Politics in the Pulpit: How an Ancient Preacher Can Guide Us through Modern Political Crisis

By Eric Ayala

Our nation is becoming ever more politicized. Everything from the environment to human gender have become political issues. While the old sentiment of not preaching politics from the pulpit may have once been good advice, it is increasingly more difficult not to. The problem preachers have is knowing how to wade through political issues without becoming a political pundit. A preacher can end up either merely repeating party talking points, or retreating into avoiding biblical topics to avoid dealing with political hot button issues.
Thankfully, our age is not the only one to have ever suffered political crises and we can learn from the preachers of the past. One such preacher was John Chrysostom. He was not just a preacher, but also a man steeped in a sensitive political climate. Through the work of a dedicated sermon series, Chrysostom was able to calm tensions in a city who had rioted and destroyed statues of the emperor. These Homilies on the Statues proved to be a pivotal and powerful example of political preaching. By examining the homiletical methods of John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Statues we can learn how to responsibly and powerfully engaging political topics in our own day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: May 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666766660

Eric Ayala

Eric Ayala is a pastor, healthcare chaplain, and seminary professor. He earned degrees from Moody Bible Institute, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Anderson University. He holds professional certifications in spiritual care, palliative care, and end-of-life support. He has also served in homelessness recovery ministry, spiritual counseling, traumatic crisis support, and ethics committees for healthcare organizations. He is married and has five children. He enjoys music, engaging conversation, and good food.

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Politics in the Pulpit

How an Ancient Preacher Can Guide Us through Modern Political Crisis

Eric Ayala

Politics in the Pulpit

How an Ancient Preacher Can Guide Us through Modern Political Crisis

Copyright ©

2023

Eric Ayala. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-6664-6

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Preaching in Political Crisis and John Chrysostom

Chapter 2: An Historical Look at the Events Surrounding the Homilies on the Statues

Chapter 3: An Examination of John Chrysostom’s Preaching Philosophy and Theology of Christ and Culture

Chapter 4: An Examination of the Homilies on the Statues

Chapter 5: Principles Derived from the Homilies on the Statues that Can Aid Modern Preaching in Political Crises

Chapter 6: Conclusion

Bibliography

chapter one

An Introduction to Preaching in Political Crisis and John Chrysostom

O

ur nation is becoming

ever more politicized as our cultural climate shifts and changes. Everything from the environment to human gender have now become political issues. While the old sentiment of not preaching politics from the pulpit may have once been good advice, it is increasingly becoming harder to avoid. The problem is figuring out how a preacher may wade through political issues without becoming merely a political pundit. A preacher can end up either becoming a tool for party talking points or retreat into avoiding biblical topics so as not to deal with political hot button issues.

The mixture of politics with preaching is a minefield that many desire to avoid, for the history of mixing civil power and moral obligation has often had poor results. As Alec Ryrie, professor of the history of Christianity at Durham University, succinctly puts it, The problems with such moralized politics are all too obvious: hypocrisy is easily mistaken for piety; piety is a poor substitute for competence; and power tends to corrupt.

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The way forward, however, is not avoidance, as avoidance is impossible, but a reexamining and relearning of how to address political crises competently.

The avoidance of political issues in itself can be interpreted as a political statement and thus preaching on political issues is unavoidable. Many moral issues such as same-sex marriage, or abortion will show themselves as implications of preaching biblical texts and thus must be addressed in the pulpit. The emphasis or de-emphasis a particular preacher has towards a politically charged issue sends a message of influence on the thinking of those who are listening. Gregory Allen Smith, a research fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, refers to preachers as falling into the category of elite actors that influence decisions. Smith states, Recent research on political decision making has demonstrated the importance of elite actors in providing citizens with political information and heuristics that are used by citizens in forming opinions and making political choices.

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The views of the preacher, thus influence the congregation as they seek to form opinions about the political decisions they must make as individuals.

Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, calls for Christians to think deeper about how to deal with political and cultural issues that form from a political crisis. While in years past Christians could identify with a political, moral majority or as cultural media police, Moore calls Christians back to an identity of exiles. The idea is acknowledging a separation from the majority culture to form what Moore describes as a prophetic minority. Moore explains, This is to say that our witness is shaped and formed by a Christian understanding of reality, since the prophetic witness centers on Christ himself.

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This minority calls people to the words of Scripture, speaking the truth in love. It is prophetic because its message should be derived from biblical authority and not merely personal interests or political party platforms.

Central to dealing with a political crisis is that this prophetic ministry requires engagement with the culture. As biblical Christianity appears on the losing side of the culture wars, it can be the impulse of many to disengage. Tired of the constant barrage of both conservative co-opting of Christian speech and of liberal crusades that paint Christians as bigots, it can be tempting to retreat or even surrender for the sake of peace. Moore points out, however, Many assume that by somehow disengaging, they will be better able to carry out the mission of the church, without recognizing that they have already surrendered part of their mission, and that total cultural disengagement does not end culture wars but rather provokes them.

