I attended Pentecost Sunday services at New York’s Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and the liturgy was, in general, lovely and uplifting. But the sermon, by the Very Rev. James Kowalski, was a case in point of why politics should be avoided in the pulpit….
Amen.
When preachers start bringing in non-Gospel items into their sermons, we can’t exalty stand up and say ‘Excuse me, but I don’t agree with you on that point and what has that to do with today’s Gospel reading?’ Though, I have been tempted in the past.
Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about that now.
wow. and I thought the “theology lite” sermon I heard at Trinity (Boston) yesterday was disappointing (was pretty much Deepak Chopra/Oprah “count your blessings and be happy”). and has it become common place for these types of parishes to stock books like Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”?
Agreed, martin5. To put it another way, political commentary involves often highly debatable prudential judgments, about which we clergy are seldom particularly qualified to speak anyway, so I try to restrict mention of such matters to forums where two-way communication is possible, and that definitely rules out the pulpit.
“Comforting the comfortable,” however is a temptation for all preachers, all along the theological or political spectrum. But I loved Potemra’s final shot in the last line, about how people go to church to hear the Good News about Jesus Christ, not the Bad News about Bush or Obama. Amen to that.
As far as Iran goes, there actually is a connection between that part of the world and the Pentecost story in Acts 2, since the long list of nationalities represented in the crowd gathered in Jerusalem that day is headed by the surprising mention of “Parthians.” Parthia included Iran, Iraq, and eastern Syria, and the Parthians were Rome’s most feared and powerful enemy to the east. So Luke’s mention of Parthian Jews being there at Pentecost and being among those converted that day foreshadows the spread of the gospel beyond the borders of the Roman Empire to the east (Edessa and beyond).
Thus, a far more appropriate application of the biblical text to that troubled part of the world would’ve been a call to re-evangelize the East (as the Nestorians and Jacobites did so successfully in the first millenium AD). Now THAT would be “afflicting the comfortable” liberals who attend Manhattan’s St. John the Divine.
David Handy+
martin5,
Why can’t you stand up and protest? If you don’t want to speak out, stand up and turn your back to the speaker. What’s the worst they can do, throw you out of the elitist, old boy/girl club TEC? Not much of a loss IMHO.
It strikes me that liberal types such as the Dean of New York feel compelled to extrapolate all sorts of agenda items out of certain biblical events simply because they don’t really believe the plain meaning of the text, e.g. that the Holy Spirit can sound like wind, dance like flames on the tops of heads and cause uneducated people speak “the wonderful works of God” in every language. And I worry that if they don’t believe stuff like that, why are they entering pulpits in the first place?
For the cool vestments and all the perks, Ian+…
I happen to think that Iran does not, in fact, want war with Israel (it would be suicide on their part, after all). But regardless, it does sound a bit contrived as part of the sermon.
However, the author is correct – any politics from the pulpit must be offered by the priest in a way that is humble, skeptical and magnanimous.
I don’t buy a strong politics / pulpit distinction, but I do think that people in the pews can figure out the politics themselves.
Daniel,
Because I would view it as bad manners.
Politics in the pulpit is called for occasionally, e.g. in speaking out in favour of sexual holiness, life issues, but against the murder of an abortionist, and certainly against the pro-culture-of-death policies of a certain president. But partisan politics is a no-no, for the sake of as few as five righteous Democrats or Republicans, depending on your side. As the late Fr RJ Neuhaus recently said, “Don’t worry, the Republicans will turn on us too, eventually.”
I was there for 2 Christmas, and there was more political bias from Fr. Kowalski – talked about how smart Obama was, and complaining about the “Magic Negro” parody on Limbaugh (he didn’t mention the fact that the ‘magic negro’ appellation was coined by David Ehrenstein in the Los Angeles Times.)
Any other stories about Kowalski fulminating from the pulpit on other Sundays?
The venture in geo-politics is laughable but for me the heart of the failing is the abstraction from Scripture. The Pentecost narrative is not about christians hearing and understanding the other as Other. The tale focuses on what God is doing and has done. The miracle bears witness to God’s fulfilment of his purposes through Jesus the Messiah, and empowers the Galilean disciples (and so the church) to proclaim this truth in all languages and to all cultures.
Mr. Potemra attends a service at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and is “shocked, shocked” to find politics going on. Who’d have thought…