The Preacher and Politics

FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS
volume 23, number 13, March 28, 2024

For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God, Acts 20:27.

Mary, Queen of Scots (December 8, 1542 to February 8, 1587), also known as Mary Stuart, was Queen of Scotland from December 14, 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567. Mary was only six days old when her father, James V, died and she inherited the throne. During her childhood, Scotland was governed by regents, like her French mother, Mary of Guise. In 1548, at the age of six, she was betrothed to Francis, the Dauphin of France, and was sent to be brought up in France. Mary married Francis in 1558 when sixteen, becoming queen consort of France from his accession in 1559 until his death in December 1560. Upon her husband’s death, Mary returned to Scotland in August 1561. 

Mary married her half-cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in 1565, and in 1566 they had a son, James VI. After Darnley orchestrated the murder of Mary’s Italian secretary and close friend and probable partner in adultery, David Rizzio, their marriage soured. In February 1567, Darnley’s residence was destroyed by an explosion, and he was found murdered in the nearby garden. James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was generally believed to have orchestrated Darnley’s death, but he was acquitted of the charge in April 1567, and the following month he married Mary. Following an uprising against the couple, Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle. On July 24, 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favor of her one-year-old son, James VI. After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, she fled southward seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Elizabeth I of England. As a great-granddaughter of Henry VII of England, Mary had once claimed Elizabeth’s throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Roman Catholics. Perceiving Mary as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. After eighteen-and-a-half years in captivity, Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586 and was beheaded the following year at the age of forty-four.

Early on Tuesday morning, August 19, 1561, soon after her return to Scotland, Mary, Queen of Scots, arrived at Lieth and made her way later that day to the Palace at Holyrood in Edinburgh. This occurred in the midst of the Scottish Reformation being led by John Knox. Mary, a devout Roman Catholic, wasted no time in imposing Roman Catholicism on the people. The following Sunday, August 24, she took the Mass in the Holyrood chapel from a Roman Catholic priest. John Knox, the powerful Presbyterian preacher and reformer, also wasted no time in speaking strongly and prophetically against Mary’s idolatrous action. He said in his sermon at St. Giles Presbyterian Church in Edinburgh on August 31 that God regularly brings great plagues on nations which practice idolatry. He said that he feared one Mass more than ten thousand soldiers whose purpose is to suppress the true religion. Many mocked his sermon, saying that such fear was unfounded, that it was improper for him to renounce idolatry by the Queen, that to do so was not his responsibility. Shortly thereafter, Queen Mary summoned Knox to Holyrood Palace and sought to silence him, first by intimidation and then by a woman’s greatest weapon—tears. To no avail. Knox had suffered imprisonment as a galley slave for two years. He was not about to be intimidated by any person, especially an idolatrous Queen. The portrait of their encounter hangs in my library and continues to be a great encouragement to me.

What is the preacher’s role in politics? Paul the apostle reminded the elders of the church at Ephesus that he did not shrink from preaching to them everything the Bible teaches on all the vital issues of life in this world and the next. This includes prophetically preaching of judgment on people, nations, churches, or politicians who refuse to bow the knee to Jesus. Consider also the Biblical example of prophetic preaching byJeremiah, the prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah. Jeremiah was called in 626 B.C. by Yahweh to his noble but difficult task, to preach the prophetic word to the nation, urging them to turn back to the true and living God. The time of renewal, begun under King Josiah in 628 B.C., was given greater impetus by the rediscovery of the Book of the Law in 621 B.C. The renewal, however, was short lived. The people quickly returned to their idolatrous ways. So around 609 B.C., during the reign of Jehoiakim, the son of good King Josiah, Yahweh instructed Jeremiah to stand in the court of the Lord’s house (the place of worship, but also symbolically the center of Jewish power and authority) and to speak all His words which He commanded him. “Do not,” said Yahweh, “omit a word.” If they listened to Jeremiah’s prophetic word, then Yahweh promised not to bring His calamity on them. He went further, saying that a refusal to listen to His prophets would cause Him to make the Lord’s house like Shiloh (Jeremiah 7:12). The presence of the Lord was taken from Israel in 1 Samuel 4:12 when the Philistines routed them at Shiloh. Following what He said earlier (Deuteronomy 28), Yahweh also said that He would make Jerusalem a curse to all the nations of the earth, if they were unwilling to repent and return to the Lord. 

What about today? A quick look at the last seventy years reveals far too little prophetic preaching in the U.S. and when it has come, it has been selective, possibly tied to the political loyalty of the preacher. For example, most evangelical and Reformed pastors and elders were generally slow to get behind the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s. I know a number of pastors older than me who served the Lord in the 1960’s and many of them tell me that they have had to repent and ask black pastors to forgive them for not speaking out against the injustice of segregation. And most Reformed and evangelical pastors at the time were supportive of the Viet Nam War. No doubt those men now look back on these issues and see how wrong they were. Along the same line, liberals denounced the Military Industrial Complex while conservative pastors were complicit with Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon in supporting it.  

Preachers are to preach against all sin, not just those which fit their political loyalties, and they are to warn people to flee from the wrath of God which is coming upon all unrepentant sinners. They are to warn those in political office at local, state, and national levels that they will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give account for how they executed their office of leadership. Preachers should never be selective and blindly support their favorite candidates for any public office. When a leader has taken an unbiblical and therefore ungodly action then preachers should call them out on their folly. We need modern day prophets like Jeremiah and John Knox. Preacher, are you preaching prophetically? 

What are these men like? What is their message? How do they preach? What are we to do? Even a cursory look at Jeremiah 26 makes clear that a prophet is to speak his Master’s message. He is not to omit a word. He is not to mitigate, in any way, the word of impending doom, which is certain, unless the only remedy for deliverance is pursued, namely repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Knox told Mary that her idolatry would cause both God’s amicable presence and comfortable defense to leave them, and once that happened, what would become of them? So a modern day prophet must proclaim, without reservation or equivocation, the word of judgment on anyone, on any nation, which refuses to repent of idolatry and flee to Jesus, the only Savior of sinners. He must not omit any word of God’s message. He must make specific, personal, heart searching application to everyone who hears him. He must preach for a verdict. He is not to engage publicly in partisan politics. He can have his own views privately. He should keep politics out of his preaching. He should not publicly support any candidate but he must make the issues clear to his auditors. He must preach the Bible’s truth in every circumstance, whether or not it is palatable to his congregation or those who hear him on the streets. 

Please note that prophets do not merely speak about hell, judgment, or impending doom.They do not speak of sin in general, nebulous terms. They do not speak euphemistically about homosexuality, merely suggesting it is contrary to human flourishing. They call it perversion, an abomination, that which desecrates the Imago Dei in those who practice it.

Preacher, stay away from partisan politics but preach clearly and prophetically the full counsel of God.