Bishop Jim Lowe on Pastors in Politics and Chaplains in Schools

*Beginning at the 13:38 mark of the podcast episode*

ALCAP President Greg Davis welcomed Bishop Jim Lowe onto Priority Talk Radio to discuss the importance of pastors getting involved in the political process and a chaplaincy bill for which he is advocating.

Bishop Lowe started by explaining, “Pastors need to realize they need to engage with government… A lot of times we are reactive to what is going on. I feel like the Church needs to be proactive. I think we need to engage with what’s going on with policy and not sit in our four walls worshiping and not seeing what’s going on outside when we can effect change. We are the salt. We are the light. We should change what’s going on in this world.”

Davis shared that one of the best ways to get involved politically is to form relationships with your legislators. We need to pray for them, encourage them when they do well, and hold them accountable on issues of disagreement.

They then turned to describing the chaplaincy bill that Bishop Lowe supports. He talked about how there are chaplains in a wide variety of fields, from military to police to hospitals. There is a gap, however, with schools. Alabama teachers do not have trained chaplains to go to as a resource. This bill seeks to rectify the problem.

The bill (HB179) reads as follows: “This bill would authorize each local board of education and the governing body of each public charter school to vote on whether to allow schools in their jurisdiction to accept a campus chaplain as a volunteer and, if the vote is in the affirmative, would allow volunteer chaplains to be made available to provide services at the request of a teacher.”

For more information, listen to their entire conversation here.