Some have asked for wording from your Bishops regarding the difference between being “political” and “partisan” as clergy in the Church. We offer you the following reflections from the Rev. Adam Thomas, which offers some insight from a political science perspective, and the Rev. Gillian Barr, which offers some insight on how to engage your parish in this conversation pastorally. Ultimately, we are called to proclaim the Gospel as we understand it, centered in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and how we believe that informs our common life (political), not a particular political party or candidate (partisan).
We hope this gives you language that might be helpful to you in your work. Of course, this will not answer all of your questions or cover every grey area. We encourage you to be in conversation with trusted colleagues, your Regional Dean, Canon Ranjit, and your Bishops if we can be of further support.
Bishop Jeff and Bishop Laura
From the Rev. Adam Thomas, a priest in ECCT and political science major:
From the Greek “polis,” meaning “city,” politics at its most fundamental is public conversations about what we most value in our common life and society. Seen in this way, politics happens any time we share public discourse. The polite decision not to speak about politics keeps us from building the resilience, patience, and grace to remain in fraught conversations with people who espouse different viewpoints. Jesus spoke politically in that his words in the gospel are both public and speak about how to improve the lives of those around him.
Partisanship is discourse that revolves around the defense of worldviews. Whereas political conversation, at its best, seeks the best solutions for the most people, partisanship seeks to win an argument or an issue regardless of whether the partisan’s ideas are the most helpful ones for the current moment. Bi-partisanship is competing worldviews finding common ground. Non-partisanship is an attempt to disallow a partisan worldview from affecting decision-making (which is more an ideal than a reality).
Because the Church is a public institution, whenever we speak about important things, as the gospel compels us to do, we are speaking politically. In an attempt to keep our speech free of partisanship, we do not endorse candidates for public office using the official channels of the Church, nor do we direct funding to partisan political campaigns. Rather, we boldly proclaim the worldview that Jesus commands us to embrace: a life that seeks unbiased truth instead of historical illusion, a mission that pursues justice for those who are oppressed, an ethic that directs more equitable resource distribution for those who do not have enough, and a society that promotes the rights and dignity of all people.
From the Rev. Gillian Barr, a priest in ECCT
In a recent Zoom call with clergy, both our diocese’s bishops reaffirmed that all Christians, and the Church, and local parishes, are called to be political, but not partisan. This might be a very surprising statement to some. Why would they say that?
We are called to be political because politics simply means the systems and structures we, the polis, the people, use to organize ourselves and our society for the common good. As Christians, we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves, meaning we are called to work for our neighbors’ best interests, not just our own. We have promised at our baptism to love our neighbor as ourselves, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace among all peoples and respect the dignity of every human being. Therefore we are called to engage in politics—to engage with the structures that govern our larger society to try to do what we can for the well-being of our neighbors whom we are called to love. We are called to engage with politics in a way that is informed by and consisted with our Christian values. We are thus to model a different sort of polis, by being a people called to a unique and distinctive lifestyle.
From Luke 4 to Matthew 25, Jesus is very clear about the social values Christians should try to live out.
However, we should not be partisan. Being partisan means endorsing a particular party or candidate, or a specific party’s platform. We have one ultimate allegiance—and that is to Jesus. When we call Jesus “Lord,” we are saying that no one else has our ultimate political or moral allegiance—no party, no politician, no nation. When the values of Jesus and the values of our nation, or any political party we may be a part of as individuals, conflict, we are baptism-bound to act according to the values of Jesus, not those of our nation or party. People calling Jesus “Lord” is why he was so threatening to the Roman leaders, and the main historical reason he was crucified—a punishment reserved for political dissidents. They realized that those who followed Jesus would only be loyal to God, not to Caesar. His ministry was seen as political from its very beginnings.
Just like Jesus, we welcome all to our church fellowship and to worship and follow Him, no matter their party affiliations or voting records. We love all. We respect the dignity of all. And we strive to articulate what values Jesus lifted up, and what those values might look like lived out in the 21st century, and we commit to try to live by them ourselves and invite others to do the same.
Perhaps few of us had reason to think about the truly radical nature of Christian discipleship when we were baptized or took confirmation classes, or when we have subsequently repeated the Baptismal Covenant. Perhaps we didn’t ponder this because the stated values of our country have largely been congruent with the general ethos of Christianity, even if our actual policies and laws, such as human enslavement, Jim Crow discrimination, child labor, or debtors’ prisons, have often fallen far short of Christian values.
Many of the most effective social reforms in the U.S. have been inspired and enacted by Christians working together to influence the government to implement policies shaped by their own faith-full values. (Former Labor Secretary and Episcopalian Frances Perkins’ design of the Social Security program is but one of hundreds of examples; the abolition of slavery, prison reform, and the Civil Rights Movement are a few others).
To keep the division between my ministry and partisan politics clear, when I became ordained I stopped volunteering for any partisan party or candidate. As a parish we do not promote or host events sponsored by a political party. As one clergy person I know said, “I never endorse a particular party. If some of the examples I give in sermons contrasting actions which are more Christlike with those which are less seem to align more with one party than another, that is an accident of what that particular party advocates, not any desire on my part to endorse a party.”
Priests are called to uphold the alternative moral politics of the Church, and highlight the values and issues that all Christians ought to care about, regardless of what partisan tradition a parishioner may affiliate with. We may all differ considerably as to how to implement and work towards certain values, but the values themselves are things that can and should be discussed among Christians That is what I strive to do at the parish level through my teaching and preaching.
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Sean Rowe, has been clear about the Church’s obligations in this particular time. This past June he issued this statement to the Church: Acting faithfully in troubling times: A letter from Presiding Bishop Rowe. And on the weekend of Independence Day he published this op-ed: Once the church of presidents, the Episcopal Church must now be an engine of resistance. That is a pretty bold and clear statement, and one which frankly surprised me. Our Presiding Bishop does not have binding authority as prelates in other traditions do, but we should prayerfully consider his words.
I hope this has given you some understanding of why organizations and preachers in the Episcopal Church may make statements about how Christian values relate to issues and events which might be considered “political.”