Religious Protests

There's a fascinating story in the WaPo today - A Religious Protest Largely From the Left:
Conservative Christians Say Fighting Cuts in Poverty Programs Is Not a Priority

When hundreds of religious activists try to get arrested today to protest cutting programs for the poor, prominent conservatives such as James Dobson, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell will not be among them.

That is a great relief to Republican leaders, who have dismissed the burgeoning protests as the work of liberals. But it raises the question: Why in recent years have conservative Christians asserted their influence on efforts to relieve Third World debt, AIDS in Africa, strife in Sudan and international sex trafficking -- but remained on the sidelines while liberal Christians protest domestic spending cuts?

Conservative Christian groups such as Focus on the Family say it is a matter of priorities, and their priorities are abortion, same-sex marriage and seating judges who will back their position against those practices.

"It's not a question of the poor not being important or that meeting their needs is not important," said Paul Hetrick, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, Dobson's influential, Colorado-based Christian organization. "But whether or not a baby is killed in the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy, that is less important than help for the poor? We would respectfully disagree with that."

...
Dobson also has praised what he calls "pro-family tax cuts." And Janice Crouse, a senior fellow at the Christian group Concerned Women for America, said religious conservatives "know that the government is not really capable of love."

"You look to the government for justice, and you look to the church and individuals for mercy. I think Hurricane Katrina is a good example of that. FEMA just failed, and the church and the Salvation Army and corporations stepped in and met the need," she said.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said the government's role should be to encourage charitable giving, perhaps through tax cuts.

"There is a [biblical] mandate to take care of the poor. There is no dispute of that fact," he said. "But it does not say government should do it. That's a shifting of responsibility."

The Family Research Council is involved in efforts to stop the bloodshed in the Darfur region of Sudan as well as sex trafficking and slavery abroad. But Perkins said those issues are far different from the budget cuts now under protest. "The difference there is enforcing laws to keep people from being enslaved, to be sold as sex slaves," he said. "We're talking here about massive welfare programs."

There are other forces at work, of course. In the Sudan, the Khartoum-led rogue bands from the north are led by fundamentalist Muslims who have been consistently trying to either convert or exterminate Christian tribes [and various other religious identity tribes] in all parts of the Sudan. It is a lawless, horrifying world there- but it also provides for well-funded conservative Christian missions plenty of great PR. [This is absolutely not to discount the highly beneficial aid work done in these desperate regions]

The American poverty question is another question- even though there is such a "biblical mandate" described by Mr. Perkins - it is not the responsibility, you see, of the government to provide any provisions to assist the poor. That should be left to "the Market."

I'm sure that the first thing we're all thinking is "Why are the conservative Christian organizations who are attempting to redefine the nation as a solely Christian one, and who push for more political power and more politicalization of their religion, also demanding that the nation is not responsible for those same Christian values they say are mandated?" [They do, of course, pin most of this paranoia onto the Left- or the "Secularists" out for the blood of Christmas] It's such a strange position to take- that somehow you can be all about "compassionate conservativism," wich aims to give federal money to Christian social programs, without giving money toward governmental aid for the poor.

All this has been said about the "Liberal" Christian groups. It'd be interesting to hear more from these organizations- whether they feel they're being adequately represented in their media, whether they feel the perceptions of "Christians" are appropriate or whether they feel their position is not on most peoples' radars.

I'd guess they aren't; I'd guess that many people feel disenfranchised by a Conservative "mandate" that does not reflect the values they see in their religion. I'd really like to see more coverage and more "Liberal Christian" voices in these debates.