The need for preaching politics

Dignan's 75-Year Plan quotes Marc Porlier on the Emergent church movement. Mr. Porlier has some strong insights into a variety of issues. This one in particular caught my eye:

I'll go out on a cold, bare limb here: I think pastors should preach about politics and social morality. Not in the partisan manner that it is often done in Fundie circles, but avoiding politics (and policy) altogether makes Christianity a pious, but irrelevant existential exercise. Why do we avoid politics in the pulpit? I think it's because Americans and the rest of the West have digested the Kantian subjectivising of religion. We instinctively want to keep it in the personal, private sphere of our lives. We don't even know how to think of it in public terms, except as a form of tyranny. This is a mistake. Politics is ethics (both economic and behavioral) at the corporate level. The Bible has plenty to say about corporate ethics. So should our preachers.

Very good points that have me thinking. I avoid preaching (or blogging) about politics not because they are a private matter, but because they are divisive--primarily, I think among the spiritually immature (whether in the pew or in the pulpit). I try to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the repentance, sacrifice, and transformation it engenders. If we truly allow ourselves to be transformed into the image of Christ, our views on political issues should begin to move in a godly direction. Until then, I'm afraid preaching about politics will cause the spiritually immature to interpret my preaching as partisan rhetoric while missing the real issues of dying to self and living for Christ. Is this approach simply being escapist or naive?

Update: You might want to read Doug Floyd's comment here.