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Learning From the Sin of Sodom

Screen shot 2010-03-03 at 3.34.42 PM Dear Friends,

There is a great article in today's New York Times by Nicholas Kristof, who has written about what a huge mistake it would be not to channel government money through faith-based organizations for international aid. Read below or at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28kristof.html.

Blessings, Pastor Joel

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Learning From the Sin of Sodom

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

For most of the last century, save-the-worlders were primarily Democrats and liberals. In contrast, many Republicans and religious conservatives denounced government aid programs, with Senator Jesse Helms calling them “money down a rat hole.”

Over the last decade, however, that divide has dissolved, in ways that many Americans haven’t noticed or appreciated. Evangelicals have become the new internationalists, pushing successfully for new American programs against AIDS and malaria, and doing superb work on issues from human trafficking in India to mass rape in Congo.

A pop quiz: What’s the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization?

It’s not Save the Children, and it’s not CARE — both terrific secular organizations. Rather, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian organization (with strong evangelical roots) whose budget has roughly tripled over the last decade.

World Vision now has 40,000 staff members in nearly 100 countries. That’s more staff members than CARE, Save the Children and the worldwide operations of the United States Agency for International Development — combined.

A growing number of conservative Christians are explicitly and self-critically acknowledging that to be “pro-life” must mean more than opposing abortion. The head of World Vision in the United States, Richard Stearns, begins his fascinating book, “The Hole in Our Gospel,” with an account of a visit a decade ago to Uganda, where he met a 13-year-old AIDS orphan who was raising his younger brothers by himself.

“What sickened me most was this question: where was the Church?” he writes. “Where were the followers of Jesus Christ in the midst of perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time? Surely the Church should have been caring for these ‘orphans and widows in their distress.’ (James 1:27). Shouldn’t the pulpits across America have flamed with exhortations to rush to the front lines of compassion?

“How have we missed it so tragically, when even rock stars and Hollywood actors seem to understand?”

Mr. Stearns argues that evangelicals were often so focused on sexual morality and a personal relationship with God that they ignored the needy. He writes laceratingly about “a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics.”

In one striking passage, Mr. Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)

Hmm. Imagine if sodomy laws could be used to punish the stingy, unconcerned rich!

The American view of evangelicals is still shaped by preening television blowhards and hypocrites who seem obsessed with gays and fetuses. One study cited in the book found that even among churchgoers ages 16 to 29, the descriptions most associated with Christianity were “antihomosexual,” “judgmental,” “too involved in politics,” and “hypocritical.”

Some conservative Christians reinforced the worst view of themselves by inspiring Ugandan homophobes who backed a bill that would punish gays with life imprisonment or execution. Ditto for the Vatican, whose hostility to condoms contributes to the AIDS epidemic. But there’s more to the picture: I’ve also seen many Catholic nuns and priests heroically caring for AIDS patients — even quietly handing out condoms.

One of the most inspiring figures I’ve met while covering Congo’s brutal civil war is a determined Polish nun in the terrifying hinterland, feeding orphans, standing up to drunken soldiers and comforting survivors — all in a war zone. I came back and decided: I want to grow up and become a Polish nun.

Some Americans assume that religious groups offer aid to entice converts. That’s incorrect. Today, groups like World Vision ban the use of aid to lure anyone into a religious conversation.

Some liberals are pushing to end the longtime practice (it’s a myth that this started with President George W. Bush) of channeling American aid through faith-based organizations. That change would be a catastrophe. In Haiti, more than half of food distributions go through religious groups like World Vision that have indispensable networks on the ground. We mustn’t make Haitians the casualties in our cultural wars.

A root problem is a liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations. Those doing the sneering typically give away far less money than evangelicals. They’re also less likely to spend vacations volunteering at, say, a school or a clinic in Rwanda.

If secular liberals can give up some of their snootiness, and if evangelicals can retire some of their sanctimony, then we all might succeed together in making greater progress against common enemies of humanity, like illiteracy, human trafficking and maternal mortality.

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  •   Culture Wars   •  

Come Let Us Reason Together: A Guide for Busy Pastors

pastor_guide_thumbIn early 2007, the Come Let Us Reason Together initiative was launched. It was an undertaking that few thought could be successful: finding common ground between centrist evangelicals and progressives on the most divisive cultural issues of our times. The heart of Come Let Us Reason Together is a Governing Agenda, released in January 2009. It represents the fruit of these labors and maps a joint path forward to heal a nation torn apart by the culture wars.

