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You will get opposition from your parishioners, because some who worship the modern Baal will tear their garments and cry out, "If we don't advocate for a strong military, how will America survive?" And others will wail, "The U.S. budget is a moral document!" So you will have to soothe them, otherwise you'll lose your job. You'll have to remind them that, yes, politics is important, that it's a type of neighbor love to work for the welfare of the larger community.

But everyone is telling them that 24/7. For the next five weeks, the priests of political religions will be pandering for tithes and votes from anyone who can breathe, even evangelicals. They will be playing on their fears and manipulating their hopes. Is it too much to ask that for one hour, out of the other 168 given to us in a week, that another point of view be accorded equal time?

For that one hour, instead of joining the American political chorus and naming our choice for the next prince, perhaps we should be preaching from the prophet Isaiah:

Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is [God] who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. (40:21-23, ESV)

Pastors are right about this much: The election season is a unique moment in a church's life, but not because the pastor has the chance to lobby for his candidate. No, the Christian preacher has the unparalleled opportunity to act as the only sane person in a nation mad for power, the only voice in an ephemeral season filled with lies and half-lies to speak abiding truths — that elections (even "the most important in a generation") come and go, that princes (even "the most gifted in a lifetime") appear and pass away, that nations (even "the greatest in history") rise and fall.

And that something greater remains after the first Tuesday in November.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today. This column is cross-posted on his blog.

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Religion News Service reported on the pastors' plans to endorse candidates and wrote about Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed complaints with the Internal Revenue Service. The New York Times and religion scholar Martin Marty also commented on Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

Previous SoulWork columns are available on our site.

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September (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52