An Open Letter to Pastors, Politicians, and the American People

In 2008, I dodged a bullet.

I did it again in 2010… and once more in 2016.

Not literal bullets, mind you, but my fleshly attempts to circumvent God’s will for my life.

You see, back in 1982, God called me to full-time ministry. Specifically, to combine my love for Him and my love for sports to reach the lost. Five years later, I began taking sports teams into prisons across North America, sharing the gospel with an estimated 500,000 inmates in more than 400 different correctional institutions.

And then, after 21 years, I decided I needed a change of pace. So, what did I do? I ran for Congress.

Before I came to Christ in my late teens, that was always my plan. I was going to attend college, major in political science, get a law degree, and then practice law for a few years before pursuing a career in politics.

Me, me, me.

However, after my conversion experience, my focus became God, God, God. And so, I wound up majoring in Sports Administration instead, graduating Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Community Recreation, and working for 11 years at a continuing care retirement community where God taught me all the things I needed to know – such as budgeting and fundraising, managing staff and volunteers, and conducting special events and overnight trips – to launch America’s first-ever athletic prison ministry in 1987.

But, as I said, after 21 years I was growing restless, feeling that I had taken the organization I founded about as far as my skill set would allow. And so, when the opportunity to run for the U.S. House of Representatives presented itself, I said “Yes”… and I can honestly say that I prayed about that decision more than any other in my entire life.

God didn’t give me the green light, nor did He give me a red one. Instead, He simply opened one door after another and I walked through them by faith – winning the GOP primary as a first-time candidate – until the final door, the general election, closed firmly in my face.

Content in the knowledge that I had run for the right reason – to glorify God, not me – I returned to my prison ministry, but the political bug had bitten me and bitten me hard. Because I had received more votes than any member of my party in 35 years, the local GOP chairmen pressured me to run again in 2010. After initially turning down their offer, I eventually agreed… and although I closed the gap by 18%, I still came in a distant second that November.

Fast forward to 2016 and my third (and final) campaign for elected office, this time for Florida state representative. Having relocated from New Jersey to the Sunshine State in 2011, I knew that my campaign was a longshot, and I was right. Instead of winning the Republican primary like I had twice done in New Jersey, I came in fourth in a four-way race.

It was as if God was telling me that serving in public office just wasn’t in the cards. Not only that, but He had something far better – and far more eternally important – for me to do.

It has taken me the past nine years to figure out exactly what that is and to fully embrace His plan for my life over my fleshly ambitions, but I think I have finally reached that point. And so, I feel compelled to share with you, my readers, the following revelations.

First, I don’t ever intend to stop speaking my mind on political matters, especially as they pertain to critical social issues such as the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, and our founding Judeo-Christian principles. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of my spiritual heroes, famously said, “I often hear it said, ‘Do not bring religion into politics.’ This is precisely where it ought to be brought, and set there in the face of all men as on a candlestick.”

That is why I will continue to write this faith-based political blog and why I will also continue to address social issues from the pulpit in my role as pastor of Midway Bible Fellowship. As the German pastor and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

And so, as long as innocent preborn babies are being murdered in their mother’s womb, sacrificed on the altar of sexual promiscuity and personal convenience, I will not remain silent. On the contrary, I will give them the voice they never had.

Likewise, I will continue to defend God’s definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman for life… while offering unyielding support for His special people, the Nation of Israel.

However – and this is an extremely important and recent revelation – I will not abuse God’s pulpit for political purposes. To address social issues from a biblical perspective? Absolutely? But nothing is more powerful and effective in changing hearts and shaping nations than the living, breathing Word of God… and so, that is what I will continue to preach boldly, exclusively, and unapologetically.

To my fellow pastors, I say this: Please do not shy away from addressing the great moral issues of our day. To do so is dereliction of your duty and an act of spiritual cowardice (see The Decay of Conscience by Charles Finney, 1873, in which he placed the blame for the country’s moral decline at the feet of apathetic and disengaged pastors). However, do not allow your pulpit to be misappropriated for anything other than its intended use – the proclamation of the life-changing and soul-saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

I am reminded of a story told me by a pastor friend of mine whose father was also a pastor. They were on a trip to Washington D.C. in the early 70s and noticed a black limousine pull up in front of a hotel across the street from them. Outstepped Spiro Agnew, the Vice President of the United States, and his entourage.

“Dad,” my friend said to his father, “do you want to go across the street and meet the Vice President?”

“My son,” his father replied, “we are ministers of the Most High God. Mr. Agnew should want to cross the street to meet us.”

Now don’t get me wrong. My friend’s father did not have an inflated opinion of himself. In fact, he was one of the humblest men you’d ever want to meet. However, he understood the high privilege – and awesome responsibility – of serving as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Like the Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:16… “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.”

Looking back on my three political campaigns, I am confident that had I won, I would have done my best to serve God in the public arena… whether it was in the United States House of Representatives or the Florida House of Representatives. But observing from afar the constant gridlock, the backbiting, and the deal-brokering that takes place behind the scenes – not to mention the need to raise money 365 days a year – I wonder just how effective (and frustrated) I would have been.

By sparing me that fate, God has blessed me with something far greater: the opportunity to minister every single day to lost, lonely, and hurting people… and to point them to Jesus. And that, my friend, is what I intend to do from the pulpit, the keyboard, and behind prison walls as long as I have breath in my body.

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21, NKJV)