Being honest

A dear friend let me know today in an email that he/she disagrees with my politics.

I knew that fair well.

But her/his concern was that my blog is publicized through the three churches of the Cluster I serve and on their facebook pages.

He/she is right.

She/he asked if I would give a disclaimer about my blog saying 'The thoughts and opinions here are solely mine, not those of the churches I serve'. That's my wording not her's/his.

I'm glad to do that. I may even ask our Cluster Administrator to take my blog off the bulletins and our web guru to remove it from the Cluster facebook.

But, I do disagree with what she/he said in their email--that church and politics must be separate.

I do try as best I can to be non-political in sermons.

But sermons are about God and our lives--and our lives are lived in the political world.

It is, for me, impossible to not, from time to time, offer my thoughts about what is happening in our world and how our God might think about that.

The current and world-wide demonstrations about race in the U.S. can't be ignored.

God has some thoughts on racial discrimination, it seems to me. God has some thoughts about those in charge vs. those they are in charge of. God has some thoughts on love vs. hate. God has some thoughts on equality. God has some thoughts, obviously, on 'the least of these' in our midst. God has some thoughts on loving our neighbors.

So, I will do whatever my dear friend asks: give a disclaimer that my ponderings are  mine and mine alone or stop publicizing my blog with the churches.

But I cannot believe the church and politics must never engage each other.

To do that, in my mind, would deny not only who I am...but who God is.