Brothers, We Are Not Political Pundits

When I started out in ministry 23 years ago, I was greatly helped by John Piper’s book Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. Everything within me resonated with Piper’s call for pastors to be serious students of the Bible and to eschew ministry models based on gimmicks, entertainment, and a desperate attempt to seem relevant to the world. If there are any young men in the same place I was two decades ago—earnest, eager, and ignorant of all sorts of things you don’t know you are ignorant of—let me implore you as a now middle-aged pastor: “Brothers, we are not professionals, and neither are we pundits.”

But Kevin, isn’t everything political?

In a sense, yes.

Are you saying, then, that pastors must stay silent on the most pressing issues of our day?

No.

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.

Don’t get me wrong, we need some Christians (though, undoubtedly, not as many as we have now) to participate in the maelstrom of cultural commentary, just like we need Christians in every non-sinful area of human activity. Political punditry is a legitimate calling. It’s just not the pastor’s calling. The man who comments constantly on the things “everyone is talking about” is almost assuredly not talking about the things the Bible is most interested in talking about. That word “constant” is important. It takes wisdom to know when jumping in the fray might be necessary, but we don’t need pastors looking like a poor man’s version of the Daily Wire or the New York Times.

Don’t Dilute Your Authority

Pastors are not called to comment on everything, nor are we equipped to comment on everything. Brothers, we must not plunge ourselves into subjects on which we do not have the right, nor the expertise, to speak as ministers of the gospel. Before you send out your instant analysis on the controversy du jour, ask yourself: Can I say what I’m about to say by virtue of my training as a minister or by my hard-won expertise in some related area? Yes, Christ is Lord over all. Yes, there is not one square inch in all creation over which Christ does not cry out, “This is mine!” But fellow pastor, you and I are not qualified to speak on all of those square inches over which Christ reigns.

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.

And frankly, most pastors have nothing particularly unique or insightful to say about politics. So much of “speaking prophetically” or applying the Lordship of Christ to all of life amounts to little more than slapdash criticism and recycled talking points. If we feel the need to say something about what’s in the news, let’s slow down, log off, read widely, get lost in some old books, give ourselves to months or years of reflection, and then maybe we will have something worth saying—something that isn’t being said by a hundred chattering voices already. 

Only rarely will it be worthwhile for pastors to weigh in on some political matter immediately (other than lifting up many things to God in our public and private prayers). I don’t regret trying to address topics like abortion, transgenderism, race, or homosexuality, even if these can be called “political” topics. I do regret the times I’ve jumped in too quickly into the news cycle or offered my opinion too freely on individual politicians, if for no other reason than once you set yourself up as “a guy who comments on things all the time,” people can reasonably wonder why you comment on some things and some people and not on others.

If we give people non-stop political commentary and digital dust-ups, they will expect more of the same in the future. And if commenting on a subject three months from now means we are too late, then it’s not a subject that merits our limited hours and attention. As the Old Princeton divine, J.A. Alexander, put it: “The great themes of religious truth are enough to occupy more than he can get. Statesmanship is a science by itself. If a preacher excels in it, he must do so by sacrificing some of his sacred hours” (Thoughts on Preaching, 30).

When pastors decide to become more overtly political it hardly ever ends up as a credit to their insight and carefulness. The pastors on the left who spoke “courageously” about the evils of white privilege or about Covid protocols as a litmus test for neighbor love proved to be too dogmatic and spoke too gospel-y about debatable issues. They may have been cheered on by their friends and by some quarters of the internet, but they squandered their authority and made it harder for people to take them seriously as thinkers and as Christian leaders. To my punchy friends on the right, you are likely to make the same mistakes if you confidently parrot what another echo chamber wants you to say.

Do What You Were Trained to Do

It’s okay for pastors to have many interests.  After all, I like to talk about life and books and everything (which sometimes includes current events and politics). But the things I am most passionate about—and I want it to be manifestly obvious that these are what I’m most passionate about—teaching about theology and church history, preaching about the Bible each Sunday, and being a local church pastor week after week. If ever those aren’t my genuine priorities—if what I really want to do is have a podcast ministry, or an itinerant speaking ministry, or a political action ministry, or a conservative think tank ministry—then I should quit this job and go do that job. There are lots of important jobs in the world and many ways we can serve the Lord and his people. But if you are a pastor, then be a pastor. Do what you were trained to do: study the Bible, preach sermons, love people, and lead your church.

Yes, we can have ordered loves. It’s not all or nothing. We can be engaged in many things at once, but Alexander is right: “It is unseemly for a minister of Christ to be known chiefly by works beyond the line of his calling, however valuable in themselves.” When it comes to our public ministry—what we are known for and what people think about when they think of our voice in the public square—political punditry is virtually a zero-sum game. We can be known for “prophetic” political commentary or we can be known for textually careful, biblically rich, theologically deep, church-focused gospel ministry. 

Brothers, we can be pundits or we can be pastors, but we likely cannot be both.

Kevin DeYoung is the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church (PCA) in Matthews, North Carolina and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary.