Hello, my friends,

There is a few phrases I have heard all throughout my life in the church when it comes to American politics. They are phrases I still hear on an almost weekly basis online from many people. The phrases are "both sides are equally bad" and "don't preach politics, just preach the gospel."

If you've heard these phrases as much as I have, you might be wondering why we say these things, especially today when the political stakes seem to be so high. I think it is something at least worth pondering together why we might say such things and perhaps consider a different framework for today.

But first, here are some resources to consider.

​-Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism's Unholy War On Democracy. I watched this documentary this week. I was honestly so impressed with its historical clarity and the threads of hope it provided. It features several pastors and scholars I have come to know personally online and deeply respect. While it is difficult to watch, I found myself incredibly motivated to continue pressing forward with a deeper understanding of the challenges we face ahead. I watched it on Amazon Prime, but you can also watch it here for free on Tubi: https://tubitv.com/movies/100020971/bad-faith​

​-Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right by Randall Balmer. If you are more the reading type or you just want to dive into this topic a bit deeper, I highly recommend this book by religious scholar Randall Balmer, who is also featured in the documentary I recommended above. This is a short and powerful history behind the rise of the moral majority in the United States, who were the forerunners to organizations like The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025.

​-The Real Origins of the Religious Right: They’ll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record’s clear: It was segregation. also by Randall Balmer. This takes an even briefer look at the rise of the religious right in America and specifically looks at the real reasons why the abortion issue became the rallying cry for the Moral Majority.

​-Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor by Caleb Campbell. My friend Pastor Caleb Campbell has watched as Christian nationalism has taken over large swaths of the United States. And he's suffered the relational fallout of standing against it, both in his community and his church. While it's possible to be both a Christian and hold Christian nationalist ideas, Christian nationalism itself is an un-Christian worldview, rooted in ideas about power, race, and property that are irreconcilable with the Christian faith. Campbell has come to see himself as a missionary to Christian nationalists, reaching out to them with the love and freedom of Jesus Christ. If you are looking for a good pastoral response, I recommend this book.

Okay, onto today's content.

​
​Why Saying "Both Sides Are Equally Bad" Just Isn't Truthful.

​

Context Is Everything

As many of you know, the Christianity of my childhood was fundamentalism. I then moved to Evangelical Christianity in middle school and served in a conservative Christian denomination as an adult, all in my home state of Idaho, which also has a long reputation for being hyper-conservative as well.

I have been in the church all my life in this context, save the last several years. During that time, there was a phrase used by church leaders and laypeople alike: “Don’t preach politics, just preach the gospel.”

This phrase expresses a value in conservative Christianity. The value of remaining apolitical while expressing the gospel of Jesus as our primary identity.

A close companion to this phrase when talking about politics in America was “both sides are equally bad,” again, this is said to prioritize our central identity in the gospel of Jesus above partisan loyalties.

While it is deeply admirable to want to prioritize our identity in Jesus Christ above the political fray, I have concluded that these sentiments actually miss that mark. Especially in how they are used today.

Experience From Ministry

To use a personal example, during my entire lifetime within the church, I constantly heard people warning against the dangers of liberalism and communism to both our faith and our nation, but I never once heard anyone warn against the dangers of conservatism or fascism to our faith or our nation.

I constantly heard sermons against homosexuality, abortion, and “leftists,” all met with thunderous “amens” and applause. Yet when I became a pastor and preached about our need to oppose nationalism, racism, and patriarchy, and advocate better economic and social policies that better help the poor, guess what phrases I heard?

“Don’t preach politics, just preach the gospel" and “Both sides are equally bad.”

In my experience, in my context, these phrases were only said when the conservative status quo was questioned or critiqued. Yet when the conservative status quo was emphasized and held up as the standard of Christianity, these phrases were not said at all. Only “amens” and "hallelujahs" were said instead.

It became rather clear to me that while we would warn against “liberalism” hijacking our faith, we would then turn the other way, even willingly at times, when conservatism did the same.

This was all before 2016.

After 2016, I watched this take place not just in my own ministry, but across my denomination as well.

I and many other colleagues were constantly getting corrective calls from denominational leaders and harassed online by church members for our inclusive language, discussions on social justice, and our desire for the church to be self-critical when it came to nationalism, racism, greed, and sexism.

