Lesson 5: Online Courage

It was a strange week for the online Church. Last Monday night, the symposium that normally gathers in my home discussed the relationship between church and state over Zoom. As we were winding down, a number of the members asked why most pastors refuse to speak truth to power. In the few minutes remaining, a variety of suggestions were made, mostly focusing on their being afraid to offend members who are divided politically. People believed pastors settled for comforting their people with assurances that God cares for them in troubled times in order not to lose membership or offerings.

Immediately before our meeting, Donald Trump used force to clear Lafayette Park of peaceful demonstrators in order to pose with a Bible in front of St John Episcopal Church. The incident did not influence our discussion, but by Tuesday morning a storm broke. Christian leaders began speaking out supporting the Black Lives Matters movement and condemning the president’s power play.

Each day the storm gained strength as mainline Protestants, liberal Roman Catholics, some socially-active Evangelicals like Jim Wallis, and even others like Pat Robinson added their censure. Many of us wondered if pastors would overcome their fears and speak prophetically in their Sunday sermons.

And they did. Just about every sermon I could find spoke truth to power. A couple expressed their fear of being criticized for being too political before going on to support efforts to heal racial injustice and condemning the president’s misuse of religion. Most of the preachers had previously very, very carefully avoided anything political much less prophetic. On the other hand, the more conservative preachers I follow were always in one way or another approving candidates who claimed to be against abortion and same sex marriage. Last week, that group either avoided the subject altogether, praised President Trump for showing power, or condemned the looters.

You have to ask what inspired this overwhelming prophetic voice. My first response centered on Trump’s actions. He might have stepped over a line and engaged in conduct that no Christian leader could ignore. They had to speak out.

There is no doubt that this played a major role, but I wonder if the context also contributed to the courage, if that word can be used to describe what happened. During this pandemic, all the statements and sermons were online. That meant the speaker never had to face the audience. Pastors did not have to fear what their members would say as they shook hands after the service. In a sense, their words became more a matter between the spokesperson and God.

In the past, most of us talked about how the removal of certain filters, restraints, and inhibitions on electronic media contributes to online bullying. Perhaps we should spend more time examining how it also helps shy people express themselves more openly. We might have discovered it aided pastors in finding their voices at a very critical time.

If this is one of the lessons learned during the pandemic, we should ask how we can profit from the insight when we return to in-person worship. If we really want our pastors to speak more prophetically, as my symposium maintained, a good start would be letting them know that. If they realize we will support them even when the Gospel message disturbs us, they might find the freedom to speak the Word more boldly.

Tags: Christianity in the Pandemic, Online Courage, Prophetic Sermons, Separation of Church and State, Supporting Prophetic Pastors, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s “A Draft Social Message on Government and Civic Engagement: Discipleship in a Democracy”, The Manhattan Declaration, What We Have Learned from the Pandemic