Peace in a Partisan Age

© The Peaceable Kingdom | John August Swanson

The mission of these posts is to offer practical help for leaders of churches and nonprofits—addressing a need we’ve identified as “organizational discipleship.” 

 

When I led a church, I welcomed any resource that could make me a better leader, from outside consultants and mentors to conferences and books on personal development. I owned dozens of leadership volumes.

However, the challenge in writing these articles today is the 24/7 news environment in which we now swim. As I write this, the U.S. and Israel have declared war on Iran. I have no idea how this will unfold, but it has the potential to launch the world into a dangerous new reality.

These posts were never intended to be political screeds, but pastors and leaders are often backed into a corner, pressured to have an opinion on, well, everything.

Years ago, Rob Bell declared that “everything is spiritual” and I would agree with the spiritual origins and holy tapestries of the universe. But the zeitgeist now demands that “everything is political” in our hyper-polarized society. Try naming one cultural event today that doesn’t elicit a politically slanted commentary or reaction. Remember last month’s Olympics?

But war? That demands a response.

How do you, as a leader of a spiritual community, not address it in some way? You are expected as a follower of the Prince of Peace to say something, or at least lead a lament. Yet, in this “everything is political” environment, your words—no matter how cautiously crafted—will be viewed through a partisan lens.

These are the times when your ability to speak life into disparate congregants will be put to the test. This is not the time to wing it—your words must be measured and transformative, along with the tension of being prophetic and healing. You must carve out time to gather your thoughts and put pen to paper in deliberate ways.

You know the story: Jesus picked a Jewish Roman tax collector and a violent Zealot for the same team—an ethnic traitor and a religious terrorist. But Jesus’ message transcended their individual methodologies and disclaimers: it was deeply personal yet cosmic in scope, transformative at the heart level while emphasizing a kingdom unlike any on this planet.

I have written on this before, but I would urge you to focus on two things:

1.     A Strong Christology: Make Jesus—His personhood, His practices, His supremacy, and His revelation throughout Scripture—your central tenet. Last week, I met with a 22-year-old new believer. He had zero church background and had previously run with a drug-addled crowd. He told me, “I’ve never met anyone like Jesus.” He was enthralled. How easily we forget that.

2.     The Kingdom of God: This is a kingdom whose ethics are described remarkably in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. It is the beloved community of transcendent power and upside-down behaviors that challenge our comfort zones. It is a movement powered by humility, wrapped in love, and fueled by a quiet confidence in mercy. It is the first breath of the coming new order. 

Your comments on these seismic hinge moments and the political spirit of the age must be interpreted through those two lenses.

Otherwise, your people will capitulate to hopelessness or become myopic religious zealots. 

Dave Workman | The Elemental Group

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