The moral and "family value" issues are often the most controversial and dividing issues facing our country today. By choosing to focus solely on those issues, Christians set themselves up to be completely opposed to the other (at least) 50% of people out there. I think that the Bible teaches that God cares about EVERYTHING! For example, we as Christians have a biblical obligation to care about the environment, based on the fact that God gave us humans dominion over the earth, the responsibility to nurture it and care for it. Therefore, Christians should be leading the fight to conserve energy and combat global warming. This is not to say that a certain amount of global warming (literally) is natural, but the rate at which our climate is changing is destructive, and we as Christians should care about it.
Another example: poverty. America is a wonderful land of opportunity, if you grow up in the right places. Poverty is still a HUGE issue in America. A huge part of why people live in poverty has to do with the fact that our schools are still unequal, (i.e. - poor neighborhoods have increased class sizes, lack adequate resources to train and retain good teachers, and a lack of physical resources for the classrooms - i.e. books, chairs, staff). Education is the CORE of success! Without education, people are more likely to end up living off Public Assistance, or finding (illegal) ways of making money. Education is directly linked to increased rates of teen pregnancy, and lets face it, almost no one could make it with a young child, no high school education and an often flawed family support system.
Now, I know what a lot of Christians' response to this is. Their response tends to be, "This is a result of sin, and you just can't be mad at natural consequences for someone's actions." While I do agree with this to a certain extent, my issue with it comes when we have not adequately tried to assist or prevent these situations. I have no problem saying "bueno que te pase", or "serves you right," to a teenager who has grown up with opportunities at their fingertips who get pregnant, drops out of school or is in rehab for substance abuse addiction. But I have to think twice about a teen who has grown up knowing literally NOTHING, but the life of poverty. The fact that we still have children for whom poverty, ignorance, drugs, crime and violence are an everyday form of life, saddens me. And we as Christians, should again be racing to try to address the systemic issues of poverty, racism and discrimination, BEFORE pointing a judgmental finger at those who in our opinion "deserve it."
Jesus spent most of his ministry associating and ministering to the least of society. Not to excuse their poor decisions, or sinful behavior, but to show them His redeeming, everlasting, love. Until we as Christians have adopted this same attitude, I believe that we are sinning. And if we as Christians, (Republicans, if you will) would come along-side our (liberal?) Democratic colleagues and lead the cause to aid these people, we would garner a lot more respect in our society. Then they would be willing to listen to us about our other points of view. That would make them think twice about their ideas on "so-called Christians."
And that, in a [very small] nutshell, is my opinion on politics.
1 comment:
"And if we as Christians, (Republicans, if you will) would come along-side our (liberal?) Democratic colleagues and lead the cause to aid these people, we would garner a lot more respect in our society."
It seems to me this is laden with two false assumptions. Assumption #1: The way to really put feet on your care for the poor is to lobby the government to help them. This is precisely the idea that political conservatives are adamantly opposed to. It's not about caring or not caring for the poor. It's about the proper role of government. Just because people are unwilling to hand over more and more authority (and money!) to the government to aid "the poor" doesn't mean they're not concerned about poverty in the U.S. It means they're concerned about the evils of swollen government. As Christians, we do not have to join political liberals in enlisting government aid for the poor in order to be truly compassionate toward the poor.
Assumption #2: Liberals are more compassionate toward the poor than conservatives. Actually, one study showed that conservatives are statistically more charitable with their money than liberals are. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html) This is consistent with their separate ideologies. In fact, it is characteristic of liberal ideology to be eager to be charitable with other people's money. One way to boil down the liberal vs conservative view of government is this: Liberals look at a problem like poverty and say, "We need to make our neighbors help pay for this!" While conservatives look at the problem and say, "I need to do more to help with this!" (Ideologically speaking, that is.)
"I think the way that Christians have failed is that they have chosen one, or a few very narrow issues, to care about, (generally speaking, moral issues), and have ignored the other environmental and social issues (such as poverty, racism and discrimination) that are equally important."
I think this kind of statement is confusing and possibly has dangerous tendencies. First, are poverty, racism, discrimination, and environmentalism not moral issues? As Christians, we must affirm that they are all moral issues. Moral vs non-moral is not the question. The question is one of emphasis or importance.
And this is the second problem I see with your statement. It's fine to care about poverty, racism, and environmentalism. But as Christians, we must, we are required by God, to have a sense of proportion. Murdering children is a far worse sin than driving an SUV. Murdering children is a worse sin than refusing to serve someone in your restaurant because of his skin color. That's not popular to say, but it is something Christians must insist upon. Both racism and abortion are wrong, but abortion is the more heinous, and abortion is the sin that is going on in broad daylight, under the protection of law, in this country. We cannot lose sight of the single, most sinister evil plaguing our society today--the murder of children in the womb. If we begin to think that pollution is an issue of equal moral consequence to abortion, then we are capitulating to the deception of our culture, and we are losing our proper sense of moral proportion.
So I think that Christians whose political views and voting patterns are dominated by abortion and marriage definitions are seeing things pretty clearly. Racism is bad, but in broad strokes, that issue has been addressed, at least politically. The most important moral issues that have political ties in our society today are the two things many Christians are most concerned about: the killing of children and the legal endorsement of sexual perversion. Those were the types of things that called down God's wrath on Sodom and Gomorrah, and on the Canaanites during the time of Joshua. The nation that will not address those issues will not successfully be able to address lesser issues with any kind of moral sense.
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