The most recent product of the Come Let Us Reason Together initiative is Come Let Us Reason Together: A Guide for Busy Pastors (developed with assistance from Pastor Hunter and other leaders). This user-friendly guide describes how pastors can embody this approach at the local church level and join a growing chorus of Christian leaders who are committed to finding a path beyond the culture wars to common ground.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE.

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  •   Culture Wars   •  

What Would Jesus Do?

Screen shot 2010-01-29 at 12.05.39 PM By Bill Schneider, Distinguished Senior Fellow and Resident Scholar at Third Way

Will the culture wars ever end? We have now had three Presidents in a row who promised to unite the country. They all failed.

Bill Clinton said in 2004, ``If you look back on the sixties and, on balance, you think there was more good than harm in it, you're probably a Democrat. And if you think there's more harm than good, then you're probably a Republican.''

The sixties were a long time ago. That was when China had a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the United States had a Great American Cultural Revolution. China got over its trauma. The U.S. never did.

Why not? One word: religion. The United States experienced a ferocious backlash to the cultural changes of the 1960s. It's a backlash that happened nowhere else. It happened because of the uniquely powerful role of religion in American public life. Religious observance is now the defining political difference between Democrats and Republicans. Regular churchgoers vote Republican (55 percent for John McCain in 2008). Irregular churchgoers vote Democratic (60 percent for Barack Obama).

Can anyone heal the divide? A group of centrist evangelicals and progressives is trying. Their project is called ``Come Let Us Reason Together.''

A group of moderate evangelicals has joined forces with Third Way, a Washington think tank, (I should note here I am a Distinguished Senior Fellow & Resident Scholar at Third Way) ``trying to change the nature of our engagement in public debate in the United States,'' according to David P. Gushee, professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and president of Evangelicals for Human Rights.

``There's a real weariness of the politics of division,'' Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research says. ``This project is about trying to find a politics of common ground.'' Jones estimates that 54 percent of white evangelicals in the U.S. can be described as ``centrist" (40 percent) or ``modernist'' (14 percent). Among younger white evangelicals, the total rises to 61 percent. These are churchgoing Americans who, Jones says, ``have increasingly found that the most loud and public voices in evangelical life are not speaking for them.''

In the past leaders who have tried to heal the cultural divide have taken two paths: either compromise or avoidance. But cultural issues are not easy to compromise. They're about values, not interests. Interests can be compromised. Values -- matters of right and wrong -- can not. In 1992, Bill Clinton said abortion should be ``safe, legal and rare.'' Anti-abortion forces believe abortion is murder. Should murder be ``safe, legal and rare''?

Barack Obama has followed the path of avoidance for the most part. In his first year, Obama hasn't said much about God, guns and gays, although his supporters believe he will eventually deliver. Same with immigration reform. The President says he will deal with it -- eventually.

``Come Let Us Reason Together'' recommends a different approach: common ground. According to Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor at Northland Church in Florida, ``There's a world of difference between compromise and cooperation. On the one hand, you are somehow giving up your agenda. On the other hand, you are even more likely to achieve your agenda through things that you can still do together. Each side is getting part of what they always wanted.''

Jones argues that what makes this effort unique is that ``it has put the more difficult issues front and center and tried to see what kind of conversations we can have about those, rather than pretending they're not in the room.''

Is there really common ground on abortion? The project's guide for pastors talks about reducing the number of abortions by preventing unwanted pregnancies and by supporting pregnant women who want to give birth. Surely progressives and evangelicals can agree on that.

Is there common ground on gay rights? The guide talks about protecting gays and lesbians from employment discrimination and hate crimes. Nothing about same-sex marriage. In Dr. Gushee's view, ``Civil unions don't seem to be a solution that is satisfying to a lot of people in either the gay community or the Christian community, but to me, it seems like it could be a space for common ground.''

The project is not looking for dramatic breakthroughs. It's promoting the experience of working together for shared values. Maybe they'll like it. Maybe they'll learn to trust each other a little more. ``We now have entire industries and organizations that profit from polarization,'' Dr. Hunter observed.

Can evangelicals be drawn away from the path of militancy? Dr. Gushee thinks they can because of the nature of their faith. He calls militancy ``a violation of our own values . . . where commitment to a certain position on an issue has overridden core teachings of our faith and the example of Jesus.'' Rev. Hunter says, ``I would like to build into the evangelical part of the church a broader approach to controversial or divisive issues so that we can both be peacemakers and advance those values that we think are biblical values.''

Doesn't the Bible say, ``Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God''?

Find this article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/what-would-jesus-do_b_441944.html

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