I recently watched a documentary that caused me to re-examine one of my firmly held beliefs–that churches shouldn’t be in the business of prescribing certain legislative action in the civic realm. Countless times I have heard ordained clergy advocate for a particular legislative fix to solve a deeply rooted social problem. It has always troubled me. But I was moved and inspired by Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, subject of the documentary, Hesburgh.
Ted Hesburgh knew from the age of six that he wanted to be a priest. Until his death at age 97, his identity was inseparable from his calling. Yet his priesthood was lived out in the very public realms of higher education and national politics. He was President of the University of Notre Dame for 35 years, and was at the center of the biggest political struggles of the mid-twentieth century: civil rights, atomic energy, campus protests, and war in Southeast Asia.
I asked myself why Fr. Ted’s history of advocacy did not grate on my nerves, when an advocacy sermon from the pulpit on a Sunday morning raises my hackles and often prompts me to email the minister.
My problem with specific legislative advocacy from the pulpit is three-fold. First of all, most ordained clergy are not experts in medicine, economics, and law, but they pontificate as if they are. Often they attempt to rally their congregation to support a course of action that doesn’t take into account the complex and numerous factors about which they know little. Secondly, problems in society (e.g., poverty) have multiple causes. Therefore, there are almost always multiple approaches to the solution of those problems. Who is to say that clergy—trained in theology and psychology, not necessarily history, economics, and science—have any clue as to the best course of action? The chance that a given clergy member knows the correct solution is no greater than the odds that a given church member knows the correct solution. Which leads me to my third concern: when “the church” prescribes one specific course of action or specific method to solve a given social problem, unfortunate and unintended consequences result.
Non-skeptical members of the church may accept at face value the prescribed solution, because they will accept the authority of the church. They may assume that the clergy, speaking from the pulpit as a “representative of God,” must be right. Therefore, they may not give the matter any further or broader consideration, and that means other creative solutions won’t have a chance to sprout.
Skeptical members of the church who believe in a different course of action may feel alienated from the church. They might seek another denomination that prescribes the course of action they favor, or they might abandon religion altogether.
When the intractable social problem doesn’t go away, the solutions prescribed by the clergy from the pulpit are judged flawed. In the secular world, people propose faulty ideas all the time, and we cope by hiring or electing different people to undertake a different course of action the next time around. But in a church setting, members conflate theology with policy, particularly when preached from the pulpit. When the policy proves ineffective, the theology is assumed faulty. God is judged to be no wiser than people. There’s a truism in the old joke: “God created people in His own image…and people returned the favor.”
I think this is a shame, because I believe the church has a vital function to play in society. I believe that the church’s role is to support and nurture individuals. The sermons from the pulpit should prick the conscience, uplift the soul, heal the grief, expand the generosity, dissipate the hatred, reduce the greed, inspire the service, and encourage the love of each individual sitting in the pew. Then all those individuals—fortified by something greater than themselves—can go out into the world and work to make society better.
Some of the individuals—members of the same congregation–will explore red options, while others explore blue. They can perceive their callings and their gifts, and choose their individual paths free from the limitations of a particular action prescribed by their clergy. The church’s role should be to work for the health of each individual cell, that the whole organism of society might be healthier.
Which gets me back to Fr. Ted. After some consideration, I realized that Ted Hesburgh was not prescribing a course of action for his flock. Rather, he had perceived his calling and his gifts. Fortified by his love of God, he chose his individual path (which was often at odds with the prescribed path of his larger church), and worked to make the world a better place. I was moved and inspired not because Fr. Ted told me what to do, but because he demonstrated what I could do if I followed my conscience and used my gifts.
