This is clear in Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar (Luke 16). Jesus reverses society's economy by naming the beggar and leaving the rich man anonymous. Further, by leaving the rich man anonymous he invites those of us who are rich in the world to see ourselves as him: we pass by the poor and needy around us every day while we invest in solidifying our place in society and protecting our way of life. As Jon Sobrino has noted, the 'American Dream' is an impenetrable value. It has become almost a right to be protected at all costs—even at the risk of undermining some of the most fundamental theological teachings of the New Testament (and certainly not to be threatened by cutting our military budget)!
2) An Eschatology Fail? Eschatology is the field of thought that studies and conjectures on the future of creation, history, and the "end of the age." It has sometimes been dominated in evangelical theology by "end times" scenarios. However, eschatology is not really about the end; it's about God's purposes for human history and for the particular role of the Church in that history.
Eschatologies tend to lean to one end or another of a spectrum: either futurist or realized eschatologies. Futurist eschatologies tend to be escapist: We're all going to die or Jesus is going to return, and in either case, we (as individuals) will escape from this broken world and enter our new life in heaven. Realized eschatologies tend to be utopian and human-centered: It's up to us and to the church to work for peace and justice and harmony for all in the present. They don't wait for God to return, but attempt to make change now.
Evangelical eschatologies are at their best when they land somewhere in the middle, driven by Paul's concept of the "already and not yet." God's Kingdom has come, but it hasn't come in full. We can't bring about the needed change on our own, but are called to live as witnesses and as signs to a changing world. If that's where evangelicals should stand eschatologically, then we dare not neglect our responsibility to live as signs to God's kingdom—which means working toward justice and righteousness in the world and providing for the needy and dire in their most difficult of circumstances, regardless of their nationality or location. While we can be realist enough to recognize the necessity of national defense in a fallen world, our eschatology is sorely lacking if we pin our hopes and dreams to military and terrorism defense budgets at the expense of imitating Jesus and his empathy with the poor and needy.
Obviously it can be easy to throw stones and easy to interpret data with a negative, critical tone. That's not my intent here. But it's important for those of us who consider ourselves evangelicals to ask what's behind these results and what it may suggest about our theological perspectives and their implications for how we interact and engage with our global neighbors: do we do so through love or greed, power or sacrifice? Why would we as a group be more willing to cut economic assistance to the world's poor than we would be willing to cut funding to our nation's military industrial complex? Does this reflect a Gospel fail and an eschatology fail? Or is something else at work?
If this is only about how we view the role of government in society, then deep sustained conversations need to be had regarding how to invigorate the church's contribution to the alleviation of global poverty. In any case, an evangelical gut check might be in order. These numbers tell us the truth about ourselves—and the results could be uglier than most of us are willing to admit.
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