This past week two news items have stuck in my mind and heart uncomfortably so.  One is the immigration law inAlabama and the other is Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

Pastor James Dobson and the Alliance Defense Fund sought to gather 1,000 pastors to take their political views to the pulpit this past Sunday in order to let congregants know which candidates to endorse and ignore.  The Pulpit Initiative started in 2008 with 33 pastors and last year 100 pastors committed to join the initiative.  Numbers have not come in from this Sunday October 2, 2011.

To use the pulpit as a partisan political platform is forbidden by law in this country, for all church and nonprofit leaders.  Since 1954, when the Johnson Amendment was applied, pastors have been prohibited from saying anything that may show support for or against a political candidate.  These organizations can lose tax-exempt status for breaking this law.  Yet this law was deliberately broken on Sunday.  In fact according to USA Today, footage of the sermons will likely be sent into the Internal Revenue Service as “bait” as it has been in years past.

In many mainline churches, this Sunday was also World Communion Sunday, whose emphasis is Christian Unity.  In my church, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) it was also Reconciliation Sunday, whose emphasis is racial justice.  So while some pastors rallied around political candidates and partisan political kingdoms of this world, others spoke of a new Kingdom coming in peace, one that breaks out across political, national, ethnic, and economic lines.

I can only hope that some of the pastors who took this stand for political freedom in the pulpit on Sunday channeled their energy and Christian prophetic voice into the sins of Wall Street greed, capital punishment and immigration reform, most recently in Alabama.

As a Christian, my beliefs cannot help but be caught up and caught against the flow of politics in this world.  A preacher does not need to preach a sermon of endorsement for any candidate other than Jesus Christ to be politically influential.  The only Kingdom language should be centered around the Kingdom of God and a reign of peace, justice and mercy that this world needs.  We should, as preachers, be spiritual advisors and voices of hope that speak out from the Scriptures and not from the ballot.  If we are doing our job right, the church will know exactly who to vote for and who to voice opposition to without having to spell it out.

And that brings me to Alabama: one of many situations in this country that more Christians and Christian preachers should in fact raise their voices against in the pulpit and in public.  When we break laws as preachers, do we do it only to exercise our right to free speech?  How self-centered is that?  Why not raise our voice on behalf of those who are in hiding and voiceless in our political economy?  That is what Jesus would have us do.  It is not about protecting our rights.  It is about laying down our life for others.  It is about seeing and living into the visions of equality for all of God’s children.  Break laws as Christians, but never for selfish reasons.