Will Christians Actually Feed the Hungry?

When we harness our collective power to produce legislation that benefits the most vulnerable we are enacting Christ’s Sermon on the Mount into Law. Programs such as SNAP we show care for the hungry, the thirsty and the meek and we answer Christ’s command to serve the least among us.

James 2:15-17 tells us, “If a brother or sister lacks food and one of you says “go in peace,” and you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? Faith if it has no works is dead.” I don’t know whether the Junior Senator from Alabama just misplaced his bible, or simply hasn’t read it.

Senator Jeff Sessions represents an incredibly Christian state, and holds strong Christian convictions himself. This makes me wonder why he would introduce an amendment to the Farm Bill S. 3240 which prevents millions of low-income children from having access to supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP). Just another example of the “religion of convenience” showed by most republicans these days.

Senator Sessions believes that his amendment will prevent illegal immigrants from having access to these types of programs—though undocumented immigrants have never been afforded nutrition assistance in the first place. Under his amendment, 4.5 million children in our country living with undocumented parents would be shut out from these programs despite their own status as United States citizens.

Amendments cutting nutritional assistance programs should raise serious questions of morality for anyone willing to call themselves a Christian. Time and time again we hear the republican right talking about values, tradition and faith. Yet here we have the opportunity to help those living on the margins of society, and they choose to ignore what their faith actually instructs.

When we harness our collective power to produce legislation that benefits the most vulnerable we are enacting Christ’s Sermon on the Mount into Law. Programs such as SNAP we show care for the hungry, the thirsty and the meek and we answer Christ’s command to serve the least among us.

Christians should be in constant contact with their Federal representatives and continue to urge them to maintain funding for all nutritional assistance programs. We spend an awful lot of time talking about what we think Jesus might have done. Now we have the opportunity to do something he actually commanded: feed the hungry and care for the least among us. Will we answer the call?