Why Evangelicals want Nothing to do with Jesus' Social Agenda

I think one of the reason for this is that conservatives believe that the gov’t is the least efficient method of providing for the poor. When the govt asked for 35% of what is God’s that I am to be a steward of and then spends it on programs that are not biblical (such as abortion, death penalty, war etc) why would I encourage them to take more? We evangelicals have abandoned our calling to take care of the needy and rather have the gov’t do it. That is to our shame. At the same time we can not sit by and encourage the govt to take what I am going to be held accountable for and use it contrary to God’s word. I know that God will judge nations but nations are people who are christians so I do not know how that is going to work. Do i stand before God and say well LORD they used what u gave me for some good, but also to killed 5 million babies and wage war and I went along with it because we did help the poor (which u said.we.would always have.with us) That will be an interesting conversation to say the least. Give all of what God has entrusted to me to me and let God hold me accountable, do not give more to people who can’t manage what they already have..I think that too is biblical. Just b/c some christians do not give and support social programs do not judge all followers of Jesus by their poor example. Have we gotten to the point that we will suffer some things for the greater good? That is a slippery slope. And no one tell me that Jesus did not forbid abortion or the death penalty. Those are old arguments.

Ben – I very much concur with your closely… provision by inefficient means is better than no provision at all. And may it provide the safety net until we get our act (the church) together and take back the responsibilities we have shirked.

If we believe so adamantly that government should not do these things then we should be willing to do them ourselves. Any port in a storm…

Does the article frame the situation fairly though? Does being against the current welfare system, or proposed education reforms, or the recently passed healthcare bill mean that a person is against helping the poor (individually or as a nation), educating children, or fixing a broken health care system? While I do believe that many Christians have uncritically linked arms with conservatism in America, I’m also not convinced that many of the social programs listed above actually help the people they are aimed to help.

I will fully admit, however, that I have a limited amount of knowledge about these sorts of things so I may very well be wrong here. It just seems that the statement the article is trying to make sounds a bit like like, “You silly evangelicals – you think Jesus was a conservative/Republican when it’s obvious he was a liberal/Democrat.”

That being said, I would love to see the church step outside the right/left debate and begin to offer new solutions based on Jesus and the Kingdom of God. If the evidence of scripture is anything to go on the powers that be in both parties would find themselves upset with some of what is said.

Thanks for sharing this!

This article is essentially a strawman argument which assumes that Jesus would fully support the social welfare system in America and then blasts Christians for not supporting it. The strange thing is that this argument is quite old and it seems odd that it is posing as news.

Joe I would say this—- I have no problems with critiquing the flaws in existing safety net systems, but you do not stop holding on to the hand of someone hanging off the cliff perform you put a substitute net adequately in place. In other words, calls for reforms do not warrant in any way denying someone the means of subsistence and survival.

BW3

You guys who are making this about government are off base, although it is a good illustration of how one’s position about Jesus is derived by political and social views.

On abortion — tell me what Jesus said about it. Because that would be a blank page.

Jesus did speak against killing and hating enemies, yet christians are the most pro-violence people in the US. Jesus spoke against judging others, yet christians are the most judgmental people by far. Yet they are obssesses with gays and abortion, two issues on which we have exactly nothing about his views.

@ pf,

I’m sure Jesus was against abortion, and since a fetus is a human being — abortion = murder. “”Which ones?” the man inquired. Jesus replied, “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony.” (Matt 19:18)

Jarrett: you are sure what Jesus would say? That’s incredible.

To be clear, I don’t think this is about liberals and conservatives. Jesus lived in a time in which world views were so different that it would be impossible to reconcile today. For example, he would have assumed slavery was natural, he would have not seen anything wrong with the government executing people without cause or women being considered property. Trying to ascribe modern political positions to him is foolish.

Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. He thought god would get rid of the bad guys and usher in a kingdom of peace and justice led by Israel. His ethical statements reflect the conditions of the new kingdom. I don’t think he had reforming government in mind.

I agree with Dr. Witherington that the Church is doing a pathetic job with its responsibility to the poor, and I am thankful that our government provides a social safety net, but I hope being “fine with the government helping more” does not mean being okay with Christians (whether liberal or evangelical) attempting to force their ethic onto a secular government and its citizens who are not bound to that ethic. I do not think Ben is suggesting this, but I know far too many American Christians who look first to our fallen secular government, rather than the Church, to provide ethical “solutions” to our nation’s problems, and this can lead us down a Constantinian slippery slope. It is time for the Church to take back her responsibilities, and to stop attempting to legislate the Gospel.

Fantastic article, although not being from the USA I’m probably not really entitled to have an opinion.

