I thought this was worth sharing.
...Today I'd like to talk about the connection between religion and politics and perhaps offer some thoughts about how we can sort through some of the often bitter arguments that we've been seeing over the last several years.
I do so because, as you all know, we can affirm the importance of poverty in the Bible; and we can raise up and pass out this Covenant for a New America. We can talk to the press, and we can discuss the religious call to address poverty and environmental stewardship all we want, but it won't have an impact unless we tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and secular America...
Continued...
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4 comments:
Fluff.
Okay, that was a dumb answer. I've felt bad about it all night. Obama's statement may be fluff, but it's a great question. I don't really expect politicians to be theologians anyway. I would like it if they would at least give some hint of understanding something deeper, but simplifying it for the campaign.
Weeding the garden: I am so tired of Christians who set up the false dichotomy of "you're either with Jerry Falwell or you're with me." I have no idea what Falwell's and Robertson's ideas on solving poverty are. Maybe I'd think they were right on. Maybe I'd think they were unutterably stupid. They are nowhere near as influential as the left thinks they are. They are bogeymen. On the other side of the issue, liberals quote Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo all the time, and I find them simplistic. Whatever the left taught in the late 60's and early 70's, shazaam! that's what they discover that Jesus taught. If only He had known, eh?
I think the first answer is that answers are very hard, and very complicated. As individuals, we are commanded to give, and there are precious few in the wealthy West who give enough. Our hearts do not break as they should for those who suffer.
Relating this to what governments are supposed to do gets very messy. The Old Testament teaches - particularly the prophet Amos - that we must insist on justice for the poor, work for justice for the poor, and we as individuals will share in the judgment of the society we live in. The New Testament, on the other hand, makes almost no mention of societal involvement and focuses on the acts of the Church, not the government.
I don't think there is a simple resolution to this. The lengthy discussions over at First Things have always impressed me with their depth and loyalty to the scriptures. There's also an intriguing commentary on a Jewish perspective on poverty over at the Social Affairs Unit.
http://socialaffairsunit.org.uk/digipub/content/view/16/27/
http://www.firstthings.com/
Sorry to put you off on articles. I'll go as deeply on this as you want to go.
First of all, just about anything from a political candidate has some level of fluff to it. They have to be vague enough not to offend and catch enough attention that most people everywhere will think you agree with them.
I have not yet read the articles, so I won't react to them (yet). I don't know what Robertson's or Falwell's positions on social justice except that they are for the school voucher program. Their motives though are not to improve schooling nationwide but simply to take schooling out of the hands of the secular government and put it in the hands of Christians... in a pluralistic society.
That's off topic. When we make choices (political, economic, or otherwise) we are casting our own individual votes to direct what our society will look like in the future. I would hope that if the United States is going to be viewed as a Christian nation by the rest of the world it would reflect Christian values or drop the pretense of being a Christian nation. Perhaps we just need to be called a secular humanist nation, so as not to confuse anyone on where our values lie.
At the same time I think it is just as important for the individual to make the sacrifices and choices to help alleviate poverty and injustice in the world. It is good for our souls. For legislation to be passed to force us to act on values halfheartedly or resentfully does not make our giving cheerful. It makes us bitter.
NCLB is a typical government program: well-meaning, but its unintended consequences make it a head-banger. Lord save us from well-meaning people.
"Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."
JRR Tolkien (Gandalf's comment)
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