You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.
This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Jeff Banks, Andy Griess and Bruce Peterson.
Bruce Peterson
So this week we have an absolutely tough, tough question. It reads easy enough, but the answer is tough. The basic question is: In the political environment that we are in as Americans, how many liberties should we as Christians be willing to give up? The question went on to talk about the vaccines are coming around, and as this person wrestled with the Bible they went to the character of Daniel. And in their estimation, they said, "Do I think that Daniel would get the vaccine? I think Daniel would get the vaccine, but then Daniel wasn't American." So as we live in our unique political environment, with our absolute unique word of God, how should we think through all of the liberty issues in our culture today? How do we respond to them as Christians?
Andy Griess
And I would add specifically that this question was in this context: What if the government doesn't give you the option of taking the vaccine, or what if they were trying to take away the freedom to make that choice?
Jeff Banks
So mandating the vaccine. And maybe we could preface it with - this isn't new, right? I think American Christians have been grappling with constitutional freedom, religious freedom through history, but certainly we can all agree over the last year that this has just come to the surface.
Andy Griess
It is a hot topic.
Jeff Banks
It's hot, and we know it's polarizing, and I don't think we want to add to that. Like, I think we've had enough - I've had enough - of some of that happening. And so we want to try to bring some pastoral care and yet - I'll be honest - I think we're all wrestling through it ourselves personally.
Bruce Peterson
Right now it is 4:36. The three of us started this at 3:00 and we've been talking for over an hour and a half on this subject just between the three of us, trying to really wrestle through what our perspective is. So we don't in any way want to suggest this is simple, or suggest that we have a definitive answer that you can take and never think about it again yourself.
Jeff Banks
And I guess even as we say that, I appreciate that we can do that. And maybe that's a good starting point - hopefully we can model that, even with different perspectives, we're sitting at the table and having a discussion and it's good. I think that's good.
Andy Griess
Yeah. And one of the things that I was just thinking about is as we've thrown out all of our different viewpoints and how we handle this, we kind of have different ways of coming at this. And that would come out if somebody came into my office as a pastor and asked this question, I'm wrestling right now with the idea that I think I know how I would handle this specific question, but I'm not certain that's the advice I would give for the person sitting across the desk from me, because their situation and their way of thinking might be different than mine. So I think there should be a lot of freedom for Christians to have different ways of coming at this and that's one of the trickier things - in the Western world and in the United States, as we seem to be having less and less and less freedom, there might be points where you got to make some hard decisions. And if I would be willing to stand up and make a hard decision that might put me in a situation where I would have to defend myself, or be arrested, or whatever - if I would be willing to make that choice, I don't know that I would look at the person across the table and say they should have to make the same choice.
Bruce Peterson
As pastors, we bear a unique responsibility and serve in a special role, so we might lay our lives down in a different way than congregants necessarily would. Here's something I think we all three do agree on, let's start with this. There is a major, major distinction between being an American and being a Christian.
Andy Griess
For certain.
Jeff Banks
Absolutely.
Bruce Peterson
Different kingdoms, different agendas, different morals, different responsibilities, different goals.
Jeff Banks
Absolutely. And I think it's difficult because there can be a climate where we're trying to merge some of those too closely.
Bruce Peterson
And we live in both worlds.
Jeff Banks
And sometimes they're opposed, right? So I think we have to acknowledge that.
Bruce Peterson
So I think we'd all agree that our, our primary fight - maybe that's just that they're separate ideas. And we aren't called in the Bible to be good citizens of whatever country you live in, right? America wasn't around when the Bible was written. We're called to be good citizens everywhere. But literally of everywhere. Wherever you live, you should be a good citizen there.
Jeff Banks
Yeah. That's not distinctively American, right? Christians and other countries, be a good citizen in the country you live.
Andy Griess
And that's where I would say my goal personally has to start individually. I want to live as a resident of the kingdom of God. Jesus is my king. I want to live in service to him. And then I want to take that to my family. I would love for him to be the King of everybody living in my household.
Bruce Peterson
Especially my twins, yeah.
Andy Griess
And then beyond that as a pastor, I'm going to go to my church family. I think all of these run together between my family and my church. I want everybody there to know that Jesus is King and want to live with Him as their king. I would love for that to spill over into a nation who wanted to live with Jesus as their king. That's not the nation that we live in. So how do we work towards seeing more and more of our nation wanting that? If we have a nation that's going to try to limit our freedoms, how do we handle all that? I'm starting back with myself, my family, and my church family. That's the area where I have influence. And that's honestly the only area where I want to put all of my focus, teaching the gospel in such a way that I'm hopefully inspiring other people to see that they want to live with Jesus as King. I think the only freedoms that I'm really worried about, is the freedom to not be able to do that, as long as I have the freedom to do that I can operate in any other kind of system.
