When Faith Starts Sounding Like a Party Platform

Bonhoeffer risked his life for the truth. Today’s church won’t even risk an opinion.

I attended the Sunday service at Autumn Ridge Church in Rochester, MN, last week. I’ve gone there off and on for a while. It’s the kind of place where you can walk in, sit through the message, and leave without talking to a soul. But this time, sitting in that huge auditorium, something felt different. The sermon didn’t sound like scripture; it sounded like politics with a Bible verse attached.

It’s strange how politics slips into the pulpit. Sometimes it’s not loud or obvious, just little hints and careful phrasing. You sit there listening to what’s supposed to be a sermon, but it feels like an editorial. The pastor never says the names, but everyone knows who he’s talking about.

That’s what I felt listening to Pastor Rick. He often says he’s “not being political,” but to me, the message sounded anything but neutral. The “wolves” he warned about—the ones who spread fear, crush empathy, and distract believers—seemed aimed in one direction. He said he was only teaching what’s biblical, yet the examples he chose echoed familiar talking points that tend to challenge the political right more than the left. It came across as selective morality wrapped in scripture.

This wasn’t the first time I’d sensed that kind of evasiveness from the pulpit. After another sermon with a similar undertone, I walked up to Pastor Rick and asked him to clarify some of the points he’d made and to address some issues he hadn’t mentioned. He smiled, said it would “take a longer discussion,” offered a quick handshake, and turned to chat with a nearby Gen Zer who looked eager to meet him. That was it. The question hung in the air like Florida humidity.

I don’t need people to agree with me. I just want honesty—for someone to say what they mean, even if it stings a little. Instead, what I keep hearing is politeness without conviction.

I’m not saying pastors shouldn’t talk about the world or stand up for truth. But if you’re going to preach courage and integrity, it has to cut both ways. Where was that same energy when the Biden administration allowed record illegal crossings and turned a blind eye to corruption? Where was the sermon about empathy for the ranchers whose land is being trampled, or the towns flooded with fentanyl, or the middle-class workers who can’t keep up?

Truth doesn’t wear a party color. When a pastor only seems to challenge one side, it starts to feel like branding, not conviction. You can’t call out fear, pride, and deceit only when they belong to the other tribe.

What’s hard about this is that I still believe the pulpit should be a place of truth. That’s what I respect about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He lived in a time when silence was complicity. The church around him bent to politics, to nationalism, to safety. Bonhoeffer didn’t. He stood up. He joined the Confessing Church and eventually a plot to kill Adolf Hitler. He believed faith meant action, even when it cost him his life.

Perhaps I feel a connection to him because I grew up in Germany. I’m not that old, but the echoes of that history were still there when I was young. Bonhoeffer’s name was spoken with reverence, not because he was perfect, but because he was real. He didn’t dance around evil. He didn’t sermonize from the sidelines. He faced it head-on and paid the price.

That’s why this bothers me so much. The careful political maneuvering from the pulpit feels small in comparison. It’s the opposite of courage. Bonhoeffer called the church to take risks for the truth. What we have now is a kind of safe outrage—anger that costs nothing. Pastor Rick often speaks in generalities so nobody can accuse him of picking sides, but it still sounds like everyone knows which side he’s on.

It’s not wrong to talk about politics in church if you’re doing it to remind people of conscience, compassion, and moral duty. But when it becomes a coded attack, when it stops being about faith and starts being about signaling which group you belong to, it betrays the point.

Faith is supposed to cut through the noise, not echo it. The gospel doesn’t need spin. It needs honesty. And if that means offending both sides once in a while, then good. That’s what integrity looks like.

I can respect a pastor who names the problem, even if I disagree with him. What I can’t respect is a pastor who hides his politics behind scripture and calls it humility.

If you’re going to talk about wolves, call out all of them.