“Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.”
America cannot – she must not – lose that power that resides in her pulpits. Our pastors must not permit themselves to be intimidated into silence and inaction at a time when the truth of God’s Word has never been more needed within our culture.
“Today, the culture has tried to impose on ministers a role that relegates them almost to irrelevance, discouraging them from having any direct visibility or influence on society or the culture; but this modern reduced role is precedented neither by the Bible nor American history. God still needs ‘heroes of hardihood and lofty courage’ to be His voice crying in the modern wilderness – spiritual leaders who will stand at the vanguard to meet any danger head on.”
David Barton, The Black Regiment; The Founders’ Bible (pg. 633)
In 1954, then-Senator Lyndon Johnson introduced an amendment to the U.S. tax code that prohibited churches (and other non-profit organizations) from taking a public stand on “political issues.” Now, any who fail to comply risk losing their tax-exempt status. In the decades that followed, virtually every Biblical issue has been politicized, making many of the doctrines and teachings of the Bible itself “off limits,” and limiting the Christian’s “free exercise” of religion outside the four walls of the church.
In his poignant book, “Letter to the American Church,” Eric Metaxas reminds us that religious liberty cannot be understood as the government’s permission to “do as you like in that building at… [designated] hours, but when you come out you must bow to the secular authority of the state.”
In America…we have known that religious liberty means we are not merely able to worship privately…but are guaranteed a ‘free exercise thereof,’ so that our faith must by definition be carried everywhere we go, on every day of the week, and in every place we take ourselves.
Rev Charles Finney, famous minister in the Second Great Awakening, admonished the church of his day not to neglect its duties in the political sphere when the hot topic on which the church was to remain “a-political” was slavery and abolition:
The church must take right ground in regard to politics…the time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics…God cannot sustain this free and blessed country which we love and pray for unless the church will take right ground. Politics are a part of a religion in such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to the country as part of their duty to God. It seems sometimes as if the foundations of the nation were becoming rotten, and Christians seem to act as if they thought God did not see what they do in politics. But I tell you, He does see it, and He will bless or curse this nation according to the course they take.
Many of the issues of our day are just as important and pressing as those in the days of Charles Finny.
The questions then become:
- What can the church legally do to influence policy and politics?
- How would a pastor or a church even begin to approach the task of being “salt and light” in local, state, and federal governments?
Explore these questions and much more using the links to the left.
]]>This legislation and its attending threats to withdraw churches’ tax-exempt status is all that is necessary to persuade many of God’s churches and His people to retreat from the public square. However, there is still much that can and should be done that does not violate this “political campaign intervention prohibition.”
The responsibility of our pastors and churches is to clearly define the left and right lateral limits of what is permissible under the law, and then take full advantage of every inch of maneuver space in between to be the positive influence on our communities and governments that we have been called to be.
Faith Wins has compiled a helpful quick-reference list of What Churches Can and Cannot Do in Politics. Generally speaking, ministries may engage in the following activities, if done in a non-partisan (strictly neutral) manner:
- Promote voter registration
- Encourage voter participation
- Provide voter education (e.g. candidate visits, voter guides etc.)
The Christian Law Association offers a tremendous set of resources regarding this subject. Pastors are encouraged to contact them and request those resources so that they can fully understand their church’s maneuver space within the law and how to safely use it.
Questions a pastor or church delegation could ask might include things like:
- May candidates be invited to briefly address our congregation?
- While any candidate would be welcome, is it considered “partisan” to intentionally seek out only those candidates who could theoretically be from any party but whose policy views align with biblical values?
- Can we decline requests by candidates to visit, when their declared worldview is clearly at odds with what we believe, without being in jeopardy of partisan accusations?
- If candidates ask to use our facilities (for meetings, town halls, rallies, etc.) should we let them?
- If candidates are permitted to use our facilities, should they be restricted from using certain areas (i.e. permit use of the gym, fellowship hall, parking lot, ball fields, pavilion, etc….but not the sanctuary or the chapel)?
- If allowing such candidate activity on church/school property is permitted, how exclusive can we be with that permission? Must we permit candidates whose values do not align with biblical principles as well as those who do?
- Are there specific activities that we should not permit anywhere on the premises?
- Is it permissible to make petitions available for signatures in the church lobby (and to perhaps announce such involvement opportunities during a service) for purposes such as putting one or more candidates on the ballot, holding elected officials accountable, and/or advocating for specific policies?
In order to educate the voters within our congregations, and to help keep them informed of the elections/candidates/proposed legislation that most directly impacts them — and upon which they can have the most direct impact — we must know which political districts are represented in our congregations and to what degree. This can and should be accomplished without infringing upon the privacy of our members or misusing their personal information.
Most churches employ some sort of database for the purpose of tracking membership and visitors. (FellowshipOne, Breeze, and Pushpay are examples, but there are many more). With tools we have created, and using only the age and address of each individual (names are not necessary), we can determine the distribution of a congregation across the political districts by following the steps below.
