P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

BACK TO THE PULPIT

We've just been reading a true confession of sorts by a guy named Ed. For a while back in the ‘80s, Ed was a big name in political circles. Formerly a preacher, circumstances had opened up for him until he was now meeting with focus groups, lobbying on Capitol Hill, even appearing on television to debate his opponents.

One of the highlights of his experience in politics came when he was invited to appear on the Phil Donahue Show, to debate an issue involving Boy Scouts and atheism. So Ed studied up on the topic, showed up at the studio, basked in the excitement of being BOOED by the liberal audience there, and then rode a limo back to the Newark airport. A limo! He walked through the terminal, enjoying the feeling of still having TV makeup on his face — that sharp little "celebrity smell" of the powder and the pancake. "I wonder if anybody recognizes me," he thought to himself. "This is so cool . . . and I am so cool too." He almost floated home without needing an airplane.

His wife picked him up at the airport, and all the way home, he gave her a full-length description of all the smart things he said, and how he had those lily-livered liberals on the run. When they got to the house, though, she punctured Mr. Makeup's balloon with one line. "Honey, would you please take the garbage to the dump?"

A few weeks later, after doing another big-time TV program, zinging his enemies and boosting the conservative cause, he was enjoying another walk through an airport terminal, throwing ticker tape on himself, when a Christian friend met up with him. "How's it going?" So Ed told him about the TV program and the political victories and how he and his friends were going to "(quote) get America back on track."

And this friend looked him right in the eye. "Ed," he said, "you're casting your pearls before swine. You are a PREACHER and a PASTOR and you are wasting your time and your gifts doing television shows and pursuing politics."
And Ed got on the plane.

Ed Dobson, by the way, wasn't just a small-time preacher-turned-pundit. At the time this story happened, he was a high-up member of the board for the Moral Majority. He was the Rev. Jerry Falwell's personal assistant; he and Jerry flew around together on their private Liberty University jet. He and his friends were being given a lot of credit for the 1980 Republican victory of Ronald Reagan, the regaining of the senate by the GOP, the crashing down to defeat of five targeted liberal Democratic senators. Ed had helped do this. And now this friend was telling him: "Ed, you ought to leave it all, and go back to what God called you to do. You need to pastor a church again, and leave the TV lights and the Phil Donahue appearances to someone else."

The interesting thing is this. About a year later, that's exactly what Ed Dobson did. Today he's the senior pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He's no longer in the Moral Majority: not so much because the Moral Majority shut down in 1989, but because his spiritual philosophy is so completely different now.
We have here in our office a well-written but troubling book, co-written by Pastor Ed Dobson and columnist Cal Thomas. Cal's columns currently appear in something like 475 newspapers around the world, but back in the glory days he took a five-year sabbatical to be THE spokesperson for the same Moral Majority. And now these two Christian men have shared, from their own experiences, why they're no longer engaging in political activism. Why they're not lieutenants in the Christian Coalition. And why, in their words, it's possible for Christian believers who involve themselves in partisan politics to be, as the title of the book puts it, Blinded By Might.

Well, friend, with Wednesday being the Fourth of July here in the United States, we thought it might be a good idea to simply visit with you listeners about this question of religion and politics. What role SHOULD Christians take in trying to impact Washington, D.C.? Or wherever the seat of power is where YOU live? Why shouldn't Christians organize like any other interest group? There was a Christianity Today cover article, entitled Is the Religious Right Finished?, dated September 6, 1999, which included a rebuttal to this volatile book. Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition, points out that conservative, born-again believers were the single largest voting bloc in the 1998 election. Twenty-four percent of all voters who pulled a lever described themselves in those terms.

"We have worked too hard for too long," he writes, "to earn our place at the table and our voice in the conversation we call democracy. We will not surrender it — not because we seek power — but because we seek justice. And justice requires our vigilance."

But that phrase, "Our place at the table," brings an instant rejoinder from Ed Dobson and Cal Thomas, these two authors. When the church becomes a bloc or another power group with its list of demands, they write, "They are seen as just another lobbying group to which politicians can toss an occasional bone to ensure loyalty."
Now, the interesting thing is this. Both Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson remain — not just Christians — but political conservatives.

"We believe abortion is the unlawful and immoral taking of innocent human life," they write, "no matter what the Supreme Court says."

They express strong views in the book against pornography, against drugs. To this day they're strongly pro-family.
"We are not disgruntled former employees," they write. "[And] we are emphatically not calling for retreat or surrender by conservative Christians."

Well, then, why this book? Blinded By Might? Why the turnaround? What ARE they advocating?
One of the reasons for the change is what we would call "pragmatism." Facing reality.

"Two decades after conservative Christians charged into the political arena," Dobson writes, "bringing new voters and millions of dollars with them in hopes of transforming the culture through political power, IT MUST NOW BE ACKNOWLEDGED THAT WE HAVE FAILED. . . . Very little that we set out to do has gotten done. . . . [The Religious Right] has failed in its mission to end abortion, eliminate pornography, restore the shattered American family, and usher in a better world built on ‘traditional values.'

These two Christian writers go on to suggest that political activism by the Church is doomed to ALWAYS fail for the plain reason that it simply IS NOT the way of Jesus, the Founder of the Church.
When Ed Dobson finally made the decision to break away from the political arena and go to pastor in Michigan, a friend said to him:
"There are only two things you need to do in Grand Rapids. First, preach the Bible. Second, love the people. Nothing more and nothing less."

And today Ed confesses, after a number of years of obeying that counsel:
"I now believe that the way to transform our nation has little to do with politics and everything to do with offering people the gospel."

I'm more than a bit curious, because I've pastored churches too. I've gotten invitations from politicians, been tugged towards the right AND the left. People have wanted to borrow our pulpit to make speeches and give Election Day advice. So what did Pastor Ed Dobson, former soldier in the Moral Majority army, decide to establish as ground rules there at Calvary Church? He describes them in his book as follows:
"I decided that political involvement would hinder my ministry as a pastor. Therefore I would avoid all political entanglements. I would not attend either Republican or Democrat events. I would not march for or against anything. I was convinced that as a pastor I was called to reach Republicans and Democrats and Independents with the gospel. I was called to reach pro-life people and pro-choice people. I was called to reach pro-gay and anti-gay people. If I engaged in public political activities, I ran the risk of alienating the very people I was called to reach."

Those were his personal decisions. But what about the church itself? What was going to be the stance of the institution?

"At Calvary Church we made the decision," he adds, "that we would be free of politics. We do not permit anyone to pass out petitions of any kind. We do not have voter registration drives. We do not distribute voter guides. We do not march for or against political issues. In other words, we avoid entanglement with political issues as much as possible."

Well, friend, that's from the one side of the playing field. I don't know where YOU are today, or where your church might be. You and your fellow believers might very sincerely be proceeding in a different manner, and honestly trying to obey the Savior in doing so. Dr. JAMES Dobson, who is certainly no relation to the Ed of this book, writes a rebuttal in frustration, which Christianity Today included.

"I deeply regret," he writes, "Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson's disparagement of these precious souls who are steadily winning the battle for the hearts and minds of their countrymen. . . . That phrase [Blinded By Might] impugns the motives of every Christian who has worked tirelessly and thanklessly to influence our government."

And here on the eve of the Fourth of July, we certainly don't want to do that. I know you want to find God's way; we do too. Stay with us as we look for His wisdom.