues and it is the role of the clergy to speak all of Christ to all of life.
4.) A small proviso here. I used to think Wolfe was begging for the clergy to shut up on these other issues because they were so uniformly wrong when speaking to these issues. However, with this quote above its pretty clear he doesn’t want even the clergy that might not that he agrees with God on some issues he champions to speak.
6.) Can you imagine trying to sell the swill above to the Black Robed Regiment in the colonies in 1776. Contrary to the quotes above, the Pastor does need to become a Biblical voice on politics and that voice will be necessarily right wing. What… do these folks think God is a leftist? For example Christian clergy in Texas need to be telling their people, from the pulpit, that the God that James Talarico speaks of in his campaign speeches is not the God of the Bible. To fail in doing that is to abandon their post.
7.) None of this means that the pulpit only preaches on these kinds of issue. Redemptive-historical preaching is required. However, it is not the only preaching required. Preaching that focuses God’s people on the third use of the Law also needs to be heard. That is the kind of preaching that would touch on some of the subjects mentioned here.
8.) In the end the quotes above reflect just plain old antinomianism. For the clergy to not lift their voices against the spirit of the age would be treason. At the very least, the few of us remaining right wing clergy need to be a counter-weight to all the left wing clergy as well as to the left-wing R2K clergy.
