The eCrozier

Among our tasks as witnesses to the love of Christ is that of giving a voice to the cry of the poor. – Pope Francis addressing, Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury

I get a lot of emails telling me how to be a better bishop, why I’m wrong about this or that issue, or how I’d be acceptable to the writer if I just did what they want. And then there are my favorite emails, ones beginning with something like: “How dare you…” If I followed each directive of my correspondents, then I’d be more of a mess than I am and I’d probably end up on the floor mumbling incoherently in a straight jacket.

I recently received some emails criticizing our Church’s work rebuilding our cathedral in Haiti, the one that was destroyed by the earthquake in January 2010. Some of these folks told me that with the deep poverty in Haiti, it was just wrong for us to raise millions of dollars to rebuild our cathedral there. Such money should go to poverty relief. Other emails came at it from a different direction: the Haitian people were corrupt and simply incapable of managing anything by themselves. They would just waste whatever we gave them and nothing would change.

These two criticisms might be characterized respectively as first a liberal one, and second, as a conservative one. What both of these criticisms have in common is that they approach their position first through a secular, socio-political lens. Sadly, I see this a lot from disciples of Jesus. For example, when I read Facebook postings from Christians, their critique of an issue often seems to come a priori from their socio-political outlook. Then they often try to find a way to fit in the Gospel to justify their position. Shouldn’t it be the other way around with our politics being shaped by the Gospel?

Whether it be the proper role of government in the U.S., or addressing the scandal of hungry children in our communities, or how best to help the Haitian people, we must begin with the lens of the Gospel of Jesus. At times that will make disciples of Jesus seem liberal and at other times it’ll make us look conservative to the larger world. And sometimes it’ll make us just appear crazy to those not shaped by the radical grace of the Good News of Jesus. Too many of us are hung up on trying to be consistently liberal or unswervingly conservative rather than constantly faithful to the teachings of Jesus. That means our politics shape our discipleship. And it should be the other way around.

This isn’t to suggest that there are clear programmatic answers found in the teachings of Jesus on how to alleviate poverty or the related issue of “income inequality.” But it’s to suggest that if we aren’t working hard to help the poor, then we’re plainly ignoring Jesus. Poor people should haunt every disciple of Jesus. I hear some Christians blame poor people for being poor as if it were some sort of “just dessert.” I hear others who think that if we just had the right government program, then it would absolve them from any direct responsibility. Both are shaping their respective responses through the wrong lens. We’re never going to get this completely right this side of heaven, but all our efforts should proceed directly from the grace incarnated in the Gospel of Jesus.

+Scott