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The nature of evangelism and the very mission of the church found in the Great Commission requires engagement with the culture’s political crises. While seeking an end to the conflict of culture may be enticing for many, Christians do not have that option.

Added to the problem is the heat and anger that arises out of a political conflict. There are crisis moments that occur far too often in our day where the entire nation seems to hold its breath over the latest political clash that has occurred. From instances like Dylann Roof attempting to start a race war by shooting up a church, riots in the streets over the latest police incident, or violent destruction of Confederate statues by an angered populace, a preacher must be able to address such issues, especially when they happen in the preacher’s community. Thankfully, the current age is not the only one to have ever suffered political crisis, and contemporary preachers can learn from the preachers of the past.

One such preacher, who coincidentally also had to deal with the destruction of statues, was John Chrysostom. His sermons were renowned to the point that he acquired the nickname Golden Mouthed.

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He was not only a preacher but also a man steeped in a sensitive political climate. As a prominent teacher, he caught the attention of emperors, and even more dangerously, their wives. In one instance, through the work of a dedicated sermon series, Chrysostom was able to calm tensions in a city that rioted and destroyed statues of the emperor, while the emperor himself wanted to send in destructive legions. These Homilies on the Statues proved as one of the most pivotal and influential examples of political preaching in church history. By examining the homiletical methods of John Chrysostom’s Homilies on the Statutes, contemporary preachers may be able to derive principles on responsibly and powerfully engaging political topics in contemporary settings.

This book will examine each of the homilies in the sermon series On the Statues and seek to learn principles derived from them to help modern-day preachers learn to deal with the political crises their congregations may face. This work will examine John Chrysostom’s Homilies on the Statues to find out the principles he used in dealing with a political crisis in sermons to help readers understand how to handle politically sensitive preaching so they might better address political issues in sermons.

This chapter will define the terms regarding political crises that will be used in this work and provide an overview of how preaching in political crisis has been handled. The second part of this chapter will provide a biographical overview of John Chrysostom’s life as a foundation for examining how he approached political crisis in the Homilies on the Statues. Chapter two of this book will provide a historical look at the events surrounding the Homilies on the Statues. Chapter three will examine John Chrysostom’s preaching philosophy and theology of Christ and Culture. The fourth chapter will be the heart of the book, which is an examination of and a commentary on each of the sermons in Homilies on the Statues series. Chapter five will apply the principles derived from the Homilies on the Statues that can aid modern preachers in political crisis.

Defining a Political Crisis

First, what is a political crisis? For the purpose of this research a political crisis is a societal crisis that happens after a catalytic crisis that can either exacerbate or mitigate the first crisis. For use in this book, a catalytic crisis is a problem that may be over very quickly, but that often comes to a focal point in a moment of time that causes ripples in the society. It is the catalyst event that effects society to such an extent that the event takes on an identity and force of its own. A preacher through preaching may be unable to affect or even be a part of the catalytic crisis, such as Dylann Roof shooting a church or Hurricane Katrina, but they are poised to affect significantly the political crisis that occurs in response to the catalytic crisis. A political crisis is thus a secondary crisis, temporally, but may, in fact, be a more significant crisis than even the original event of the catalytic crisis.

A political crisis is not only caused by differing political commitments but even by what the response should be to the crisis among those with the same commitments. The issue of changing taxation, for instance, may be the same among those affiliated with a political cause, yet the idea of peaceful reforms or violent overthrow may cause further division. It is not just the issue itself that can cause conflict, but the handling of the issue can exacerbate or lessen the conflict. Alex Berezow, a Senior Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health, notes that "One study, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, concluded that conservatives and liberals were equally averse to listening to opposing viewpoints on hot-button issues… they were willing to give up the chance to win money just to avoid the unpleasantness of hearing an opinion they disliked."

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There may be agreement by many parties that the catalytic event is bad, but agreement of why it was bad and what to do about it can be almost nonexistent, causing a political crisis.

This divide in viewpoints can also lead to a vilification of the different parties that are at play. The political crisis often serves to exacerbate already existing fears, hatred, or biases that are merely waiting underneath the surface of society. Forces of anger or malice toward another side, be it against powers that be or fellow citizens, are considered as being acceptable to act upon in the face of the catalytic crisis. Jeremy Engels, a rhetorical scholar who studies the rhetorical foundations of democratic culture, refers to these forces as the politics of resentment. Engels says, The mark of the politics of resentment is to capture and direct civic resentment away from objective violence and the individuals who profit from such violence, and toward scapegoats.

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Political crisis can become more about blame than actual justice, and more about choosing sides of the divide rather than solving the issue at hand.

