News
Churches tread lightly on politics during election year
W
ith the 2012 election months away, congregations are get- ting the message that Americans want religion out of politics. But that doesn’t mean they plan to keep mum in the public square. Instead, they’re revamping how congregations mobilize voters by focusing on a broader set of issues than in the past. Preachers are largely avoiding the political fray, and hot-button social issues are relegated to simmer in low-profile church study groups. Why? For one, Americans are growing impatient with religious politicking: 54 percent want houses of worship to keep out of politics (up from 52 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 1996), according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Churches seem to be responding.
“The biggest change we see is a
drop-off in the percentage of peo- ple saying they hear politics from the pulpit,” said David Campbell, a University of Notre Dame (Ind.) political scientist whose Faith Mat- ters project tracked 3,100 people over five years. “It’s been happening every-
where,” Campbell added. “People say they don’t want to hear about politics in church, and they’re actu- ally hearing less of it.” Still, that doesn’t mean the public is clamoring for a totally secularized public square. Some believe the backlash is against a particular type of religious activ- ism that aligns closely with one party’s agenda or set of candidates. Religious involvement in parti-
san politics appears to be driving those under 35 away from orga- nized religion, Campbell said. Some evangelical leaders see this young adult drift as a factor that makes nonpartisanship a practical necessity for churches seeking to grow and thrive.
“The last generation of Chris- tians saw [the two major parties] as strategic allies in pushing their agendas,” said Jonathan Merritt, 29, author of A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Cul- ture Wars (FaithWords, 2012). “The next generation is reconsid- ering how that has blinded us and harmed us.”
Religion News Service 9 Taizé meets in Chicago
Every year, some 100,000 pilgrims trek to the Taizé ecumenical com- munity in France where the biggest attraction is the music—repetitive plainchant from about 1,500 years ago. For the first time, the Taizé brothers brought their conference to the U.S., where several thousand people—particularly young adults— met for prayer and song at DePaul University in Chicago in May. Taizé (pronounced tie-zay) has long attracted followers from both Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions and is also successful in attracting young Christians.
French Protestants merge The 250,000-member Reformed Church of France and the 22,000-member Evangelical Lutheran Church of France merged in May to form the United Prot- estant Church of France. Laurent Schlumberger, president of the Reformed’s national council, attrib- uted the merger to “better witnessing of the gospel” rather than “econo- mies of scale.” Joel Dautheville, the Lutheran president, agreed, saying: “We expect the new church to have higher visibility in today’s society to give witness to the good news.”
Diving into ‘100 wells’ Youth (left) from five congregations in
Upstate New York Synod asked their pastors to walk the plank in April for the “100 Wells Challenge” (www.elca. org/100wells). Adam Miller- Stubbendick, pastor of Bethel Lutheran Church, Jamestown, N.Y., took the plunge—as did the runner- ups. Youth nationwide hope the chal- lenge will raise $250,000 (the amount needed to build 100 wells) for ELCA World Hunger water projects. The New York youth will combine the more than $700 they raised with the offerings of 30,000 others at the July 18-22 ELCA Youth Gathering in New Orleans.
10 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
GARY LESTER
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