Jeff Banks
I think if someone's coming into my office and asking this question, the two-minute version is to address these two distinct places or tensions that we live in as American citizens, and to be thankful - grateful - for the freedom that we have, grateful for those who have fought and died for freedom, to exercise the freedom you have as a citizen, to use the avenues that you have available to you - which includes voting - and whatever the blessing of living in this free country may be, to embrace that. And then I would transition to, you know, we are also citizens of this kingdom, right? And so I would just invite them to prayerfully discern with Jesus as your King, and not allow your American citizen freedom and the loss of that to trump that aspect of it. Jesus is King. If you lose your freedom, if America derails, Jesus is still King and Jesus is still building his church, and the church can flourish regardless of that. So that's my initial approach right there.
Bruce Peterson
I would say this: I think it's a wonder to live in America. Our constitution is very liberating and has caused wonderful things on this planet and in our personal lives. I can't imagine being in a dictatorship that's going south or something like living in Cuba 30 years ago. So I'm super thankful. But with that comes responsibility, right? I mean, it's been handed to us and we should try to the best of our ability to hand it down. I appreciate our government, but I think that can get in the way of our gospel presentation because politics divides. So here's what I would say: I believe that God will lay it on the hearts of certain Christians to rise up and to be politicians. They should follow that lead. They should go, they should stand, they should fight, they should argue, they should try to pass laws that keep our freedoms and keep it possible to spread the gospel. But we're not all called to politics. If we were all called to politics, we would be a political party. We're not, we're the church of God. In Daniel's prophecy, the church of the kingdom of God is going to wipe out other governments, including ours. But this government should last as long as it can.
I think we should vote for those people - we should know them, we should know the issues, we should vote - but the freedoms that they're fighting for, we should use. We fight over the freedom itself, but we don't use the freedom. The vast majority of Christians should be in the business of trusting God with our politics, voting, and then using our freedom to spread the Gospel without a false hurdle. If you first have to agree with me politically before I think you're a Christian, or if I'm so loud politically that you won't hear the Gospel from me because I've alienated you, I think I've done a disservice to the kingdom of God. Maybe I have served the United States but I won't hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You really defended America." I am called to spread the kingdom of God, and I'm with Paul - I don't put any hurdles in the way of that.
Andy Griess
As I imagine somebody coming into my office to ask me this question, "What do we do with this issue that I think is limiting my freedom? I think the government has overreached and is trying to make me do something that they don't have the authority to do." I think I would sympathize with them to a certain extent and say they're in a tough spot and they've got to think through a lot of things. And I think part of me would share with them how I think about the subject, but I don't know how specific I would get regarding what I would do. I would point them to the fact that within the systems we have now in America, there is a legal, civil way of making your protests heard. If you feel like this is overreach, then there is an outlet for you to do that. But the truth is, you would probably have to put yourself in a position where you are going to defy a mandate, which means that you may be charged with something, you may be fined, you may have to go through some kind of a civil trial ordeal, where that begins the process where you can challenge it.
So you've got to count the cost. Is it worth me trying to go through the legal mechanisms to do this? And that's where I would say, "I could tell you what I might be willing to do, but I would not want to tell you what to do." I try to make them aware of what they would have to go through to take it through all those legal channels, and then I would not center on that. I would say the worry you have that freedoms are eroding, there's things that Christians haven't liked for generations about the direction our nation is headed. But at every step of the way it's the gospel of Jesus Christ that we have to focus on, it has to be central to everything that we're doing. And fighting every one of these political battles, politically I don't think that has served us well. I think it's taken our attention away from is Jesus, our King first and foremost. And are we conveying to the people around us that he should be their king too? Here's why, here's how awesome He is. Here's what he can do for you. Here's what he wants to do for the world. That's the message that I want to make sure people have at the forefront of what they're trying to accomplish.
Bruce Peterson
I think the gospel can thrive in any political government, and has for 2000 years. It is the one kingdom that has the promise of God that it will conquer all other kingdoms, including democracy.
Andy Griess
And I think if that would have been our focus as the church all the way through, to focus on the Gospel rather than trying to fight these fights politically, maybe there would have been a slide in a different direction, where things could be a lot different. So if we're going to make the changes we want to make, it starts with being serious about that. That's what I would say.
Bruce Peterson
I think you're right. If you're afraid of anything, be afraid of not being serious about the Gospel.