What should a minister’s role be (or not be) when it comes to politics?

This transcript has been adapted from the attached audio. It may not be in its final form and may be updated.

I don’t think ministers should endorse candidates. I don’t. I know that technically, legally people have the right to do it as private citizens, but when I came to the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission in October of 1988, I took a totally voluntary and totally unsolicited pledge that I would not endorse candidates because I have an obligation and a responsibility to try to minister to all Southern Baptists.

Even in extreme cases where, for instance, in 2004 you had 84% of people who identified themselves as Southern Baptists in exit polls saying that they voted for George W. Bush, I have a obligation and a responsibility to try to minister to all of them. So I don’t put bumper stickers on my car, I don’t put yard signs in my yard, and I just don’t endorse candidates as a matter of policy. And I would encourage pastors not to do it either because you can’t separate who you are as a private citizen from who you are as pastor of a church.

I would encourage pastors to exercise their citizenship role by preaching what the Bible has to say, and that includes what the Bible has to say on moral and public policy issues, and then encourage people to be informed, encourage people to be registered, and encourage people to vote, and when they vote to vote their values, to vote their beliefs, and to vote their conscious.

Now I do not think that the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops is going beyond its role in saying to its people in what is now its revised pastoral letter to Catholics in America, “Here are the issues that Catholic voters ought to be concerned about when they go into the voting booth, and not all issues are equal.”

Some issues take priority. Among the issues that take priority is the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death and everywhere in between.