Jeremy L. Berg

UPDATE: Albert Mohler has a fair critique of the situation from a conservative angle worth reading HERE.

Can’t we just get along?  Well, probably not.  But can’t we just at least try to listen to and respect those on the other side of socio-political issues?  I’ve been posting lately on the political question sparked by Glenn Beck’s warning to Christians to flee churches that advocate “social” and “economic justice.”

He and many conservatives are paranoid of the libertarian agenda behind so many social and economic justice efforts.  By principle conservatives are wary of government mandated programs aimed at helping the poor.  Leave it in the hands of private individuals and organizations they would say.

The reason I am interested in this debate is NOT because I have a stake in either side of the political debate.  I  do not consider myself either Republican or Democrat.  I stand at a distance, listening to both sides of the debate, trying my best to be anchored in a biblical, Jesus-shaped, Kingdom-centered view of various social issues, and critiquing both.  But as I watch and listen, I grow tired of the way some want to read contemporary political theories and convictions into the biblical text, twisting the Bible to say (and not say) certain things it doesn’t (or does) say!

This week it happens to be the conservatives who are driving me crazy.  Next week it could be the liberals.  Scot McKnight, New Testament scholar at North Park University, has picked up on the latest attempt of Jerry Falwell, Jr. to make the Bible say something it doesn’t really say.  Here’s the issue on the table today as proposed by McKnight: Are you seeing an increasing connection of libertarianism with the Bible? Do you think the Bible is anti-government mandated care for the poor? Do you see a radical voluntarism as the biblical model for caring for the poor?

Before you click the link to read the rest of McKnight’s post, let me say what I think.  I think, agreeing with McKnight, that the best path forward in being a nation that cares for the poor is to support (to some degree) BOTH government mandated care and voluntary charitable aid of private individuals and organizations.  The debate of how much government gets his hands involved is a live and healthy debate.  (I lean conservatively here toward smaller government.) But the hypersensitivity and paranoia on the right of supporting ANY government mandated support for alleviating poverty has to stop.

Why must we be so polarized?  Why cannot it be a little of both?  But what is the biblical model for caring for the poor: radical voluntarism or government mandated care?  Or both? As McKnight begins:

“I’m amazed at the comments being made by some evangelicals, in this case the son of Jerry Falwell, that “charity” is purely voluntary and individual, and that charity is not designed by God or by Jesus to be something done by the government. What is happening is that some conservatives are now equating libertarian principles with the Bible and with the biblical world.”

Continue reading McKnight’s biblical perspective HERE.