JESUS RODE A DONKEY:. Linda Seger

the political level.

      Working for God’s Kingdom

      A number of Christian denominations interpret the work of Jesus as being political and social work, not just work for the individual soul. This is true among the mainline and more liberal Christian churches, which have tended to be more attentive to the poor and needy. Increasingly, this has been a concern of the more conservative churches as well. In 2005, the National Evangelical Conference called for “greater Christian involvement in society including: poverty, human rights and justice.” In a paper titled “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility,” which is the paper put out by the National Association of Evangelicals, there is a list of a number of specific issues Evangelicals are called to address: “disaster relief, refugee resettlement, and the fights against AIDS/HIV, human rights abuses, slavery, sexual trafficking, and prison rape.” It goes on to list the “protection and well-being of families and children, of the poor, the sick, the disabled, and the unborn, for the persecuted and oppressed, and of the rest of the created order.”

      The paper recognized we are called to work for God’s kingdom,19 which would be a kingdom marked by “justice, peace, forgiveness, restoration and healing for all.” We are to “demonstrate God’s love for all, by crossing racial, ethnic, economic, and national boundaries.”

      Liberal denominations probably would add to this list, by clarifying that we are to work for gender equality and to show God’s love for homosexuals as well. Who is to address these problems? Democrats would say individuals, churches, and the nations. In the Democratic Platform for 2008 and 2012, the Platform contains around fifteen pages about the need for the government to also address the poor and the needy. Who are these people? According to the Democrats, they are workers including women who have trouble supporting their families because they do not receive equal pay for equal work. They are veterans who return from war, physically and mentally wounded, who need health care and other forms of therapy. They are victims of disasters; some of these disasters come as a result of pollutants and climate change. They are Native Americans, Blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, widows, the aged, battered women and children, LGBT youth and adults. They include victims of hate crimes, the unemployed who are trying to keep their homes and their families together, and many who battle with health issues. The oppressed include those who are discriminated against because of race, creed, religion, age, class, gender, and sexual orientation.

      Many families are oppressed because they have children they can’t care for but have no access to contraception. The oppressed are victims of human trafficking, as well as those who are denied the right to vote and those whose unions are being dismantled so they no longer have a voice.

      The Democrats have a long record of caring about the middle class and the 15% of our country who live in poverty. However, there is virtually nothing about discrimination and the poor in the Republican Platforms in 2008 or 2012. The Republican concern is for the wealthier among us. They want to make sure that everyone is enabled to “have a chance to own, invest, build, and prosper.”20 Rick Santorum, former senator and presidential candidate, was asked if the Republican Party cares about the poor. He responded, “I’m not sure we do.”21 Many Republican actions confirm this—blocking a bill to raise the minimum wage, cutting food stamps, voting “no” to the Fair Pay Act, denying low income and poor women access to basic health care; the list goes on and on.

      Liberation Theology: Transforming the World

      We take the Gospel into society and ask, “What can the Gospel tell us about the best choices to make when we’re creating laws and public policy? What does it mean to be a Christian in society? How do we best express our Christian values and our faith in public?”

      In 1968, a number of Catholic priests, bishops, and laypeople met at Medellín, northwest of Bogotá, Colombia, and began questioning how to be more effective in their work with the poor in Latin America and South America. They recognized that the poor are often kept in poverty by social, religious, and political structures. They looked at ways the government, the Church, and the wealthy colluded to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. The participants wanted to understand how they could be effective in changing social conditions that would also change the abject poverty and misery of millions of lives.