One of America’s prominent pastors is telling his colleagues it’s ok to talk about America from the pulpit.
Ronnie Floyd, the senior pastor at Cross Church and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention tells pastors they aren’t being political when they “talk about America”.
He says a pastor’s role is never to denounce a leader or movement publicly, but to bear light upon the issues themselves from a biblical perspective. And he offers five points of counsel from an article he wrote for the Christian Post.
First, The Stewardship of Leadership: Floyd says pastors cannot forfeit their leadership of the church or operate passively about our nation. This would be spiritual negligence.
Second, The Bible and Spirituality: Pastors need to become the biblical voice that challenges the church in America to become the spiritual life of the nation.
Next, Giving Honor and Dignity to the nation’s Leaders: Leadership in America is hard and difficult. While pastors may disagree with someone’s ideology or even lifestyle choices, they should always respect them by referring to them by their proper title.
Fourth, Praying for and Supporting our President: All Americans should support and desire the success of each president in our nation.
And finally, A Future and a Hope: Even in the worst of times, pastors need to be the type of prophets who, while being honest about where our nation is, also believe that we have a future and a hope in the Lord.