I then witnessed other colleagues publicly swing sharply to the political right. Their sermons were filled with preaching even more fiercely against homosexuality, abortion, and “liberalism.” They would write long posts online about the “deep state” and even change their profile pictures to them wearing blatantly partisan hats and shirts, all to let people know where they stood.

Yet as I watched peer after peer being reprimanded for inclusivity and peaching social justice, even losing career opportunities or losing their position as pastor entirely, those who swung sharply to the right continued to freely do as they wished.

I realized that if you were seen to even lean left on an issue, you had a target put on your back, but you could swing as far to the right as you wanted.

At my last count, between Easter of 2020 and Easter of 2021, I along with 22 of my peers were either pushed out of our denomination or left because of the constant pressure to do so. I along with others found ourselves in another denomination while others left the ministry altogether. Some even left the faith because of how painful it was.

I cannot tell you how painful it is to have the denomination you devoted decades of your life to turn on you and make you a target of its own culture war.

I continue to watch this happen in my former denomination. Friends in positions once thought untouchable, like deans of a university’s school of theology department, were removed simply because of their inclusivity and advocacy while others are even put on trial, yes trial, for theological “heresy.” What century is this?!

Do you know what phrases I still heard as all of this was happening?

“Don’t preach politics, just preach the gospel.”

“Both sides are equally bad.”

All while a certain brand of politics was certainly being embodied and one side was certainly being emboldened and championed.

A Failure To Meet The Moment

I think this sentiment takes root because it hits right at the heart of the good and true motivation of who we followers of Jesus genuinely want to be. We deeply desire to have our primary identity rooted in Jesus. Especially when it comes to matters of our world, we genuinely want to be known as followers of Jesus, not followers of a political ideology or party.

Unfortunately though, while the intention behind it is good, it has led us to be deeply incapable of rising to meet our current moment as followers of Jesus because we are unaware of our historical context.

It ignores the reality that the Moral Majority has been working incredibly hard over the last +50 years to encourage as many Christians as possible to fuse their identity as followers of Jesus with the Republican Party. During that time, it has taken issues like abortion, homosexuality, immigration etc, and manipulated them in any way that was needed to in order to rally people behind its pursuit of political control.

Things like overtly Christian presence at the January 6th insurrection, Project 2025, and its creator, The Heritage Foundation, are all the direct results of the tireless work done by the Moral Majority for the last several decades.

You cannot work this tirelessness against those who believe differently than you do as the Moral Majority has done without coming to believe that democracy itself is the enemy, which it now does. Because democracy allows those who disagree with you the freedom to raise their voice, to vote, and to shape society as well.

This is why we are seeing democracy threatened in so many ways right now.

So given this historical context that has led us to this moment, saying “don’t preach politics” and “both sides are equally bad” lacks self-awareness at best and is willfully ignorant at worst.

What we end up doing is either upholding the current status quo of the religious right in our churches or failing to speak truth to its power all in the name of maintaining “political neutrality.”

Put another way, how would you feel if a German Christian in the 1930s looking at everything going on in their nation said, “both sides are equally bad”?

How would you feel about an American Christian as tensions continued to grow over the enslavement of human beings in the 1800s saying, “Don't preach politics, just preach the gospel?”

How would you respond to them knowing what you know about their historical context? How we answer these questions helps us to consider how we want to be remembered in this moment in our time.

Again, Context is Everything

I must admit, I ask myself if I am being as unpartisan as possible all the time. It is a constant concern of mine. Every time I write, every time I preach, every time I have a conversation with someone about politics and religion today, I am constantly guarding against not just looking like I’m part of the “other side” of whatever issue I’m talking about but rather solely pointing people towards Jesus instead.

What is interesting though is how much context plays into this. For example, I gave a sermon one Sunday and as I shook people’s hands as they were leaving the sanctuary, someone whom I knew leaned conservative took me aside and told me I didn’t emphasize our personal need for Jesus enough. Then, later that evening, I got an email from one of my more progressive members expressing their discomfort that I had emphasized our need for Jesus too rigidly, fearing that it may sound too exclusivist to those outside of Christianity.