I also really liked Joe’s response of “I would love to see the church step outside the right/left debate and begin to offer new solutions based on Jesus and the Kingdom of God”… certainly this is relevant to my own culture and I suspect probably to the USA too… Christians should be leading the way to social justice… read Amos, read Proverbs, read pretty well anywhere else you like and if we really take our Bible seriously then it starts right there, not whether God is on the side of republican, the democrat, or any other political system from whatever nation you’re born in.

In the meantime, I suspect Ben’s probably right… for as long as we carry on not offering anything better, then we’re probably not qualified to do anything other than give our support to the half-baked and inefficient safety nets which are at least better than allowing people to die of poverty. So if that doesn’t motivate us to get out and do something….

@Leanne – I think that’s the point I wanted to make in my comment the most. I’m frustrated with the feeling that as a Christian I feel compelled to find Kingdom solutions to these problems and yet from a social and political perspective there seems to be a vacuum of ideas.

To Ben’s reply, I would not want to discard the net we have before replacing it with a better one. I’m just hoping the church (myself included) will begin really imagining what a better net might look like.

I struggle with envisioning it and what it means because the conversation has become so muddled with sound-bite solutions that ignore the complexity of the problems and force people to one side or the other. How DOES the church as a whole stand as voice for the Kingdom, and call for an ethic of love to be used in our policies both domestic and foreign?

Correction: “No matter…”

My perspective is that the government wants churches out of the charity business, if you don’t believe me read this. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7381016.html . If it his hard for a rich man to be saved because he relies on his riches, it must be hard for those who rely on government. Why do they need God? The government provides all they need from cradle to grave. If you give to the needy out of your own resources that is worthy of praise. If you take money out of other peoples pockets that is theft.

Sorry this is so long…I started writing and couldn’t stop. Hopefully this helps some people understand the non-pacifist, anti-government-intervention perspective.

I find it pretty ludicrous that this is considered a subject on which Christians cannot, in good conscience, disagree. I find it ludicrous that there is a “Christian” answer to every problem, based in Scripture, and that those answers require government intervention (or they are not Christian). That sounds rather startlingly close to theocracy to me, and I had really rather hoped that Christians had learned from what happens when we take secular power to use for the Kingdom: the Crusades, the Salem witch trials, etc. Christians are no more to be trusted with governmental power than non-Christians and, thus, we should strive to find non-sectarian answers which do not require us to betray our faith and allow us to live out our faith in public but non-coercive life.

I see very little from Jesus (or anyone else) on the proper role of government, except that we should pay our taxes (or at least that paying taxes is not inherently contradictory to a proper Christian identity) and that government bears the sword to punish the wrongdoer — and does so with authority from God.

I also reject the notion that Jesus’ intention was to radically reject the ethics of the Torah, the Writings, and the Prophets. I think that he reframed some of those ethics to help us understand the purpose they served and the context for which they were intended, but I don’t see any reason to believe God’s ethical sense did a complete 180.

I believe, as Christian libertarians generally do, that in order to maximize individual liberty we should focus the efforts of government on protecting people’s rights and the efforts of the church (and society, so much as we can influence it) on helping people. To me, you taking my money at gunpoint to help your pet cause is robbery. (And having the government do it for you is the same thing, in the end.) While there are many Christians who are hate-filled and just want to see people suffer, I think that many more Christians call for harsh punishment of crime because they love and wish to protect the innocent. Yes, I will take a man’s life, without hesitation or remorse, to stop him from raping a woman or killing an innocent man or molesting a child. Hatred of the wicked, in this case, is the natural consequence of love for the innocent. (I also think that the Scots-Irish-influenced culture of the South remains one of the last powerful redoubts of public Christianity in the States and, thus, the secular aspects of that culture tend sometimes to be conflated with the Christian aspects.)

If your love extends to everyone equally and you refuse to protect the innocent when necessary, then your agape for them is empty feelings. It’s nice to have feelings, but actions are more important. And I am quite firmly of the belief that chosen inaction is an action. Abstaining from acting in the face of human wickedness is not love, nobility, or compassion. And merely standing in front of the guns of wicked men to ensure you die first is not Christlike. Christ died knowing that his sacrifice would be efficacious. Dying first is just ensuring that you don’t have to suffer seeing the consequences of your own squeamishness.

I also believe in relatively lax gun control because I believe that, as we have seen in Libya, it is sometimes necessary for people to defend themselves from their governments. Sometimes governments fail to defend their people from criminals. Suggesting that government should have a monopoly on power is suggesting that tyranny should face no challenger. Police officers who have a problem with the people being armed are, I assume, police officers who will guarantee that police brutality will never occur and that they will always be there to stop criminals. If not, then they have no right to complain.

