McDonald opens the discussion with this offering:

"In the faith community of my boyhood . . . We were relatively disinterested in any public issues except those that had something to do with family or matters of private morality. Everything else was ‘of the world.’ Result? I was quite naive about how to sort out the kind of public issues with which a pastor should identify."

I will skip objections to pastor-talk and the general nauseousness that can be induced by phrases like "faith community." Gordon has touched upon something that has sometimes been a weakness in Christendom: the tendency to compartmentalize politics and religion.

Of course, when some speak of politics, they are talking about candidates and their intrigues in pursuit of offices. (Aside: The word "politics" is derived from two words. The first, "poly", is a Latin word meaning many. The second, "tics", describes blood-sucking creatures. Please stop laughing now as we get back to business!)

But in the broader sense of ‘politics’ it seems clear that the Christian faith teaches many things that necessarily impinge on our view of government. Not all that long ago people seemed to realize this.

I have a volume titled Political Sermons of the American Founding Era published by Liberty Press of Indianapolis, Indiana. To whittle this volume down to a manageable size of only about 1500 pages, the editor had cut out hundreds of sermons that had been put into print. This volume contains sermons such as "Civil Magistrates Must Be Just, Ruling in the Fear of God"; "Scriptural Instructions to Civil Rulers"; "The Bible and the Sword"; "Divine Judgments Upon Tyrants"; and "A Sermon for the day of General Election." Just from these titles you can see that the subject of government has not always been off-limits in the church.

So McDonald makes a good point when he brings our attention to the fact that Christians - and Christian leaders - should not be politically naive. He goes on to recount how, at his first preaching assignment, he had decided to support Lyndon B. Johnson for president. But he struggled with how vocal to be about this given that he was in Kansas, where Johnson was seen as more closely related to the Wicked Witch of the West than the Wizard of Oz.

At this point I must pause and wonder how anyone who accepted the moral principles taught in the Bible could possibly support LBJ for anything, including dog-catcher. I say this not out of any animosity to parties or persons, but because one of the keystones of LBJ’s program was a massive confiscation of people’s wealth so that the state could pursue all sorts of programs well outside its proper bounds. I won’t debate this in detail here, but if you can’t figure out which commandment you are violating when you take money from people by force even if you are supposedly ‘helping’ people with the proceeds, then you simply don’t know your Christianity very well.

If I see that the Jones family down the street needs medical care, and I canvas the neighborhood for voluntary contributions to help them (adding mine to the pot, of course) then I have done a good deed. But if I threaten the neighbors with violence if they don’t make a "contribution" I am simply a hoodlum, no matter how needy the Jones family may be.

Christians should oppose the hoodlum form of government, and one might think Gordon McDonald would realize that. But apparently he did not - and does not. Unfortunately, this is standard fare in Christendom these days. But on with the story.

On further review, McDonald tells us, he decided to modify his approach.

It would be nice if there was usually a difference between preference and conviction in matters political. While that is sometimes the case, very often it is not. The "interests of Jesus" often do have political implications. In McDonald’s case, his preference for LBJ violated what should have been a conviction about the eighth commandment.

Here is a hard saying - digest it if you can: Christian leaders who do not discern what moral principles are being pushed (or ignored) by politicians and teach their congregations accordingly are not leading.

Recently, Rick Warren of Saddleback fame invited Hillary Clinton to his church to speak. Space does not permit exploring all the relevant details, but if you don’t realize that Mrs. Clinton does not share of the moral principles of the Christian faith, then you either don’t know Mrs. Clinton very well, or you don’t know the Christian faith very well. Mind you, she is only one example of this.

This doesn’t mean that every congregation should be a political action center, but congregations should be versed in the moral principles that apply to politics. The "election sermon" from our founding era ought to be resurrected to a place of prominence in every Christian church.

Eventually, McDonald tells us, he came around to a new way of thinking about all this:

"As the years passed, I came to see that the practicalities of a Christ-following faith almost always have political, social, and economic implications. But when and how to use my pulpit privileges or the influence of my pastoral position to bring attention to these issues was a serious challenge."

I propose we always speak the truth in love. Is it really loving to withhold moral truth from Christians simply because they might not want to hear it, even when that moral truth has political implications?

In considering all this, McDonald says he made himself " aware of the priority themes of the Bible."

These kinds of platitudes have for far too long been staples of the Christian consideration of politics. Space does not permit more than a brief review, but that will do for a start.

If "compassion for the weak and the poor and justice for the powerless" means working to make sure that all people have equal standing before the law, then it will be an endeavor worthy of God Almighty. But if it is twisted to mean legalized theft from some people to fund the social engineering dreams of politicians, then it becomes a principle straight from hell.

If "the proper care of the earth" means keeping the part I inhabit clean and peacefully encouraging others to do likewise, then we should all say, "Amen!" If it means touting trumped-up "disasters" so as to manipulate people into living the way wacky "greens" think we should, then the congregation of God’s people should say, "Anathema!"

If "conviction about the irresponsible use of wealth" means teaching individuals to be good stewards of the goods God has given us, then let us hear the word of the Lord. If it means mindless calls to tax the productive to pay for a government that pretends to be god-on-earth, then consign it to the pit.

McDonald worries that:

"The arrogance and smugness of too many Christian spokespersons has cost us greatly. We will pay a price for years to come for their mean-spirited and intemperate remarks. Bible-believing Christians are not usually characterized by the larger world as compassionate, gracious, and thoughtful. Rather, we are typed as angry, win-at-all-costs, insensitive people."

While I have seen some of this, more often than not Christians have suffered from what I like to call "weenie-ism." I must say that, when contending with those who want to legalize theft and murder the unborn, anger just might be appropriate. To think otherwise it to be, well, a weenie.

Finally, McDonald tells us that he has spoken out on some issues. But it bothered him that

Here we see a sample of the problem of Christian leaders and political/moral issues. If you don’t understand the very relevant difference between abortion and capital punishment (hint: innocent/guilty) then you have no business being a Christian leader. In fact, you had better go back and enroll in Christian moral principles 101 - and hope to pass the course this time! If you don’t understand that it is not the proper place of the United States government to treat diseased children around the world, then you have no idea of the proper role of the government versus the proper role of the church.

On further reflection, perhaps I was wrong. If an editor-at-large of Leadership magazine understands matters no better than this, it might be better if "Christian leaders" would just shut up about politics. We’re in enough trouble without them.