Bill Johnson and Bethel Associate Pastor and Dean of BSSM Dann Farrelly discuss the church’s responsibility with politics. This is from the final episode of the Rediscover Bethel Series.
i do feel that there are some spiritual
mandates on the church in in election
time i’m not going to control your vote
i’m not going to ask you who you voted
for but but i am without waving a a
banner with some politician’s name on it
i am going to exhort people this is
what’s at stake this is what here’s
here’s the bigger picture
[Music]
so in america we have the privilege of
having a representative government so we
um
um which i love better than a straight
democracy let’s be clear
you get straight democracy on facebook
in some ways but uh we get a
if people even watch the facebook
anymore but the uh
the representative government so we have
an opportunity to vote
how are you thinking through
that vote
and then maybe the inner court the the
the dialogue that we have yeah uh with
each other while we’re
you know holding positions because we’ve
talked about this bethel has democrats
and republicans and independents in it
and
so we we’re a little bit like whenever
an election year rolls around we’re like
all right let’s be good to each other
and sometimes we do our and sometimes we
make mistakes and sometimes
we send sideways messages to each other
we have to clean up and
so that’s part of being family and you
know if you’re gonna have a church of
whatever six thousand adults or
something you know like or more eight
thousand then you’re gonna have these
sorts of things what yeah which on your
heart
well i
i’ve been told that something like 25
percent
of christians vote
okay sure that’s not fake news bill or
this kid
i don’t know what to say your point is
taken yeah
very low
very low percentage which means
the righteous influence
for values
is not being expressed
and i’m going to call it a cop-out the
cop-out is oh i only have one vote and
it really it means very little that’s
not not true for a believer
every act of obedience
of a believer releases presence and
power there is no such thing as a single
solitary act that is insignificant
we have to re-identify who we are and
what our responsibility is we’ve got a
responsibility to pray don’t tell me you
pray for the government and then you
don’t vote your prayer is meaningless to
me pray and act there’s prayer and
obedience
and uh it’s we have a responsibility as
citizens vote values not personalities
i’m not gonna you know i don’t get up
and tell people how to vote but i
but i hope that we teach a lot on what
is important in the kingdom
and uh and each party that’s represented
in any given election
uh usually represents part of what we
think is important so that’s why we have
such divided interest within yeah a body
believers who are not voting anti-christ
they’re voting for specific values yeah
well said when they say vote values uh
you’re like some of the values of these
ones i would i would die to protect or
spend my life advancing and other folks
would be like well these are the ones i
would die to protect and spend life
exactly so i want to respect you for
that reason but i also want to be able
to talk through because i i do feel that
there are some spiritual mandates on the
church in in election time i’m not going
to control your vote i’m not going to
ask you who you voted for but but i am
without waving a a banner with some
politician’s name on it i am going to
exhort people
this is what’s at stake this is what
here’s here’s the bigger picture because
sometimes
uh sometimes we as leaders get exposed
to things behind the scenes
where where we know the cost of an
election i don’t mean the financial cost
i mean the implications of of an
election of a given politician of
whatever it might be that we know
we know because we’ve been exposed to
things behind the scene that this is
crucial and uh and so i’m going to do my
best to encourage people to think
through these things value these things
but also to realize
that
[Music]
that a vote is important it’s an act
of obedience it’s an act of obedience
and whenever that takes place something
is released that is very very valuable
for us as believers and and i would love
you know in california for for example
where we are
um there are so many believers here
but there are so many that are silent
i’m not asking them to
you know to march down the street i’m
just saying you know be be responsible
be responsible vote values think through
family life through this through that
and and vote accordingly and uh but
don’t don’t sit silent don’t don’t not
vote and then just say well my vote is
insignificant that’s not true that’s
wrong yeah that’s wrong
how about the way that we talk to each
other and you know that um
you know if i was put away
in a particular way i said we give
ourselves permission to be disrespectful
because it’s an election or something
like that you know we
uh somehow that we we have a core value
that honor a firm’s value and yet
sometimes in these places we will just
we’re gonna put that aside and here we
go this is politics and so we’ll try to
put honor on the on the shelf you know
during those times instead of
listening with honor speaking with honor
as we’re disagreeing with honor
yeah that’s scary that’s scary um i
personally i don’t mind dishonoring an
ideal
okay if i feel it is in opposition to
kingdom okay you know
but i don’t want to associate that idea
with this person and then
dishonor them disrespect that make sense
we have to be careful even in in talking
uh about political issues
you know there are a lot of issues that
are that are absolutely immoral they’re
not they’re not gray they’re they’re
obviously
evil i have to be careful that when i
address those things that i’m not
shooting at a politician shooting at
spiritually speaking
verbally i should say
a personality
because our battle is not against flesh
and blood we can’t reduce it
to a
issue of human nature we’ve got we’ve
got to deal with these things
on a much higher plane and so that would
be maybe speaking about a politician or
somebody running for office um
what’s in your heart for the way we
communicate to each other as christians
or christians with
non-believers or
well
i think you need to have relational
equity
if you don’t have relational equity with
the person
don’t pick the tough subject okay until
you can develop it show them some honor
and respect develop some sort of
relational equity where you can
say something that’s more there are
certain people in our environment i
won’t say certain things to they’re 100
percent true but i won’t say it because
it triggers them and we don’t have the
relational equity
so so i’m going to imagine many people
on instagram or facebook we don’t have
that relational equity
that’s interesting all my twitter
followers followers yes
yeah that’s a cruel world yeah that’s a
very cool so in some ways would you have
that same thing as realizing that you
don’t have relational equity with some
of those folks that you’re
trying to communicate with and that
potential is going to be costly yeah i i
don’t i don’t engage much
there’s there’s very i’ve seen twice in
all the years on facebook instagram many
many years many many many posts i’ve
seen twice in all these years
where a hard subject
somebody reacted and communication
followed
and there was reconciliation or healing
i’ve seen it twice out of
lots of episodes yeah horrible things
and it’s just it’s just not worth it
communication is rough anyway
and when you have it in a text
yeah you know you don’t have facial
expression you don’t have tone of voice
you don’t have body language you don’t
have any of the things that maybe if you
and i were having a hard conversation
and i could see the sincerity in your
eyes it would make listening to a
comment you have to make to me a lot
easier and that’s just relationship text
facebook all that stuff doesn’t happen
you just have people throwing out barbs
that
affirms the people who agree with you
and drives away the people who don’t and
it’s just very very little very little
is accomplished
so i i don’t know i
i try to go into that area less and less
all the time
so occasionally i’ll post something just
to hopefully to make people think
people love cat videos just so yeah
i don’t
i don’t have them really yeah i don’t
have any sense i don’t want to be
posting it i still respect you you still
do
[Laughter]
you probably haven’t seen some of the
cat videos i’ve had the privilege of
seeing them so that could be part of the
reason i that’s true it’s true i can
promise you
all right after this is over i’ll show
you something oh yeah thanks
thanks you