I can tell people are scrapping for this discussion:
What should a Christian do when confronted with an apparently homeless person asking for money?
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
As much as I like the guy, I don't think I can vote for Obama.
Two primary reasons: 1) it's wrong to abandon our efforts in Iraq at this point; 2) abortion is a categorical evil, and Obama supports it.
I even donated $30 to his campaign, but as I go along, I just don't see how I can punch the ticket for him.
I guess one other thing is that his billing as a truth teller is starting to seem to me somewhat overstated.
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On Abortion
Evangelicals no longer report that abortion is their number one political issue; instead that spot is reserved for poverty. Paying attention to poverty must be a good thing.
But it’s a bad thing to forget about abortion:
“In 2005, 1.21 million abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million in 2000. From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions occurred.” http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
This is speculation, and I may be wrong. But I have a somewhat half-cynical view about the shift in Christian’s political priorities. The non-cynical half is represented by what I said at first.
Concern for the poor is absolutely good.
But.
I also suspect there is a spirit of acquiescence, accommodation, and appeasement to this shift. Or in other words, cowardice. Christians, like everyone, want to be widely accepted. We all love to be popular; we all hate to be unpopular. Christians know that their popularity will not suffer, and will probably be improved, by paying attention solely to the poor (unless they get extremely zealous about it to a point not yet reached or even approached; I'm talking universal housing or something nutty). And they also know their popularity will suffer if they are vocal about opposing abortion—it puts them back in that 90s, Jerry Falwell camp that they’ve tried so hard to get away from.
We have feet of clay, and everything we do is a mixed effort of both good and bad. Our current shifting political priorities will be not be unique in this regard. I’m not unsympathetic to the conversations we had in the 1990s and early 2000s along the lines of ‘aren’t we supposed to care for the poor, and don’t the Democrats do that better?’ But, for all of the progressive thinking that may be good for the Church, and for all the rightly acknowledged nuance there is to the issues, here’s all I’m saying:
45 million abortions since 1973 is an outrageous categorical evil. Low taxes on the rich are not.
Two primary reasons: 1) it's wrong to abandon our efforts in Iraq at this point; 2) abortion is a categorical evil, and Obama supports it.
I even donated $30 to his campaign, but as I go along, I just don't see how I can punch the ticket for him.
I guess one other thing is that his billing as a truth teller is starting to seem to me somewhat overstated.
---
On Abortion
Evangelicals no longer report that abortion is their number one political issue; instead that spot is reserved for poverty. Paying attention to poverty must be a good thing.
But it’s a bad thing to forget about abortion:
“In 2005, 1.21 million abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million in 2000. From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions occurred.” http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
This is speculation, and I may be wrong. But I have a somewhat half-cynical view about the shift in Christian’s political priorities. The non-cynical half is represented by what I said at first.
Concern for the poor is absolutely good.
But.
I also suspect there is a spirit of acquiescence, accommodation, and appeasement to this shift. Or in other words, cowardice. Christians, like everyone, want to be widely accepted. We all love to be popular; we all hate to be unpopular. Christians know that their popularity will not suffer, and will probably be improved, by paying attention solely to the poor (unless they get extremely zealous about it to a point not yet reached or even approached; I'm talking universal housing or something nutty). And they also know their popularity will suffer if they are vocal about opposing abortion—it puts them back in that 90s, Jerry Falwell camp that they’ve tried so hard to get away from.
We have feet of clay, and everything we do is a mixed effort of both good and bad. Our current shifting political priorities will be not be unique in this regard. I’m not unsympathetic to the conversations we had in the 1990s and early 2000s along the lines of ‘aren’t we supposed to care for the poor, and don’t the Democrats do that better?’ But, for all of the progressive thinking that may be good for the Church, and for all the rightly acknowledged nuance there is to the issues, here’s all I’m saying:
45 million abortions since 1973 is an outrageous categorical evil. Low taxes on the rich are not.
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