- Obtain a list of your church members, their ages, and addresses from your church membership database
- Determine the eligible voters within the congregation (based on age and an in-state address)
- Look up each address in the publicly available state or county database
- Identify the local, state, and federal political districts, as well as the polling precinct (as recorded in the publicly available state or county database) to which each address has been assigned
This information can then easily be compiled to show what percentage of the congregation resides in which political districts.
As an example of what might look like, the analysis of one church located in Prince William County is provided below.
At the county level, this church congregation is distributed across Prince William County’s seven magisterial districts in the following manner:
At the state level, this church’s congregation is distributed across Virginia’s Senate and House of Delegate districts in this fashion:
At the national level, this church’s congregation is distributed across Virginia’s U.S. Congressional districts in this fashion:
This information arms the pastor (or those to whom he delegates the task) with the information necessary to sift through the blizzard of elections, candidates, and proposed legislation and focus energy and effort in those areas most closely connected to the congregation.
Contact us today if you would like our team to help you analyze and organize your congregation in this way.
]]>Announcements
People are busy, and Election Season can quickly slip up on them unaware. The local church can help by adding important dates to the church calendar and including them in the announcements during our services. These announcement might include:
- Encouraging voter registration
- Posting and announcing pending elections, dates, and deadlines
- Advocating for participation in primaries, conventions, caucuses, etc.
- Providing information on opportunities to serve at the polls
- Motivating people to personally invest time in learning about the candidates and their positions
- Encouraging attendance at meetings (schoolboard, county supervisors, etc.)
The church should have a representatives (or team of representatives) ready, willing, and able to help church members register, research the candidates, and find their polling places.
Candidate Visits
Now that you know which districts are most heavily represented in your congregation, you also know which races and candidates should be of the greatest interest to them. Seeking out or accepting opportunities for those candidates to come to your church to meet and speak to the people offers a tremendous opportunity to bring current/future political leaders under the sound of the Gospel while also providing an opportunity for church members to meet them and learn their positions on important issues.
If constructed properly, these candidate visits can be a very effective ministry outreach to the candidates as well as an educational tool for the congregation. For example, as a stipulation you might require that the candidate agree to speak from the floor for 3-5 minutes, specifically mention his/her stance on the issues of “sanctity of life” and “traditional marriage”, stay for the entire service, and take questions in the lobby after the service until all of the people have departed.
God and Country Rally
What is a “God and Country Rally?” you might ask. It is an event designed to get good people off of the sidelines and into the game.
Estimates indicate that there are some 40 million non-voting (many of whom are not even registered) people of faith across the United States. What would happen if just 5-10% of those non-voting people of faith got off the sidelines, registered to vote, got involved, showed up at the polls, and voted their values?
In 2020, the Faith Wins team swept through the churches of Virginia and registered over 70,000 new voters. And as you may recall, one of the major races in Virginia that year was decided by 63,500 votes.
Find a God and Country Rally happening near you; or better yet, schedule one to be hosted at your church!
Be sure to invite your neighboring churches to join you, and extend the invitation to your elected officials and candidates in your area.
These events:
- Educate the congregation on why and how they should be involved, serving as “salt and light” in their local community and government
- Give the people an opportunity to meet their representatives and candidates face-to-face, talk to them, and learn about them
- Bring elected representatives and candidates under the sound of the life-changing message of the Gospel.
It is important to emphasize that neither Faith Wins nor your church endorses any particular party or candidate…only faith-based values that unwaveringly support faith, family, and freedom. And we do believe that faith does indeed win when good people show up…and vote their values.
Biblical Citizenship Course
This free online series entitled “Biblical Citizenship in Modern America” is offered by Patriot Academy. It is an inspiring opportunity to rendezvous with our Founding Fathers and learn more of their Biblical knowledge of our country’s Constitution, it’s ‘original intent,’ and our role as Biblical citizens.”
Many Americans — including Christians — are no longer familiar with the incredibly rich Christian heritage of this country. Many of our young people have been convinced through increasingly hostile secular education that America is not, and has never been, a Christian nation. Many have forgotten, or perhaps never knew, how reliant our Founding Fathers were on the wisdom and inspiration of the Bible in authoring the Declaration of Independence and framing our Constitution. God’s fingerprints are found all over our nation’s struggle for independence, its formative documents, and its subsequent history to this very day.
This tremendous course will help re-connect those dots in the minds and hearts of your congregation. There are options to:
- Take the course individually from home
- Take the course along with a group of fellow church members or neighbors, either all remotely or meeting together to view the classes together
- Incorporated into small-group or Sunday School studies
- And more
We are not aware of anyone who has taken this course that has not come away with a renewed awe and gratitude for God’s hand of protection, mercy, and grace upon our great nation.
Learn more by visiting Patriot Academy by clicking the link, or visiting our Resources page.
Contact us today if you are interested in any/all of these ideas and need help incorporating them at your church.
Our team has a policy and template that we have successfully implemented at our church, and we would love to share it with you.
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