Should a preacher wade into the waters of controversy?

A few weeks ago I wrote something on Tiny Bible Bits about doing the right thing while I was stuck in a fortnight of COVID isolation.

It’s not the first time I’ve mentioned COVID over the last year-and-a-half. Usually I escape unscathed.

As I do periodically, I boosted the post, resulting in it being seen by over 1100 people (which is around ten times the usual).

If you’ve ever posted anything online, you know that you’re potentially setting yourself up for an internet grilling. Expectedly, I copped a small dose of pushback. 

Frankly, it wasn’t a lot and it wasn’t too bad. 

I got accused of spreading blackmail...

Using the bible to spread propaganda...

Using the bible to support lockdown extensions...

And... one “Oh ffs”

All in all, not too bad for over a thousand sets of eyes.

Any heat was well and truely cancelled out by the 80 likes and 12 shares.

But I did hesitate in mentioning my release from isolation and firmly avoided linking it to a passage about freedom.

Rightly so, this would have been pilloried.

In that case, I would have been “drawing a long bow” and applying my situation into a place in the bible it didn’t belong.

But I wonder, how many preachers are currently walking a tightrope like never before?

Will they avoid speaking anything into the current pandemic? How about vaccinations?

How about the government last year? Or voting? Or... Trump?

Really, there are dozens of hot button issues which might make a preacher hesitate to wade into - Same sex marriage, homosexual ordination, abuse by clergy, racial reconciliation, BLM, class or gender equality...

To what degree does the political makeup of your audience make a preacher hesitate?

Should it ever?

Do the current circumstances a preacher finds themselves in create increased anxiety that they may be more readily misinterpreted?

Should it matter?

Should any controversy be totally avoided?

Is this responsible? Aren’t these the exact situations that those in the pews want to - nay, need to - hear about? Shouldn’t they hear what the Bible says about the controversies unfolding around them?

Or, does wadding into areas of controversy just force the speaker to be clearer and even better in both their theology and exegesis?