A pastor friend and I stepped into the newly renovated Tidwell Bible building in Waco. As we scoped out the nice remodel, I could hear the echo of my history professor, Robert Reid as he distinguished between Petrine Supremacy and Caesaropapacy. In the history of Western civilization, preachers and kings often battled. Petrine supremacy describes the period when the popes bossed the kings around. Caesaropapacy tells of the times when the secular rulers dominated the spiritual leaders.
The chronicler in 2 Chronicles tells us this power struggle goes back further. When Ahab recruited Jehoshaphat, the preacher Micaiah told him he was going to die. Micaiah was the only prophet from the Lord and Ahab hated him. So he threw him into prison. Despite his reckless relationship with an evil king, Jehoshaphat survived the battle in which Ahab died. But when he got home, Jehu, another preacher lit him up. “Why do you love the people who hate God?” Good question.
These are still interesting days for preachers and politicians. In my lifetime, presidents of the United States have often gathered preachers to the White House on the nights before wars began. In my youth, preachers worked to form a moral majority to make the country more moral. Unfortunately, some of those preachers and politicians were not especially moral, themselves. Am I wrong in my observation that the politicians often use the Christian leaders to get the votes they need, regardless of whether they themselves are actually Christians? The best prophets of the Old Testament were strong enough to resist the kings’ attempts to use them for their own purposes.
Hanani and his son, Jehu had the audacity to speak the truth to power. In the spirit of Hanani, my personal view is when politicians are godly and do the work of God I will support them, and when they are blatantly corrupt and ungodly, I will not. But I will always pray for them, even if sometimes it takes the form of praying against them. I realize we are not looking for a pastor when we vote for a politician. But I know that a person’s character will ultimately determine their conduct, regardless of what they say. It is likely that the politicians do not care what the preachers think. But we all should care about what God thinks.
