Kevin De-Young has written recently bemoaning that:
“I confess it boggles my mind to see ministry friends and acquaintances—both to the “left” of me and to the “right” of me—who are spending their time, their energy, and their authority by offering hot takes on everything under the sun and by descending into social media food fights that bear a striking resemblance to the “irreverent babble” that leads people into more and more ungodliness (2 Tim. 2:16). Brothers, we must steadfastly avoid foolish, ignorant controversies (2 Tim. 2:23). It is not acquiescence to the spirit of the age that demands that “the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome” (2 Tim. 2:24), it is the command of Holy Scripture.”
Now, there is some wisdom in not feeling the pressure to comment on everything. In fact, sometimes when you do write blogs and comment on issues, there are times when people put the pressure on, wanting to know what your hot take is. Or you get the kind of “what-aboutery.” Why are you commenting on this issue now, when you didn’t comment on another issue previously. This comes more as an accusation posed as a question. For example, when Gavin Calver (Evangelical Alliance), posted comments recently on facebook about the government’s decision to cut International Aid, some people demanded to know if he had made similar comments when Rishi Sunak cut it. As it happened, his response was that he did but really it shouldn’t matter too much. We are not required to comment on each and every situation.
Personally, I do comment on political issues from time to time but it’s fairly infrequent in the big scheme of things and I try as far as possible to keep away from party political positions.
However, there are a few risks with Kevin’s argument. First of all, I think there is a bit of a timing issue here. Kevin’s article has landed after the recent inauguration of President Trump and a few month sof him sabre rattling with Canada, Greenland and Panama. It comes at the very point where we have seen him seek to impose questionable deals on Ukraine and the horrific scenes in the White House Oval Office. K-D-Y may not have intended it but his article begins to look like kickback against those commenting on those very current political issues. The risk then is that his article becomes a piece of political comment in its own right.
This links to a second issue. Kevin acknowledges that he does himself choose to comment on some issues. So, who decided what issues to comment on and who gets to comment on them. We can all assume that we are carefully selective and that both our motives and the consequence is that we bring gospel influence to bear whilst assuming that those we criticise are just indiscriminatingly commenting.
Shouldn’t we care about social justice issues just as we care about beginning and end of life ethics? Does the environment matter or not? Your ”minor distracting issue” may be significant in my context. Here in Birmingham right now, our local government is in crisis and actually our congregation and community may be as much affected by things like bin strikes, council tax rises and library closures as the seemingly big ethical and political issues of the day. I recently wrote about the way that my home city Bradford was mocked by a national broadcaster over its status as city of culture. I think I was the only Christian who did respond. Yet the tone around class and race seemed significant to me. To be sure, there can be times when we say too much but maybe there are times when we are over cautious and over silent as well.
Thirdly, Kevin presumes a lack of background experience on issues. However, not all of us have spent our entire working life in paid Christian ministry. Some of us have prior careers, prior degrees and prior experience and often, yes, they are in related fields to the ones we comment on. Linked to that, hopefully pastors and Christian leaders have a hinterland of wider interests. This might include everything from art, music, sport through to politics.
This leads to a further consideration. Kevin seems to presume that when pastors speak, that it is always as pastors. Now in a sense, yes, you cannot just lay aside the office of elder, you are always in that role and yes, you are representing your church and The Church. However, there are different ways of doing that. I’m still an elder in my local church when I turn up at the football, or when I take a stroll or go shopping. I’m still an elder in my local church when I’m commenting on facebook and this should affect how I speak and write. However, I’m doing it in a different way to when I’m preaching, teaching or engaged in one to one counselling. Part of being an elder is about being seen to get on with living your normal life. That means modelling normal living well. Actually, if I’m interested in political issues and so are my friends and neighbours, then talking about those issues is just about normal life.
Fourth, I think that if Kevin had stuck with saying that we need to focus on preaching God’s Word, with the qualifications noted above, I would have said “fair enough”. However, he also says:
“Of course, pastors should bring biblical truth to bear on the big questions of our day. But let us focus on the big questions—the questions that the Bible means to address, the questions that the Church Fathers and the Medieval scholastics and the magisterial Reformers and the Puritans and the best Christian minds of the last three hundred years can help us with. These questions are not usually the ones generated by the 24-hour news cycle or stirred up by the social media algorithm. I suspect most of us would be embarrassed to go back and revisit our predictions and two cents about the news from five years ago considering what we didn’t know at the time and how transient almost every bit of “breaking news” turns out to be.”
On a side note, I don’t see why I need to be embarrassed about my “predictions or 2 cents” about the news five years ago. I look back over those five years and I notice that I got some things spectacularly wrong. I didn’t expect us to need a lock down for COVID, I didn’t think that Putin would actually follow through and invade Ukraine. However I got some things right too. I’m quite comfortable with my analysis and forecasting of COVID after the initial wrong assumption. The thing is, I didn’t claim special spiritual authority. I made predictions not prophecies, offered opinions not teaching. I think it would be pretty daft to be embarrassed out two cent opinions!
Anyway, my main point here is that this feels a bit like cultural/theological snobbery. There are certain weighty and worthy issues, especially those of intellectual/academic interest. Yet, is it true to say that these are of more value and worthy of our attention than the 24 hour news cycle. Remember the things that have been in the cycle over those 5 years, a pandemic that closed down our in person meetings, a major nuclear power invading a neighbour, a massive refugee crisis, the rise of insurgent political movements on the left and the right, an energy and cost of living crisis, the death of a monarch, increasing antisemitism, significant issues around race and the small matter of conflict in the Middle East. Incidentally, I’m not convinced that we are without the help of the Bible or figures from history in addressing those questions, though only thre bible offers infallible wisdom on them
Fifth, why narrow it down to politics? As I’ve already alluded to, people are talking about more than just that. What about science, art, sport. Indeed what about the internal goings on within the wider church?
So, to be sure, I need to think carefully about what I comment on and how I comment. However, I’m not sure it is for me to judge what others do. It would be more helpful to have a process for thinking through how, what, when and where we say things.
Faithroots 
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