A political crisis is not the same as a political problem. Gun control, for instance, may be a contentious political problem in the United States, but it is not in itself a political crisis. A school shooting can be a catalytic crisis, which can lead to a political crisis involving gun control. The taxation imposed by the emperor in Chrysostom’s day was a political problem, but the riots and tearing down of the statues made it a catalytic crisis, which then created the political crisis of possible retribution. A catalytic crisis is a flash in the pan; the political crisis is dealing with the aftermath of a flash in the pan and the damage that it caused. A catalytic crisis may be politically motivated by a political problem, such as how the September

11

th terrorist attacks were a politically motivated catalytic crisis.

Preachers must be thoughtful of how they will approach preaching in political crisis, but they are also uniquely poised to address it in a way that no other position can. A preacher with shallow thinking will produce a congregation with shallow thinking and shallow grounding in how Christian faith should react to a political crisis. The reverse, however, is true for the preacher who can guide his hearers into thinking through what a biblically appropriate reaction should be. As Todd Wilson, a contributor to the book The Pastor as Public Theologian: Reclaiming a Lost Vision, explains, [Pastors] are also ideally positioned and uniquely equipped to help congregations deal with the major intellectual issues of the day in a way that not only sharpens thinking but also shepherds souls.

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This call to theological dissemination is vitally important and a needed reminder in the face of political crisis.

Scott M. Gibson, the Haddon W. Robinson Professor of Preaching and Ministry at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, also picks up on the need for a biblical and theological emphasis in interpreting the cultural events and crises of our day. He writes, Preachers need to cultivate theological discernment… at times we exhibit an evangelical naïveté.

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Such a naïveté, he continues, is caused by assumptions that what happened is always right, by pragmatism, or by ignorance of what is theologically sound. During a political crisis, none of these excuses will do, and in fact, each of them will cause further harm to the community and the Christian cause. The point is, that preachers do not have the luxury of running on autopilot through political crises but must be determinedly focused and intentional about their message.

What authority, however, does a preacher have in speaking to a political crisis? Some such as Jonathan Crowe, President of the Australasian Society of Legal Philosophy, would argue none, at least none based on a religious basis. Crowe says, The problem with explicitly religious arguments is that they are ill-equipped to persuade anyone who does not already identify with the religious tradition by which the argument is motivated.

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Even if one takes that as true for legislative acts, there is great power in guiding people through the complex questions of a political crisis that secular argumentation cannot offer. Not only can religious argumentation still be persuasive, but more than that it offers perspective on the spiritual, moral and existential questions that secularism cannot.

The preacher then can speak into the political crisis as a mere citizen, but preachers, in fact, have more power in their message than just a mere citizen. The preacher is a subject of the earthly kingdom; however, his authority to speak into earthly matters is not as a civil magistrate or policymaker. Instead, the preacher is an ambassador for a kingdom which will overtake the earthly kingdom and is thus a higher authority. The authority is in the message of the Kingdom of God not in the preacher himself. This preaching is an eschatological declaration.

Bruce L. Fields, Professor of Faith and Culture at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, referred to an eschatological focus as having a prophetic view. The focus of this view is on the already and not yet eschatological paradigm, which distinguished between what God’s Kingdom is and what it will and should be. Fields says this is notable in the black church as it must balance these two poles lest they become lopsided and ineffective. Fields says, Such a balance can be accomplished within the prophetic role of the Black church: speaking truth to those in power and speaking truth to God’s people, the people in the Black church itself.

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In this view, the church must be prophetic and speak truth to power especially when it comes to social injustice. Such a position does not mean mere abstract truth, however, but at times even the promotion or advocacy of civil policy as a matter of prophetic witness.

Such a focus was able to get many African American Christians through the political crisis of chattel slavery. Brian K. Clardy, Coordinator of Religious Studies at Murray State University, notes the Black parishioner was encouraged by this ‘good preachin’ as it reinforced various moral belief systems that made their lot in life bearable, whether as chattel or as a second-class citizen.

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Without preaching to the political crisis, the object of hope and perseverance through great difficulty would have been absent. Attaching the world to come to the demands and implications of the world now can provide courage and determination even when living through generations of political crisis. The authority of eschatological declaration is ultimately found, however in the gospel that is central to Christianity.

The Church and her preacher are unique in stewarding the Gospel. As Robert Benne, the founding director of the Robert D. Benne Center for Religion and Society at Roanoke College, points out no other institution has the God-given calling to proclaim the gospel, thus if the church fails at that task no other organization will do it.

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As much as affecting the society around us for good is a noble task; if the gospel is lost, all is lost, including the society. The Lutheran position, which Benne holds, then avoids the dire danger of blending social politics and the gospel, which if not extremely careful leaves us only with politics. As there is no church without the gospel, the cornerstone of Christianity, this should always be our starting point for answering the question of how a preacher should handle a political crisis. What are some of the ways that preachers have reacted to a political crisis? For the purpose of this book a number of examples will be provide of how preachers have approached dealing