I don’t think that there is a set of proper Christian answers to most political questions, barring genocide and such. I despise conservatives who insist that all Christians must oppose gay marriage or oppose abortion or no-fault divorce laws or whatever because that’s what Jesus would want. I also despise liberals who insist that all Christians must take specific views on the role of government intervention in alleviating poverty, or that because Jesus forgives sinners the government must release criminals as quickly as possible. Both groups use their faith to inform their views, and that’s fine. But I’m sick and tired of left-wing Christians and right-wing Christians trying to put the authority of the Gospel behind their political views. Can’t we all agree that we should all do our best to protect and care for the weak and needy, and then accept that we will sometimes disagree on how best to do that?

If I may offer a perspective as an ordained British Methodist Minister who has recently returned to the United States after 21 years in the UK (I was born in and am currently living in Ohio).

I have also given up on the United Methodist Church partly (although not entirely) for “political” reasons. (After a year struggling with UMC worship and theology, I’m attending a congregation of another denomination.)

I have absolutely no problem with the stance “There are massive inefficiencies in our governmental system and every tax dollar that we spend should be effective.” In fact, I have a number of good friends who believe this and who tend to vote Republican in consequence.

But I have been frightened – as a cultural outsider – by all the talk that I’ve heard about what I’d call safety nets for the poor being “social” or “communist” agendas or agendas for “the government wanting to strip us of our rights”. Also, in many, many instances there *is* a knee-jerk, dualistic association of right-leaning politics with Christianity and this whole “constitution worship” seems like an idolatrous form of biblical fundamentalism.

I agree with Ben. What would Jesus do? He would feed and give healthcare to the poor, even if it were “inefficiently” (he would not object to our trying to be more efficient either). He would not say “Let’s defer help until we can do it perfectly.”

It’s the lack of compassion that really bothers me.

I’m one of the guys this is about. I’m more conservative than 90% of Republicans, and a fundamentalist Christian. So maybe I can answer your questions about ‘why’ I’m this way, without necessarily having to claim that my way is the only right way … it’s just what I believe is right, and why many of us are overcome with temptation to anger:

My ancestors came to North America to gain opportunity, accept huge risk, and get out of Europe. My (personal) ancestors were among those who rebelled against England and later against the Union. The basic idea was that ‘we’ (our families, neighbors and churches) wanted to be free to care for our own, without interference, either for evil OR for good. It’s simply about who gets to keep, use and distribute what I work for, what I earn and what I took giant risks to earn.

Later immigrants came to this nation and brought Europe with them. They weren’t coming for the same reasons. They want to maintain their European roots and heritage and identities. The US for them is a place someone else built, and now that it’s good, strong and free, they want to leave Europe’s difficulties, but keep their ways. Many of these folks are Catholics and those who live in big cities [I'm not trying to bash catholics, it's just a different mentality].

These people have never known the risks of independence. They’ve accepted the mentality that comes from being a serf to a lord, or one who must be ‘cared-for’ by a benefactor – government, church, or whatever.

BW states “Without some sort of social safety net, all sorts of children in America would not only have no healthcare, they would have no food and this is wrong.”

That’s factually inaccurate. Children wouldn’t have healthcare INSURANCE – but they’d have healthcare, even as they always have. As for food, some would go hungrier, many would not. We have history as our witness: poverty INCREASED after LBJ’s “great society.”

What BW calls a “safety net” makes me cringe all the way to my toes. I loathe the thought of being a kept citizen. But what makes it worse is that you steal the nation my ancestors built in the name of Jesus, and force me to be just another gear in the machine.

It sounds good to people with that old feudalistic mentality that our lords should care for us, and that we have the ability to force them by means of voting to do so. I get it.
So why not go back to Europe?

We came here because we’d rather die than take handouts. We view charity as a shameful thing unless it’s absolutely necessary. There are no starving people at my church, nor have their ever been at any of my ancestor’s churches. When my grandfather’s neighbor got sick, all the other famers chipped-in and helped with his harvest – they didn’t put on a concert or ask the government for a handout.

We liked it that way! It was hard, but we got to keep what we earned, and we got to choose how to distribute our earnings – among our own family first, our church, and the local needy folks. And because they were local, we knew them and knew who was truly needy and who was just plain lazy.

The doctor cared for sick people – whether they could pay or not. Eventually that grew into church-built hospitals (not government ones), orphanages and senior care facilities.

I agree that it’s a shame that a few decades back some preachers started converting dixie-crats into republicans by telling them that true Christians should be republican. But it should be clear that they were only doing what they learned from predominately black churches and the power they wielded to get JFK through the primaires.

And now that more than a few of my fellow conservatives are also duped morons, I’m embarrassed, but unchanged. Democrats and socialists have their own long laundry list of issues.

Let’s remember that while conservative Christians are being labeled as ugly, war-mongerers, it was liberal democrats that got us into WW1, Korea & Viet Nam. It was a “kind” zillionaire that took us to the Bay of Pigs, and led us closer to the brink of nuclear holocaust than any other leader in human history.

