He would continue to question authority, knowing that power and privilege can easily corrupt.
Democracy asks us to debate and discuss issues to find the best solutions. It asks many of the same questions that Christianity asks:
What are the most important issues the government needs to address?
What is the goal of a Good Society?
What are the means to reach this goal?
How do we bring justice and mercy into a society, and create a society in which all of us, together, work for the Good?
Chapter Two
The Poor, the Needy, Widows, and Orphans
“The spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.”
Luke 4:18–19
This was Jesus’ first mission statement. It is often called the Social Gospel, because it proclaims His intent to move people from captivity, oppression, and afflictions to freedom. This is not only spiritual freedom, but actualizing the Kingdom of God among us, within the society.
Many believe we create a Christian nation because most of the citizens are Christians, go to church, and believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. But the Bible does not limit religion to belief systems but calls on us to help liberate others from the burdens and trials that we and others endure. It asks us to consider the “least of these” and to make public policy with those who live on the margins of society always in mind. This has tended to be Democratic Party policy, and almost every Democratic candidate and every Democratic Party Platform pays attention to the needs of the poor, oppressed, and the disenfranchised.
The Republican candidates and platforms, fairly consistently, favor the wealthy and say little about the poor.
Many of us in America do not know people who are poor or destitute. If we do, we might believe their problems are of their own making and God really does help those who help themselves. Many Americans have lived in such privilege that we turn our eyes away from the homeless, blame the ill for their disease, try to justify why some live in poverty, and claim God’s blessing to explain why we’re so comfortable.
Our country is powerful and rich. We easily envy power and wealth, and try to get it for ourselves, forgetting that Jesus and the prophets ask us to change our perspective, and to take the side of the poor—to care about those without means, those who need healing.
The Command for Compassion
There is much disagreement about exactly what we, as Christians, should be changing in our nation. The Bible tells us nothing about many of the issues that confront us in contemporary society—whether we should talk to or negotiate with terrorists, what our energy policies should be, what kind of health care or educational system we should have. But there is one area in which the entire Bible is absolutely clear—we are to help the poor, the needy, the broken-hearted, the oppressed. It is the greatest litmus test we can apply to any governmental policies. If we had to choose only one issue that addresses the place where Christian values and political policy clearly come together, it wouldn’t be abortion, homosexuality, education, ecology, or employment, it would be where we stand in helping the poor and oppressed. We as Christians are called upon to allow the Light of Christ to shine on the brokenness that is at the core of the human condition, individually and socially, and to be part of God’s redemptive work on earth. This is not just an individual command, but a command to nations.
In Isaiah, God scolds the leaders of nations, “Shame on you … you who make unjust laws and publish burdensome decrees, depriving the poor of justice, robbing the weakest of my people of their rights, despoiling the widow and plundering the orphan.”1 God promised that he would bring justice to them and that He would crush their oppressors.2
In the Psalms, we are warned not to lose our good sense in prosperity, and are warned of the danger of becoming over-awed with the rich and those who live in great splendor.3 When over-awed, we give preferential treatment to the wealthy. It is possible that the great support for Donald Trump comes because many are agog at his wealth. They wish they, too, had billions to spend on houses and casinos, and to self-fund whatever it was they wished to do.
In Amos, God condemns the rich: “for crime after crime of Israel, I will grant them no reprieve because they sell the innocent for silver and the destitute for a pair of shoes. They grind the heads of the poor into the earth and thrust the humble out of their way.”4
The Bible tells us God is a stronghold for the oppressed, and He will not desert them. He listens to the laments of the brokenhearted. He fills the starving, and rescues those in chains and misery from hard labor. He gives the hungry a home and blesses them with a bountiful harvest. God provides a refuge for the weak and seeks justice for the poor.5
The Kings and Judges of the Hebrew Scriptures were commanded to find ways to equalize that which was unequal. They had authority over the nation, and woe to them if they only honored the rich! The poor were given the right to glean the edges of the fields for food, so they would not starve in a land of plenty. A tithe was to be collected every third year for them. The rich were not to make a profit from the poor, nor cheat them of interest on a loan, nor treat them as slaves. There were special compensations for the poor so they would not appear before God empty-handed. In the year of Jubilee, the poor could return and claim their ancestral lands; the injustices of the past would be ended and they could start anew.6
Protestant theologian Karl Barth, in his Church Dogmatics, says the Christian community “explicitly accepts solidarity with the least of little ones … with those who are in obscurity and are not seen, with those who are pushed to the margin and perhaps the very outer margin of the life of human society, with fellow-creatures who temporarily at least, and perhaps permanently, are useless and insignificant and perhaps even burdensome and destructive … these men are recognized to be brothers of Jesus Christ … and therefore the community confesses Jesus Christ Himself as finally the hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, sick, imprisoned man.…”7 As we do unto the least of these, we also do unto Christ.
Can We Agree on Helping the Poor?
When setting out to write this book, I had presumed that this was one issue where we could find agreement among Christians. I was wrong. Although there are more than 2,000 verses in the Bible about the need for individuals and nations to help the poor and the oppressed, there is a powerful group of conservative Republican Christians that does not believe the Bible on this issue. They believe individuals and churches are asked to help the poor, if they so desire, but not nations. They believe charitable giving should only come from those who wish to give.
I must admit I was shocked to learn this. After all, this idea is coming from conservatives and fundamentalists who say they take the Bible literally. I started to question several of my colleagues who were conservative Republican Christians about this issue in order to understand it more clearly. I promised not to use their names in this book if they would clarify this issue for me.
I was told, by one conservative Christian, “We are called to help, not to force others to help or to use our mob power to steal from those who do not want to help.” As a result of this theology, government programs are cut by Republicans whenever possible. Health care for the poor is de-funded. Getting an education or getting medicine or being able to buy or rent a house becomes costlier because the government won’t help. Another Republican Christian saw the liberal Democrats as giving far too many handouts, and said the government shouldn’t be in that business, even though the Bible tells us that leaders and rulers and nations have an obligation