Are Pastors Abusing Their Power?

As the political season advances, it kills me to see how many Americans will vote against their own self interest. The saddest part, however, is that many will do so not because its what they want, but because it's what the guy standing at the front of the sanctuary on Sunday demands.

Pastors in America have done a deplorable job in politics. They know that many in their congregation are not thoroughly versed in Scripture. They take advantage of that. Ironically, in this day and age, the Reformation means nothing, as pastors in most churches are nothing more than "little popes", believing that they and they alone, possess the keys to Scriptural understanding and are called to deliver them to the little people. Instead of "equipping the saints for His Service", they have haughtily held back the keys to the kingdom by pretending that only through an anointing by man can Scripture be understood. And nowhere is this more clear than in politics.

Let's be clear: neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party presents a Christian approach to the problems our leaders face. Abortion is wrong, yes, but so is starving the poor and presenting a mother with no options. And so is judging someone without helping them find a way out.

I say this on the issue of abortion because it's the one I wrestle with the most. While I am politically prochoice, I am decidedly and unapologetically prolife on a personal and moral level. That means that I seek to make alternatives available, assurances that the fears of the mother considering won't be realized; that her child won't live today only to find death tomorrow through disease, starvation, or the rampant violence that fills our inner cities. In my belief, I take that further to include the guarantee that the child won't have to worry about living today to find death 20 years from now in a battlefield in some foreign country, or at the end of the executioner's needle.

That, to me, is what prolife means.

And at the same time pastors oppose moral evils, they oppose a living wage. I have seen pastors post some rather nasty memes criticizing the fight for $15, when they should be joining the fight. They insist that their congregants should stay underpaid, yet they lament when the coffers of the church aren't filled with the coins that the poor collect as their portion for a week's labor.

If the pastors will insist on allowing the wealthy to steal the wealth that the poor have earned, then I insist that the pastors should collect the tithes from the employer, not the employee, as the employer holds the pilfered wages of their employees. And I refuse to tithe to any church that does not advocate a living wage, as their teaching is heresy.

Pastors are called to lead their flock, not to manipulate and twist their minds. They are to present the WHOLE gospel, including the parts they don't like. Otherwise, they are quite definitely abusing their power.

It's past time to call theem on this.