Crossroads Podcast: When Pulpits Get Political And A Liberal Lutheran Goes Too Far

Decades ago, I wrote a news feature about True Love Waits in which I called some Southern Baptist leaders (and a few Catholics) trying to find out how this “save sex for marriage” effort worked at the local level.

As you would expect, there was good news and bad news. That’s normal when religious groups deal with life in the real world. In this case, I heard one theme several times that, believe it or not, jumped into my mind this week while reading a New York Times report discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast.

This Times piece focused on a mini-drama in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is — despite the “e-word” — one the most doctrinally liberal flocks in oldline Protestantism. That headline: “He Tried to Endorse From the Pulpit. He Wound Up Without a Church.”

But before we look at that, let’s return to the “True Love Waits” era. One of the key ideas in the program was that young people would publicly pledge to honor the Christian doctrine that sex belongs inside the sacrament of marriage — period. Their parents would stand with them and recite the same affirmation.

Some church leaders told me that this ritual occasionally caused tensions, not with the young but with key adults. The problem was that some divorced parents — think deacons and powerful church leaders — didn’t want to talk with their own children about past events in their personal lives. Remember: Millions of Baby Boomers grew up in the 1960s.

Proceeding with some True Love Waits rites could, in other words, cause tension in pews and maybe even dissent by people with, shall we say, resources. Thus, some conservative pastors pushed the “pause” button on this conservative project.

What does that lesson from the past have to do with the Times story about a liberal pastor ruffling feathers in a liberal denomination when he announced that he would endorse a liberal Democrat during one of his sermons?

Let’s work through a few details in this Times story. Here is the overture:

Before it went wrong, the Rev. Jonathan Barker’s plan was to stand up … at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wis., and do something that had been off limits for 70 years.

He would endorse a political candidate from the pulpit.

Federal law bars churches from making endorsements, but last month the I.R.S. appeared to create an exception, saying the law should not apply to preachers speaking to their own congregations.

Pastor Barker, an outspoken liberal, was ready for the change. He had written a sermon urging Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, to run for president in 2028.

The Times report — which included reporting by a religion-beat pro — covered a wide range of important issues linked to politics and religious institutions.

During the podcast, I stressed this blunt reality that loomed over this story. It is one thing for an independent, growing church to take a controversial stand of this kind, but something different when a congregation is legally tied to a denomination that is in rapid decline and has to worry about finances.

In many ways, there was nothing surprising about Pastor Barker’s vow to endorse the political lightning rod who is usually known as “AOC.” After all:

[Barker] had spent the last nine years as pastor of Grace Lutheran, a congregation that had shrunk from 1,500 attendees in the 1950s to 20 or 30 people on most Sundays. The congregation had already been considering closing for good.

Pastor Barker, 41, said he had tried to rejuvenate the church by focusing on liberal causes. He wrote a book about climate policy, and brought then-candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the church for a listening session in 2020 after Kenosha police shot a Black man, Jacob Blake.

Outside church, Pastor Barker was more aggressive. He had tried to disrupt two Trump rallies and a Republican primary debate by super-gluing his feet to the floors of the venues and a parking lot outside.

Now, note the status of this pastor’s now tiny congregation, which was probably receiving financial support, in one form or another, from the ELCA. Barker tried to liven things up with his proud support for liberal causes, in terms of politics, culture and, almost certainly, theology. Do the math.

Meanwhile, it helps to remember that this Lutheran denomination has lost roughly half of its members during the last 50 years and insiders have suggested that it may die by 2050.

Here is one more crucial detail from the Times:

… His denomination had already affirmed its opposition to endorsements, in a vote taken after the I.R.S. statement. Though the denomination’s leaders have supported liberal positions on climate change and gay marriage, its members are about 55 percent Republican, according to the Pew Research Center.

Rev. Barker did not warn the denomination’s leaders of his plan to endorse Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. But he sent out a news release to reporters.

That last detail is symbolic.

What happened next? The public act: Barker resigned. What happened in private? That may or may not be a different story. Remember, this pastor called reporters about his partisan political-spiritual convictions before he called his bishop. Smart?

In the end, there is this question: Why did a bishop in a denomination with liberal leaders push the “pause” button on a liberal pastor’s decision to back a liberal politician who backs many liberal causes endorsed by the ELCA?

Things got real.

This level-headed analysis from Ryan Burge, at his essential Graphs about Religion website, will shed light on the situation. The headline: “2024 Election Post-Mortem — Mainline Protestants.”

Let me stress: The following blast from Burge is talking about life at the level of ELCA pews, where many people are not as easy to label as their leaders and seminary professors. Here’s Burge, talking political realities:

… I want to make this point exceedingly clear now — it’s demonstrably, empirically, objectively false to use the term “liberal mainline.” … Let me show you exactly what I mean by analyzing how the mainline have voted in the last five presidential elections.

In 2008, the mainline was evenly divided between Barack Obama and John McCain. It was truly a 50/50 election. But that was the last time that was true. When Mitt Romney ran in 2012, he earned 54% of the mainline vote. When Donald Trump ran in 2016, he earned 54% of the mainline vote. When he ran again in 2020 he got exactly the same share — 54%. The only thing interesting to note is that the mainline weren’t huge fans of Hillary Clinton, she only received 41% of ballots cast. That was (at that moment) a low point.

But look what happened in 2024 — Donald Trump actually managed to make some real in-roads with mainline Protestants and he upped his vote share to 58%. In contrast, Kamala Harris did even worse than Hillary Clinton, only receiving 40% of the votes from mainline Protestants. … Remember the reputation that exists about the politics of the mainline is that they are left-wing Democrats.

In other words, Pastor Barker decided to take a very public stand on a real-world political issue — who their pastor believes the faithful should support in the next White House race, based on his understanding of the Christian faith. He was going to do this with pulpit language about about specific issues, such as economic justice, racial equality and the environment. He was going to name names.

Was this a pragmatic thing to do, facing a congregation that has imploded, since the 1960s, from 1,500 worshipers to 20 or so? Would that sermon drive an angry wedge between the believers who remain in his own pews?

The safe answer is, “Yes.” Look at the Burge numbers again.

I’ll end with this final piece of the Times report. Barker ended up preaching his sermon to a handful of people (and the New York Times), but in a borrowed space, backed by a YouTube video replacing a choir

The crowd was bigger across town at his former church, where more than 20 people had gathered for a meeting with Bishop [Paul] Erickson to discuss Pastor Barker’s abrupt resignation.

Their questions were not about politics. Who had keys to the front door? Who knew the Facebook password? Would the diaper bank be discontinued? Was the church going to survive?

In other words, the parishioners were worried about real-world issues that affected life in their pews. The bishop was there to try to cool things down. Religious leaders often have to make decisions about how to handle issues that they believe are too hot to handle in public.

Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it along to others.