Sojourners is a liberal Christian group whose mission is “to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world.’’ It is based in Washington, D.C., and engages regularly in the capital’s political battles.There are a couple of obvious problems with this. For one thing, although Jesus encouraged people to help the poor and downtrodden, I don't remember him forcing anyone to pony up the money. Government doesn't raise funds by encouraging charity, it forces the money out of you through taxation and threats if you don't comply.
Religious groups with a political agenda are as American as the First Amendment, and Sojourners has not been shy about weighing in on the current congressional fight over federal spending. On its website, in e-mails sent to members of Congress, and most recently in a full-page ad in the political newspaper Politico, Sojourners has been asking: “What Would Jesus Cut?’’
The ad, signed by Sojourners’ president, Jim Wallis, and other leaders of the Christian left, argues that “a budget is a moral document’’ and the moral test of any nation is how it treats the poor and vulnerable. It acknowledges that government debt is a serious problem, but implores lawmakers not to balance the budget by cutting the “sound investments that a just nation must protect.’’ Among the “investments’’ Sojourners mentions are school lunch programs, tax credits for the working poor, and international aid for fighting pandemics.
Secondly, when Jesus was short on loaves and fishes to feed the 5,000 men (and probably another 10,000 women and children), he didn't run to the government in Jerusalem and ask for a tax hike to pay for a new government crowd feeding program. He used the skills available to him to create the prosperity he needed to solve the problem. That's actually a pretty conservative approach.
Comparing government programs to the Son of God gives way too much credit to the government and not near enough credit to God.
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2 comments:
Sojourners is a radical Leftist group with a very, very thin Christian veneer.
We were commanded by Jesus to preach the Gospel, not the social gospel, to all nations. But too many Christians don't want to do that, as the Gospel has historically never been well-received.
well, he did say "Render unto Caesar", but he didn't say we had to like it, or volunteer for it, for that matter
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