When I was writing my book, Jesus Rode a Donkey: Why the Republicans Don't Have the Corner on Christ, there was one area where I was sure that the Christian Right and the Christian Mainstream and the Christian Left could agree - we are asked to care for the poor and the needy and the oppressed, the widows and the orphans. And just as we personally are called to be compassionate and merciful, so is our nation called to be a compassionate nation. Just to make sure of my understanding of this issue, I emailed several of my Republican Christian friends and asked them about their understanding of a compassionate nation. Almost all of them replied, "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." He believed that "the church, not the government, should be involved with helping and caring for the poor."
But that's not what the Bible says. There are hundreds of verses in the Bible calling nations to account, and telling us that God will judge nations by the mercy it shows to the poor and the oppressed. Here are just a few of them:
When Amos prophesies against the nation of Israel, he prophesies that God will judge them because "they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor...and deny justice to the oppressed." (Amos 2:6-7)
Isaiah says, "Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning?" (Isaiah 10: 1-3)
Ezekiel forecasts doom for the city "that brings on herself doom by shedding blood...therefore I will make you an object of scorn to the nations and a laughingstock to all the countries." (Ezekiel 22:3-4)
And Matthew tells us not to neglect the weightier matters of the law - justice, mercy, good faith!"(Matthew 23:23)
As individuals, there is just so much we can do to bring justice to the prisoners and to the oppressed. There is just so much we can do to help the poor.
This does not negate the work we do for individuals and for charitable organizations. But charity cannot solve our country's and our world's many deep-seated social problems that at least are partly the cause of poverty, hunger, injustice, wars, and terrorism. If the churches could have rebuilt New Orleans, certainly they would have done it by now. If they could have reconstructed Iraq, certainly they would have started the process by now. What church is going to fix Social Security? Or to make sure that no children in America go to bed hungry? What church, or denomination, is going to take care of health care for those who can't afford it, and what church is going to solve the problem of Darfur and take care of their refugees? What church will give money to all those who barely subsist on a minimum wage? What church will help those who can't make it in this country, even when working two jobs? What church will care about the welfare, not just of the fetuses, but about health care for the infants, child care for the children, job training and raising the minimum wage for the parents, and providing decent housing, food, and education for those who can't afford it? Certainly churches can do something, but they cannot solve, by themselves, these massive social problems.
So how do I vote? I vote for the candidates who has compassion and shows mercy for the poor and the needy, who will vote to raise the minimum wage, who won't turn their backs on those who can't afford health care, for the candidates who care about the hungry children, and the widows and the orphans. And I vote for those, not just because it is intrinsically in line with what I consider basic human values, but because I am commanded to do so, by Jesus who consistently sided with the poor and the oppressed.