Column: Jennifer Vogt-Erickson, My Point of View

I’m always sorting out what it means to be a liberal Christian. Every other week or so, I have a medium-sized crisis of faith, especially when I see the way Christianity is presented in the

conservative movement. I often wonder if I am reading the same New Testament.

Here’s what I glean from the red ink in the New Testament: Help the poor, feed the hungry, heal the sick, love your neighbor as yourself, love those who hurt you, clothe the naked, give to the poor, love God with all your heart, love unconditionally, judge not lest ye be judged and serve others.

I have a hard time finding where these teachings of Jesus Christ manifest themselves in the conservative agenda.

Watching the conservative Christian movement, a person unfamiliar with the Bible might get the impression that Jesus was most concerned about stopping gay marriage and abortion. Jesus didn’t broach either of these topics, though, at least not within hearing of somebody who passed the story along to somebody who eventually wrote it down.

A passage from Matthew and Mark that conservatives also lob from time to time is “The poor you will always have with you.” Jesus said it to his disciples when they criticized a woman for pouring expensive oil on his feet shortly before his betrayal and execution.

It’s a favorite conservative justification for why our government should cut social spending. Stripped of context, it suggests poverty is never going away, so quit pouring money down a rat hole. Keep your money for yourself, you earned it.

One problem. Jesus wasn’t telling his disciples to spend the money on themselves. He wasn’t absolving them of their responsibility to help the poor either. He was merely telling his disciples it was OK for someone to spend money on him since his time among them was short. The woman was serving Jesus by preparing his body for burial.

Conservatives also run on a message of promoting a “culture of life.” Jesus said he came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. Here are some demographic goals that might fit that bill: Lower abortion rates, lower child poverty rates, lower infant death rates, lower homicide rates, lower obesity rates and longer life expectancy.

These are all public health measures in which Western Europe surpasses the U.S. Conservatives have expended a lot of breath deriding Western Europe as “socialist,” but the fruits of these countries’ social policies is life. More, longer, healthier life.

Thus, if a neutral party had to pick where the Kingdom of Heaven is most closely being fulfilled on Earth based on outcomes that indicate support for life, they would probably pick secular Western Europe over the more observant U.S. It’s a sad irony, and one that should give us pause.

Jesus came, he said, to bring good news to the poor. The conservative good news, in contrast, promises widespread cuts to programs that help the least among us and large tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, a practicing Catholic, has energetically promoted these policies.

It is a serious distortion to associate Christianity with a political movement that does anything but declare the year of the Lord’s favor to the poor and oppressed. The Republican agenda distracts attention from broad, basic Christian goals with a few narrowly defined social issues.

Hence, my periodic crises, but so far I’m keeping my eyes on the prize. I am a Christian, and I vote according to my values. That’s why I’ll be voting mainly for Democrats in November.

 

Jennifer Vogt-Erickson is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.