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The Ethics of Preaching:
Some Things to Keep in Mind
By Charles W. Christian
Like many preachers, when I am not actually communicating
with people, I often find myself thinking about communication: how am
I communicating? Part of this assessment process involves the ethics
of communication: Am I communicating ethically? Too often in our attempts
to connect our audiences with the life-changing truths of the Bible,
we find ourselves violating ethical principles of communication. These
violations can come in the form of half-truths, falsely attributing
someone else’s material to ourselves, or telling a downright lie
to better connect with a particular portion of our audience than a real
life story would at that moment.
Violating the ethics of communication when delivering
the message of Christian truth and grace is tantamount to shooting a
friend in order to stop him from running into the street in front of
an oncoming bus! It is self-defeating. So, as I sit at my desk each
week prayerfully preparing the forthcoming weekly message, here are
some helpful ethical principles of preaching I try to keep in mind:
1. Be honest about sources. In all levels of my academic
study, I was often asked to submit a statement of academic integrity
accompanying each submission. While I do not do this in a weekly bulletin
or in my monthly board reports, I do approach the proclamation of each
sermon as if the following statement would accompany it: “The preceding
message was a product of my own prayerful preparation, and any sources,
insights, or stories outside my own experiences have been duly noted
with proper credit given where applicable.” I can remember at least
two times when I have heard a pastor take credit for a story that I
knew was not his own. Even though I enjoyed aspects of both sermons,
I could not help but be suspicious of other areas of those pastors’
lives from that time on.
2. Leave conviction to the Holy Spirit: Do not preach
“at” people. As a pastor, I hear and know much of what goes
on in congregational life from week to week. Even when I do not hear
directly from a parishioner about his/her own difficulties, chances
are I will hear about them from a concerned friend. I am armed with
this information each time I step behind the pulpit. It is at these
times I must remember the difference between my role and the role of
the Holy Spirit. I am the proclaimer (preacher) of the message. The
Holy Spirit is the convicter and convincer of the message. When I try
to take on the Holy Spirit’s role, it endangers my credibility
and will likely evoke defensiveness and mistrust. That is not to say
that the Holy Spirit will not lead me to address an issue in my sermon
that applies to the church or to families or individuals in the church.
However, I must always ask myself the ethical question, “Am I trying
to be the Holy Spirit, or am I simply following the Holy Spirit’s
leadership?”
3. Don’t air personal grudges from the pulpit
in veiled form. It is also an unhealthy model of communication in my
day-to-day relationships to try to right a personal wrong from the pulpit.
If I have a need to confront based upon real or perceived relationship
difficulties, the pulpit is not the place to do so. Matthew 18, and
other places in Scripture, command me to go first to the individual
with whom I have a difficulty, and then to follow proper Scriptural
procedures from there. Modeling this kind of integrity-filled communication
privately and from the pulpit will go much further in granting me a
hearing with my entire congregation. It will also encourage up-front
communication from the whole church, since there will be no fear of
“pulpit reprisals.”1
4. Obey current IRS tax codes. Most of us preach
from the pulpits of churches that are 501 c(3) nonprofits. That means
that we receive special tax exemptions due to our non-profit status.
This is the means whereby the state (the government) respects the role
of churches as contributing to the general health of society, and so
there are certain tax exemptions churches are allowed. Basically, these
provisions are meant to keep government control out of the church. However,
one provision of this status is that 501 c (3) nonprofits will not endorse
a particular candidate for political office. This way, the church is
kept from unfairly influencing the state. Of course, churches are permitted
to speak out about moral issues, to hold voters’ registration drives,
and to hold forums where both sides of a ballot measure or all the candidates
in a race are represented. These are community services that churches
can ethically and legally provide. When we preach to our parishioners,
we stand as representatives of our church. Therefore, our sermons should
be proclamations of God’s truth and not endorsements of political
candidates, no matter how much we feel the candidate in question agrees
with our values. Following the guidelines of our 501c(3) status is a
way in which we keep our word, and keeping our word helps us to proclaim
God’s Word with maximum credibility.
5. Distinguish the Sword from the Soap Box. William
Willimon reminds us that preaching has to do “not simply with our
words, but with the Word of God, a Word intruding into our settled arrangements,
a Word not of our own concoction.”2 I once saw a cartoon where
a boy is gazing intently at the pages of his Bible. He tells his sister,
“Don’t interrupt me! I’m trying to find a Scripture to
back up my preconceived notions.” Too often we are tempted to preach
that way. The ethical choice is to let the text teach us what it is
saying, and then pass that teaching along to our hearers. Sermons are
not the place to drive home our personal agendas or messages, but rather,
they are opportunities to make sure everyone is tuning into God’s
message.
Adequate preparation and prayerful examination of the
text and of our own motives are ways that we as proclaimers of God’s
truth can make sure our idolatrous versions of the truth don’t
muddy the pure waters of God’s Word. Scripture, our parishioners,
and our ordination requirements as elders, tell us that preaching plays
a key role in our job description. So, it makes sense that carrying
out this duty ethically can set the tone for the integrity of all other
areas of our ministry. May we seek to be ethical preachers!
Charles Christian is pastor of the North Seattle Church of the Nazarene
in Seattle, WA.
1. I address this in an article I wrote based upon a “communication
covenant” that I have shared with parishioners since my first pastorate.
See Charles W. Christian, “10 Rules for Respect: Communication,”
in Leadership, Summer 1999.
2. William H. Willimon, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 141.
