In my opinion, the problem isn’t when churches address political issues, the problem is when churches are politically partisan.
Politics is just how we treat each other. Politics is how we either share the world fairly with everyone, or hoard power and wealth for ourselves and our favored group.
When Moses objected to how Israelite workers were being treated in Egypt, that was politics. It was an issue of worker justice. When Moses went to Pharaoh and said to let his people go, that was politics. When Israel became powerful enough to oppress its neighbors, the Jewish prophets went to their political leaders and warned that their beloved nation would fall if it was not founded on justice for everyone.
The prophets were political, but not partisan. Prophets went to their political leaders to advocate for the poor and oppressed. A church that does not call for a redistribution of the world’s wealth and call this nation to take its foot off the throat of weaker nations has renounced its prophetic function.
Jesus was political but not partisan. When Jesus was alive, he didn’t talk about heaven as a fire escape from hell. He told his followers to make it on earth as it is in heaven. No heaven worth the name would permit poverty or untreated sickness. No heaven worth the name would have some people work all week for subsistence pay while a billionaire class rides them like donkeys.
A church that seeks to impose Christianity on everyone else is a partisan church. A church that says it is following the rabbi who taught them not to judge but then sees itself as God’s bouncer on moral issues is a hypocritical church. A church that says it is not political but then tries to control people’s lives is a lying church.
Politics is just how we treat each other. Even selfishness and apathy are political positions. Ethical people have to be political, but they must not be partisan. Being non-partisan does not mean ignoring the bullying of partisan groups. Being nonpartisan means advocating for universal human rights, environmental sustainability and working for a world that can be shared fairly by EVERYONE.