The challenge for congregations is to take both liberals and conservatives seriously, and not write off or disparage the beliefs of either wing of the church. “I’m not left-wing ,and I’m not right-wing,” Warren often says. “I’m for the whole bird.” Being a whole-bird Christian means accepting that moral clarity rises out of the covenant made between God and Abraham, when God said, “Walk before me, and be blameless (Genesis 17:1).” But it also requires affirming that charity is equally biblical, and grounded in the exodus of God’s people from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 3:7-8). Thus, both clarity and charity should be seen as critical parts of a fully formed Christian faith.
A church can be a meeting ground ”” a place where people of diverse opinions and perspectives may gather, talk and even debate. I believe that church is the healthiest place for people to wrestle with difficult and divisive issues, such as immigration and abortion, because it is a community with a set of shared religious values. After a class on the importance of covenant and exodus in Christian life, church member Sharon Winstead said to me, “One side’s rhetoric still makes me grit my teeth, but at least now my head is saying, ‘They are being faithful to one interpretation of our religious heritage.’ ”
Such discussions in the church might not be comfortable, but they can lead to greater understanding.
Nearly 20 years ago, I wrote a review of Michael D’Antonio’s book Fall from Grace: The Failed Crusade of the Christian Right. Despite the wishful thinking of some at the time, the Christian Right hadn’t failed, and it cannot be pronounced dead today. Nor should it, because the right wing is just as important as the left wing for any bird that really wants to fly.
Something that steams me is the old line that religious or politically conservative people do not care about the poor. That is utterly and demonstrably false. We care about the poor and we do not support government programs that “help” the poor because we do care about the poor. Government programs that “help” the poor often help them stay poor. Government programs are full of waste and are not agile enough to adapt to unintended consequences. A prime example is the old AFDC program which paid more money for each child, but didn’t pay if the father was in the family. What was the result? One of the largest increases of out of wedlock births in the social underclasses in our nations history!
In Matthew 25, Jesus does not say: Come o blessed of my Father … for I was hungry and your government had food stamps; I was thirsty and your government had public fountains; I was a stranger and you had Ellis Island; I was naked and your government gave me used clothing, I was sick and you had universal health care, I was in prison and you paid chaplains to visit me.”
The call in Matthew 25 is personal it is not corporate. We are to feed the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison. We are not to discharge our duties by taxing others to provide this “service.”
Other Christians may come to different conclusions about the role of government in the ordering of a just society, but please don’t tell me that conservatives don’t care about the poor or gague how much we “care” by how many government programs we support.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
OUTSTANDING comment Phil!
#1 and I add Amen to #2, I am sick and tired over being belittled about being a conservative Christian who believes it is my duty to help the poor, even though as a 79 year old SS recipient I will never take out as much as I put in. My contributions aren’t like Warren Buffet’s or others. However, I help in many ways as best I can, especially person to person and not with a check to some government agency with a bloated payroll. Don’t get me started or I will spend the day talking about useless MDG’s and UN Funds.
Yet, I am a political and Christian conservative and hope to die that way.
USA Today certainly deserves credit for making the attempt to encourage respectful conversation regarding religious matters, which have too often been alien territory for the mainstream media. One cannot but chafe, however, at the paucity of depth in the bumper-sticker sized analysis that all too frequently results from their efforts. This article is typical in its lack of understanding of the difference between theological principal and prudential judgment. We all agree on the Gospel mandate to provide for the needy, cure the sick, care for God’s creation, etc. These are theological principals that all Christians agree on. The political Left and Right make different prudential judgments about how to accomplish these things. Mr. Snyder in 1 above well expresses appropriate consternation with the tendency to equate one set of these prudential judgments with the theological principal itself.
Matters are different with regard to abortion, for instance. We are not divided over how to prevent killing the unborn but over whether we should. All agree that homicide should be controlled by law, but are not in agreement over whether abortion is actually homicide. Here is a clash over whether a theological principal applies, not how best to apply it. Hence it is a much more important debate than over, for instance, what the tax rate should be.
It is essential to discern whether one is disagreeing on (1) what theological principals one has, or on (2) whether they apply, or on the more simple matter of (3) how best to apply them. Too often, as in the case of this article, no distinction is made between the three at all and little useful, alas, gets said.
Oops. I meant “principle” vice “principal” in the foregoing, of course.
[blockquote]But when conservatives are judged to be pass, as I fear they are now, then liberal charity can become an experience of wandering in the wilderness, guided only by feelings of compassion. [/blockquote]
I think the author meant “passe” but I got the message. I agree with the above comments that the article continues the stereotype that “conservatives” are not charitable. It is not charitable to throw a drowning man a 20 pound sack of gold coins. Teach him how to swim.
Actually, I believe that there was a study a while ago that showed that religious conservatives are the most generous people in the population.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
#7 = And that was across ALL income brackets!
Well put, Daniel Muth (#4)!
The choice between private and government programs to help the poor is a false dichotomy. I worked for four years at Hartford’s Connecticut’s largest homeless shelter, which was run by an order of Roman Catholic sisters–the very definition of a “private” faith-based initiative.
This shelter served five basic needs:
1) Emergency shelter for homeless people who had no other place to stay.
2) Transitional housing, specifically designed for those who were trying to make the change from homelessness to independence. From start to finish, this program took over a year. Those admitted lived in dorm-style housing, learned job skills, interview skills, literacy, computer use, and day to day living skills.
3) Short term respite for mentally ill clients.
4) Supportive housing services, for those who lived in group homes or rental apartments, but who needed assistance with medication and day to day services.
5) Hospice, for terminally ill AIDS sufferers.
