Spiritual leaders see opening for poverty issue in election

Posted by Kendall Harmon

At a time when more than 37 million Americans are in poverty, including many who are newly poor and paying keen attention, spiritual leaders are encouraging the young to vote and urging voters to select candidates who will fight poverty.

"I feel more momentum, energy and focus on poverty than I have in churches in three decades or more," said Jim Wallis, chief executive officer of Sojourners social justice ministries in Washington.

"Partly, it's a new generation. Baby boomers are becoming church leaders and speaking to a new generation that wants their lives to make a difference. It's a new altar call, if you will," he said.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Poverty • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • US Presidential Election 2008

3 Comments
Posted October 27, 2008 at 5:08 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. AnglicanFirst wrote:

“Left-leaning Christian and social activists see opportunity in an unconventional presidential race and a spiraling national economy: pushing poverty as an election issue.”
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Salvation comes from the Lord and not the state.  Left-leaning Christians who push for godless actions on the part of the state are completely bypassing the fact that a Christian’s Salvation comes from Divine Judgement of his/her ‘personal’ actions/sacrifices regarding the needs of those in poverty and NOT the ‘impersonal’ actions of the state.

When the state does something it is a ‘collective’ act and not a ‘personal’ act of charity. 

When a Christian performs an individual charitable act at the personal level of giving, he does it because he is a follower of Christ, not as follower of the state.

When a Christian surrenders concern for those in poverty to the state, he surrenders his ‘personal’ religious obligation to that state.

At some point, those who believe in a strong state role in charity ‘cross a line’ and become ‘in a sense’ worshippers of the state and its political ideologies.

Politics are merely a ‘here and now’ construct of the very fallible human mind, following Christ and receiving God’s grace is not of the ‘here and now,’ it is of ‘eternity.’

Placing the state above God’s Grace can easily become an idolotrous act.

October 27, 6:12 am | [comment link]
2. Irenaeus wrote:

“At some point, those who believe in a strong state role in charity ‘cross a line’ and become ‘in a sense’ worshippers of the state and its political ideologies”—-AnglicanFirst [#1]

Very true. But you can say the same about almost any human viewpoint. Anything, including libertarian ideology, can become an idol.

October 27, 9:57 am | [comment link]
3. libraryjim wrote:

As I recall, a ‘war on poverty’ was waged in the 1960’s.  Many of the entitlement programs that were started as part of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” at that time are still in place, and yet the poverty line has not moved very much at all in the US.

Perhaps as part of the ongoing discussion on poverty, one should, as McCain suggests, take a long hard look at these programs, and eliminate those that are clearly not working?

October 27, 5:11 pm | [comment link]
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