Voices: Ideology and politics: The pastoral life has changed

Pastors will tell you something has changed among their people. It’s the same people, along with some new people. But some members are more political and ideological, and more polarizing. You can tell it in the way they see things, hear things, and say things. Even if the percentage is small, the impact is outsized. And it’s changing many churches.

Do we know what has happened? We know COVID happened, and amid cultural chaos. It happened at about the same time political polarization came like a stealth invasion into our families, our communities, and our churches. One result is church life and the pastoral life are very different.

The pastoral life is not the same, and few pastors would dispute that. Even though some aspects and dynamics of pastoring transcend generations, a sea change has occurred. Most pastors and churchgoers are aware of the COVID effects. Yet, there is still a huge quandary about the cultural and political elements.

In too many congregations the chaos and polarization in our culture and in politics are being brought to church. Add that to the mix of normal challenges and tremors that rumble through our churches and, suddenly, everything is different. A television character from my childhood would say, “What a revoltin’ development this is!”

So, how can we understand what has brought new crosscurrents into church life to create an undercurrent of mayhem?

Something has been happening to Christians outside of church, and they are bringing newly formed attitudes and perspectives into the gathered batch and affecting the body.

What is the cause? How have these new fault lines formed within our church family systems?

The lens has changed

Religious sociologist Ryan Burge has discovered a change in how Christians view life, faith, and even church.

In prior generations, persons of faith viewed life and values first through a faith lens. More recently, many Christians have viewed life and values first through an ideological and/or political lens.

For example, many people are choosing churches for political and ideological reasons. Additionally, every part of life—friends, family, school, community, faith, and politics—is seen first through this ideological/political lens.

So, what does this have to do with the pastoral life? Imagine what it’s like to preach to people who have spent all week being immersed and formed by media voices and personalities offering a variety of polarized political perspectives. Then, they come to church with their values lenses attuned and focused by polarizing ideologues, ready to apply scrutiny.

Pastors have always preached under scrutiny in polarized times. I know what that is like. But I’ve never seen anything like our current moment.

Any pastor who chooses to embrace all the people speaks and ministers amid powerful crosscurrents. I’ve tried to walk through the swift current of a fast-flowing river, and I’ve tried to stand among riptides on the Pacific coast. The difference is deadly. Believe me, riptides will drag you out and drown you.

The change for pastors

A couple of years ago, I was sitting among some of the most seasoned and best pastors I know as they began to share agonies and griefs from what was happening in their churches.

Almost all had been vigilant to being politically neutral their entire ministry, especially in the pulpit. But their churches weren’t the same. Most had lost some of their most faithful members, including close friends, who were now viewing church through a new ideological lens.

I know these pastors. None had gone through a theological shift. All were probably preaching more biblically sound sermons, as the best pastors do in challenging times. These pastors were in deep grief and very weary. Those who had faced the toughest challenges a pastor can face did not know how they would function amid their new reality.

They reported being confronted by active and key church members who now seemed to be seeing and hearing things very differently. They were admittedly viewing church through a different and unapologetically ideological and political lens.

Every comment and every story the pastors shared in those moments came from the pain of dealing with this new dynamic. Before that day, and across my 50 years of pastoral ministry, I had never heard so many agonizing reports at one time.

One of my favorite pastors keeps small rhino replicas displayed around the pastor’s office and study. This collection was started before our current moment. Can a rhino develop a thicker hide? Pastors today certainly need to get their “full armor” thickened.

Pastors have always seen some chaos

I once served as pastor of a church in Texas where a site characterization was taking place to determine where the U.S. Department of Energy would develop the underground national nuclear waste dump. The three proposed sites were in Washington State, Idaho, and Texas, and our community was near ground zero for the Texas site.

The proposal for our area would result in drilling through the largest underground aquifer in the U.S.—the Ogallala—into salt deposits several hundred feet below, where canisters of nuclear waste would be stored.

I had businessmen and community leaders in my church who were supportive of nuclear waste being stored beneath us. Then, there were agribusiness leaders—such as cattle producers and corn growers—who were concerned about their products, imagining radioactive cattle and “Fritos that would glow in the dark.”

I would look at church parking lot on Sundays to see some pickups in the lot with guns in the gun racks, and it wasn’t hunting season. I began to imagine the center aisle at church, put there primarily for weddings, to be the line of demarcation for those “for” and “against.”

Those were polarizing days to be a pastor among people who held various opinions. But I don’t think the chaos and polarization I faced as a pastor in that situation compares to what many pastors are currently facing.

A future for the pastoral life

I don’t know when the current chaos and polarization in our culture and many churches will subside. I don’t see how anyone could expect a return to any equilibrium that may have existed in former days.

But I am confident we may see a new era of thriving in the pastoral life, and for two reasons. The main reason is the church is the body of Christ and belongs to him. The church will have a significant future until he returns to inaugurate the new heaven and new earth.

The second reason for my confidence is the giftedness and potential of those women and men being called into pastoral ministry. I am confident many of them will figure it out and flourish as pastors. But until they get traction and find their stride in ministry, many will experience the tumult of our current moment. In the meanwhile, step alongside a pastor, and pray.

Ron Cook is retired from the faculty of Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University. He also served as pastor and interim pastor in several churches. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.