Social Security, national (not state, county or local) welfare, healthcare, education, and income tax. One thing at a time we become just another nation of serfs. But hey – you get to be a ‘nice’ serf, and pat yourselves on the back and claim that you’re smarter, better and kinder than we are.

congratulations, your moral superiority is acknowledged.

It is a bit hard to get overly worked up by a web post that has a complete non sequitur in its lead paragraph. The conclusion “Evangelical Christians . . . are simultaneously the very people most likely to reject his teachings and despise his radical message” does not follow from the premise “Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus.” The premise itself begs the question, that there are politicians and policies on offer that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus.

Perhaps it is the case that many politicians by the policies they propose intend to promote “the actual teachings of Jesus.” The regrettable irony is that when enacted by governments, the benefits intended in conception are replaced by detriments experienced in practice.

Wow rightwinger, that’s a mouth full. What disturbs me about what you say is a lot of things, not the least of which is that you believe some sort of mythology about your ancestors and the inherent goodness of radical individualism, as if it were true that an individual by themselves can create their own life, their own property etc. just by hard work. But of course, it isn’t true. Your very life was given to you as a gift by God through your parents. You wouldn’t even exist without them. Your very opportunities came your way not merely by individual effort or hard work, but through others— others who provided you with food, others who built the boat your ancestors sailed on, others who lived in an America before your ancestors— namely the native Americans. I would suggest you do a better job of learning your own history, read John Donne’s poem “No Man is an Island” and stop assuming your own personal experience is somehow typical of all such human experiences— say for instance those people who were dragged to America against their will as slaves.

BW3

Wow, cool … I thought no one would read my long note … but thanks!

First, let me respond to Rick … correct. I support my church and ministries we do. We’ve been to several other nations to help, and several inner cities in this country. The coolest is the ‘undercover’ work that gets done in Myanmar/Burma, where our government is locked out, and they suffered a far worse hurricane than Katrina. But my government representatives want to take my money (that would have gone to Burma) and use it for whatever vote-mongers deem appropriate.

Dr. W, I concede your point about self-reliance completely. And Steve D, if you want a great example (better than the Duke) you should see “Shennendoah.” the prayer Jimmy Stewart prays is a perfect example of the folly of self-reliance. I can quote it for you, if you want. But seriously … I’m not advocating that self-reliant attitude.

My point wasn’t that my ancestors were completely self-reliant, but that they were willing to take risks to get a gain, and in return they got to reap the rewards without government interference. I’ve been told one in seven people on the Oregon trail died. We don’t lose that many in the middle east in war today! But these people were willing to take a huge risk to build something and accept the consequences. In my neighborhood I can’t even change my water heater legally w/o zillions of government regulations telling me how to do it, and if I hire someone, they have to belong to certain clubs, unions, etc.

Obviously many groups besides the later European arrivals fall oustide the category of my ancestors … and that’s my point. A different vision rules this country than the one that built it.

A simple solution would be to leave more things up to the states, and allow for a wider range of differences.

Oh … and yes (Steve D), many, many doctors worked for free and still do. I’ll be happy to introduce you to many who perform medical missions at great personal expense or volunteer their time in poor domestic environments. Flying Sams, Doctors w/o borders, etc. Tons of them. In my area we have lots of poor latinos who aren’t even citizens, and local university medical schools, churches, and others tend to them for free every single day. I also know for a fact this happens in Memphis, TN, and assume it happens throughout the nation.

I’ll wrap up with this: I’ve personally accepted the inevitable. The nation can’t go back. Maybe it shouldn’t. But I wrote this to try to EXPLAIN why many of us are frustrated.

I respect BW’s scriptural work SO much! And it hurts when he makes statements that claims people like me “want nothing to do with Jesus’ social agenda” – just because we’d rather work on our own – or through our church than through governmental social programs. We may not be right, and some of us are possibly morons – but we are not all anti-Christ.

Perhaps these evangelical Christians understand the difference between grace and justice. Charity cannot be entitled and still be charity. It instead becomes legalized theft, and yet you call it good.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

It’s refreshing to read posts that are so well thought out and actually courteous. Thanks to all of you for very enjoyable reading.
I also found the article to be a very broad brush paint of the Christian community. Perhaps it’s because what most Christian organizations do, isn’t covered by the mainstream media. In my experience, I have found that the local church’s efforts don’t take up more than a tiny article in the local paper. Things such as food and clothing drives may wind up on a community marquee, but that’s about it. Farther afield efforts such as working with villages in Africa to put in wells for fresh water and provide seeds for crops are often kept within church walls. Christian NGOs that were already on the ground when the earthquake hit Haiti did get some news coverage, but only insofar as it pertained to their work with the victims of that disaster. It isn’t the church’s business to toot their own horn about what they do. They just do it to show the love of Christ to others, whether they be believers or not.