Far from being inefficient or “helping the poor stay poor,” this organization (like most homeless organizations) these days was designed to help the homeless make the transition from chronic homelessness to independence. And it worked. Many of those who entered the emergency shelter applied for and were admitted to the transitional program. Those who entered the transitional program generally “graduated.” There were lots of success stories.
As the single IT support for an organization with over 100 PCs, I saw firsthand that this organization wasted nothing. We depended on donations or “made do” with equipment that was disposed of by private companies whoconsidered it no longer “state of the art.” If something broke, we fixed it. I was paid about a third of what IT professionals in private practice were paid. The social workers and mental health workers worked for a pittance of what other comparable professionals would make.
Far from being “not able to adapt,” we were forced to adapt constantly. One winter, Hartford had several weeks of subzero temperatures. The shelter had 150 beds, but the city was afraid that hundreds of homeless people would freeze to death on the streets. The shelter agreed to take everyone, and people slept on cots, in chairs, on the floors. And no one died.
The programs were not “once size fits all.” People with different needs were put in different programs. There was a single goal–to get people off the streets, and living productive lives. There were no illusions about why people were homeless. Most of our clients were either mentally ill or had substance abuse problems. Some had AIDS, and many of the AIDS clients were substance abusers. (Drug and alcohol tests were routine, and failure meant expulsion.)
Here’s the clincher. Although the shelter was a “private” faith-based initiative, it was necessarily funded by a mixture of private donations, solicited fund raising, church donations form all denominations–not just Catholic, grants from private foundations and corporate businesses, and, yes, government funding. State and federal funds accounted for about half the budget. If the private donations had dried up, the shelter would have closed. If the grants from foundations and businesses had dried up, the shelter would have closed. And, yes–without the government funding, the shelter would have closed.
And, again, although the organization was a “private” shelter, it could not have operated except in cooperation with local city, state, and federal agencies. They helped us and we helped them.
I am amazed that people (especially Christians) who complain about government inefficiency in social programs do not make the corresponding argument that government inefficiency or corruption in military defense or public safety (police) or highway management should imply that these tasks should be the responsibility of private and not corporate responsibility. It is the same inefficient government that helps the homeless, responds to national emergencies, creates and maintains the transportation infrastructure, regulates commerce, arrests criminals, and provides a military and police force. There is no valid biblical, or historically theological argument that the function of government is to provide for only for such things as private defense or police protections, but that education and “charity” depend on private initiative. The state exists to the serve the common good.
My apologies for my poor proof-reading. “Seeing red” sometimes effects that.
And it affects it as well. 😉
William Witt,
This type of public/private cooperation is a great use of government resources. I don’t know too many theologically and politically conservative people who would be against such a program. In Dallas, we have the [url=http://www.austinstreet.org/]Austin Street Centre[/url], a similar organization run by two friends of mine, the Revs. Bubba and Harry Dailey (Bubba is her nickname). While they don’t take government money, they do do wonders with the funds they are given.
The problem with too many government run programs is that they become focused on the people who run them and not on the people they are supposed to serve. The difference between government funded and government run enterprises is that when government runs something, it does so with civil service people who often have to work under very strict guidelines about what can be said or done. Have you tried to deal with the DMV recently? With a mix of government funding and non-government administration, those who have a heart and calling for ministry to the needy can be there to minister to the needs of the people, not the rules of the agency.
There is waste in defense and the military. A lot of that waste is congressionally mandated with each member of congress trying to get a piece of the pork pie for their district/state and I don’t know too many people who were upset with public schools until recently when they became a jobs and social engineering program rather than about educating our children.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Great comments, Phil, Daniel, and William.
The same points can be made with respect to Christian conservatives and the environment. The fact that there are rational disagreements as to how best to be stewards of the environment does not give either side the justification to slander the other as being anti-environment, something I believe to be true of many self-proclaimed “environmentalists. All too often “the environment”, “anti-poverty”, or “education” are conspicuously emblaoned on legislation that has little or nothing to do with its purported subject; rather, it is just a politically-expedient way to grease the skids of success for such legislation.
s.b. emblazoned
RE: “I am amazed that people (especially Christians) who complain about government inefficiency in social programs do not make the corresponding argument that government inefficiency or corruption in military defense or public safety (police) or highway management should imply that these tasks should be the responsibility of private and not corporate responsibility.”
Hi William Witt — I believe that the Constitution carefully delineated the duties of the Federal Government and among them is not helping the homeless. The “common good” that the Federal Government was supposed to lend its efforts toward was carefully listed. So I do not make the argument that the State should not be involved in education or charity due to the “government inefficiency” although certainly I believe that private enterprise in those matters is more effective and efficient.
No — the Bible does not state that we should have a representative government. We could even have a powerful monarchy and be “biblical” — but our country was founded on a number of principles that I believe allows the greatest freedom for the individual along with a common rule of law — and those principles were spelled out in writing — not a “living breathing document” but a written document that was articulate and consistent and actually meant something.
It’s a pity that a bloated State is no longer interested in those principles.
[i]Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism[/i] by Arthur C. Brooks is the study referred to above.
Here’s an Article about the book.
The examples Mr.Witt give where conservatives don’t object to state involvement have something in common. They are all functions of society that require coercion, at least. Roads don’t get built because the property owners along the intended right of way all happen to freely decide to accept an offer: they get built because the property is condemned. Further, if Mr. Witt seriously thinks that police and defense functions are fully analogous to relief of poverty, I shall have a hearty laugh right before I petition for his involuntary commitment. The reason the police and the military are government functions is not about efficiency; it’s because that’s where the power and authority of the State to kill in order to enforce its wishes resides. We don’t really want life sentences, lethal injection, or war to be undertaken by private individuals who perceive the need and step up to the plate.