IN SEARCH OF AN ALTERNATIVE FUTURE FOR AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM
Posted By Paul on October 1, 2004
I’ve been struggling lately with all this political stuff going on, people telling me it my Christian DUTY to vote this way or that way. And quite frankly, the way I was brought up, and the Church circles that I am still most comfortable with, leave no doubt as to which way I should vote.
The trouble is, I don’t think I fit that mold. I’m poor. I’ve been declared disabled by my doctor. I have no regular job. I have several friends who lost 100% of everything in the recent flooding in Carnegie, PA; they’ve been told that the only help for them is to go further in debt.
So when I came across this article, I guess it struck a chord within me. Here is just part of it, I encourage you to read all of it.
IN SEARCH OF AN ALTERNATIVE FUTURE FOR AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM
While American evangelicals consider themselves ardently pro-life, I have found enormous resistance to following our Catholic friends in embracing a consistent-life ethic that includes issues like AIDS, hunger, and violence. When I spoke on Christian radio in Colorado Springs and suggested that abortion wasn%u2019t the only pro-life issue, listeners expressed outraged. I argued that 25,000 children dying every day from malnutrition made world hunger a pro-life issue, too. I pointed out that our affluent lifestyles in North America directly contributes to this tragic loss of innocent life.Most of the evangelicals we work with in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are also concerned about abortion, but they haven%u2019t made it their predominant cause or used it to select a political party. Rather they have joined Catholics in promoting a consistent-life ethic, lobbying against world hunger, land mines targeting non-combatants, and the proliferation of guns, and lobbying for the care of creation.
They also lobby much more aggressively for justice issues. Scripture has so much to say about God%u2019s concern for the poor, but one rarely hears any mention by most American evangelical leaders about social justice. In fact, leaders on the religious right often favor tax policies that benefit the wealthiest Americans while cutting social programs to our poorest neighbors.
nice article . . .