HAYDEN - Being a pastor and a lawyer has given the Rev. Chuck Wilkes a unique perspective on the intersection of religion and politics - something Wilkes said is becoming more and more common in today's society.

"There's always been kind of a tension between the two," said Wilkes, senior pastor at Hayden's True North, a Church of the Nazarene, "but it seems in the last many years they've become more and more antithetical to each other and there's more and more conflict between the two."

The fallout of a clash between politics and religion in last month's primary election continues to reverberate in the community.

Wilkes, who was contacted by The Press because of his background in religion and politics, agreed to an interview because he said he wanted to share a message of hope and encouragement, of truth and grace.

Above all, the pastor said, he wants to address what he sees as a saddening - and ever-widening - chasm in the community.

State Rep. Ed Morse, R-Hayden, filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service based on his belief that local pastors violated IRS laws barring non-profit organizations from political campaigning. Morse, who lost re-election, told The Press this week that it could be weeks before he hears back from the IRS.

Morse took issue with a voter guide distributed by several local pastors in the week leading up to the election. Created by the Kootenai Family Council PAC, the fliers rated Republican candidates on two issues: The state healthcare exchange and the Common Core education curriculum.

As fervently as Morse criticizes the flier and its distribution, others defend the decision and right of pastors to share the literature.

Wilkes received the flier via email from the Kootenai County Ministerial Association, a fellowship of senior pastors from various churches.

Though Wilkes is not an active participant in the association, he is on their mailing list. As former chair of the Task Force on Religious Freedom for the state of Colorado, Wilkes said he worked with state legislators and others to address concerns like those aired by Morse.

"It's not illegal or against IRS regulations for pastors to participate in the political process," Wilkes said, "and they can vigorously participate and they can do anything they want as long as they do it individually and it's very clear that they are speaking as an individual."

The "corporate church," however, can't legally take a partisan political position about a particular candidate, he said.

Churches have handed out voter guides for years, Wilkes said. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's a good practice, he said.

The guide forwarded to Wilkes by the ministerial association addressed the state insurance exchange and Common Core.

"In my judgment, those are basically not theological or Biblical issues," Wilkes said. "They may have overtones and people who have strong Christian beliefs may think strongly about them, but the Bible doesn't speak to insurance exchanges or Common Core."

Wilkes said he's reluctant to hand out voter guides that "don't bear directly on a Biblical issue."

LENS of LOVE

Wilkes just bought a home in Kootenai County, but he's no newcomer.

He was in fifth grade when his family moved to the area. His dad was pastor of the Coeur d'Alene Nazarene Church. Just a few days shy of the start of Wilkes' senior year in high school, his father took a job in Lewiston.

Wilkes attended Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, worked as a security officer at the Idaho State Penitentiary and attended law school at the University of Denver. During the 26 years he lived in Colorado, Wilkes transitioned from a career as a lawyer to become a pastor.

For six years, he did both. He is still licensed to practice law in Colorado.

Along his journey home to Coeur d'Alene, Wilkes served at a Nazarene Church in Leavenworth, Wash., and then the Spokane Valley. He has been senior pastor at True North since 2010.

He believes the community could be "the greatest place ever anybody ever came to."

"This is the coolest place," he said. "I'm saddened some of the community culture, kind of mindset, doesn't match the beauty of the creation. We have conflict. We have people staking out positions."

Wilkes said people might engage in politics or other causes in an attempt to "shore up God's position," saying "Even though I think He's sovereign, I'm pretty sure He's not winning."

"If, on the other hand, your view of God is that His essential characteristic is love and that all of His interactions with human beings are to be viewed through the lens of how much He loves us, then it changes the way you look at life," Wilkes said. "You think, well, evil may appear to be winning, but God's love is irresistible."

Over time, Wilkes said, God's love always wins.

"There are bad things happening," he said. "I just take the position that the way you deal with them is you overwhelm them with how much you love them without ever backing off of what's true, but you don't try to destroy them."

Wilkes said he hasn't heard people in the community talk about "destroying evil people," but he said the rhetoric can sometimes get out of hand.

"It starts with the notion if I don't push back on these people, God's going to lose the battle," he said. "I'm in the camp of He's not losing."

BUBBLES and BBs

Wilkes uses bubbles as a metaphor to describe the relationship between individuals and others in the community.

"Here in North Idaho, there's a vigorous defense of the bubble of liberty," he said. "I've got to have a lot of weapons or I've got to have the right to do whatever with my property. It takes various forms. It's a bubble of liberty that protects me from everybody else out there."

When two bubbles connect, they connect in a plane that Wilkes said represents the "covenant of community." The law, he said, determines what the plane looks like and the church speaks into whether the plane destroys the bubble or strengthens the two.

"I don't get to do what I want to do," he said. "I have to ... interface."

Grace is what makes the interface work, he said.

"Law is what expresses grace, believe it or not," Wilkes said. "Lawyers don't buy it, pastors don't believe it, but it's true. The underlying assumption of the law is it expresses grace, one person to the other."

When evil surfaces, Wilkes said people have a tendency to withdraw and say, "I'm going to reinforce my bubble. That's how I'm going to live."

He uses another metaphor to illustrate why that's a problem.

"If you have a bucket full of BBs - little, hard round spheres - a 3-year-old can stick his hand all the way to the bottom," Wilkes said. "If you take that same mass and you covert it into hexagonal shapes, you can punch it as hard as you want and you can't go in half an inch ... because the interface strengthens them all."

Without that interface, Wilkes said all that is left is conflict and "BBs banging into each other."

He said he has come to believe that fear is the most dominant emotion in many of Christ's followers.

"Here we have a lot of people who are absolutely afraid," he said. "They're afraid Obama's going to get them or the federal government's going to get them, or a tree's going to fall on them or something's going to happen. Scripture teaches us that perfect love - which is God's character description - drives out fear. If we're operating in fear as a community, then we as a faith community are not speaking the right language into the community."

Wilkes said it appears many in the community don't understand what the covenant of community looks like and are too afraid to even begin the dialogue.

"The covenant of community says I am willing, for your sake, to give up some of my liberty because I know you'll do the same for me and between the two of us we are stronger than we would be otherwise," Wilkes said.

While a contract is fulfilled when both sides do what they are supposed to, Wilkes said, a covenant is different.

"If you are struggling to do what you're supposed to under the agreement, I'm here to help you," Wilkes said. "I care about how that impacts you ... I will help you. That's covenant."