This kind of thing happens to pastors quite regularly, but let me ask you something, which one was wrong? Which one was right?

You see, knowing both these individuals, I knew these things were said out of genuine love for other people. They had heard the same sermon, but because certain people they loved came to mind as they listened, they thought I should have emphasized my point in different ways.

I know I’ve done that exact same thing from time to time. I think we all do. We all have our lenses, filters, and biases.

This is why I think rigid, either/or categories are unhelpful. Neither person was fully wrong or fully right. When I understood what they were saying by understanding their heart and their context and through my love for them, I could hear what was truthful about what they were saying while also honestly seeing where they may not be able to see the whole picture outside of their context.

I believe the same thing is true about our current political reality. Many of us Christians were taught a narrative that so cleanly divides the world into good and evil. We were given such rigid true and false categories that we struggle at times to see and understand the nuance and complexity of our current moment to respond to it as followers of Jesus.

It is easier and feels safer to say one side is bad and the other good than it is to see the good and bad in both sides.

I believe we need a new framework. We need a framework that allows for nuance, complexity, and gray areas to exist. We need a framework that understands our history well enough to know where we are in our current moment and why.

The reality is, I don’t believe either political party can embody the whole of the gospel of Jesus. Both the left and the right have their evils.

Yet, as our history shows, the left has not co-opted Christianity for the sake of political control in our time. The religious right has done this significantly.

You simply don’t see a large faction of Christians on the left treating Biden as if he is some political messiah sent by God to save both the values of Christianity and our nation as you do with Evangelical Christianity towards Trump on the political right.

You simply don’t hear a large faction of Christians on the left threatening all kinds of trouble if Biden doesn’t remain president or if Democrats don’t control all positions of power as you hear on the political right.

We simply aren’t witnessing a large faction of Christians on the left working to undermine our democracy as we do within Christian Nationalism.

Given our historical context, to assert otherwise is to simply be dishonest about our current moment. As a people of truth, this should really matter to us.

This does not discount the evils that exist on the "the left," but it does challenge us to clearly see the great evils being caused within our own religious family on the right and take our part in the repentance and healing that is so needed.

Our framework needs to be broken out of rigid, either/or binaries and centered on the teachings of Jesus instead, which is what we’ve actually wanted all along.

Our framework needs to be broken away from just focusing on individual candidates and centered on evaluating the historical context, the local context, and the big picture of what someone’s entire administration would bring if elected nationally or locally.

Our framework needs to be just as informed about the biases we have for one side as we are about the dangers of the other.

Our framework needs less binary thinking and more wise thinking.

Some questions I think about when it comes to voting from this framework:

How will this impact my neighbor whom I am called to love? (Matt 22:36-40; Mark 12:31).

How will this impact the least among us? (Matthew 25:37-40)

How will this bring good news to the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the oppressed, and the indebted? (Luke 4:18-19)

How will this help to stop and prevent further wars? (Matthew 5:9)

How will this help to care for creation the way God does and prevent its abuse? (Leviticus 25:17; Matthew 6:25-34)

How am I putting the interests of others above my own? (Philippians 2:3-5)

How am I voting for people who are seeking to serve others rather than seeking vengeance against others? (Matthew 5:38-48; Matthew 20:25-28)

How am I upholding a democracy where even the voices of the oppressed are free to speak and be heard? (Proverbs 31:8-9)

Given the political landscape as it is, these aren’t easy questions to answer and that is the challenge for each of us.

​Jesus navigated a complex and complicated world as well. I don't think he gives us clean-cut answers to our problems, but rather, he gives us a way of being in this world that challenges us to consider the problems and complexities of our place and time so we can more wisely navigate our context with integrity and wisdom.

For myself, I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that I oppose theocracy. I oppose Christian nationalism. I oppose my religion being coopted by extremism in pursuit of political control. I oppose my government being dictated by a single religion, even my own. As a follower of Jesus, I simply don’t see any of these things as loving God or loving our neighbor. They are simply centered on the worship of power.

Rather than focusing on a particular candidate or party, this framework is how I will continue to try to navigate the political and social context of our time as I strive to follow Jesus in the midst of it all.