WWJD? Budget Edition

Stumbled across a quick and easy read this morning.  Jim Wallis, from Sojourners Magazine (in regards to the debate on Capitol Hill about the 2012 federal budget) asks the question, What Would Jesus Cut? The arguments are not anything new or even particularly pointed but its nice to see a prominent evangelical challenge the church to tackle this question.  In the church, we confess a Christ who is concerned with the poor and with justice and yet we often fail to see how that impacts our own lives.  We place ourselves just behind Christ’s right shoulder as we watch him tell the young ruler to sell all that he possess; we nod with Christ when he tells the crowd that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle then for a rich man to enter heaven; we delight in the story of Lazarus and the rich man, when justice is meted out…and yet our own lives show no trace of carry over.  Our politics and our ideologies rarely seem to match our professed faith. That has been painfully obvious in this latest round of budget politics in DC this month. 

If I hear the word socialist thrown around one more time from men and women who also confess to be devout Christians, I’m going to scream.  What about the book of Acts where Christians sold everything and lived in common?  What about the miracle of the fish and loaves, where the crowd shared what they had and everyone was fed?  What about that rich young ruler?  I say, when we set budget priorities, we should replace the word socialist with biblical – biblical program to provide health care for the sick, the poor, the widows.  Biblical programs to provide housing grants to the homeless and the poor.  Biblical programs to protect the environmental integrity of God’s creation.  By that count, the priorities of this congress and Republicans in particular are all backwards.  From Wallis’ article:

Bread for the World made a list of the top 10 cuts that would hurt poor and hungry people at home and abroad. The total amount of those cuts is $5.177 billion. For President Obama’s “surge” in Afghanistan, the U.S. sent an additional 30,000 troops. The estimated cost of keeping one soldier in Afghanistan for one year is now $1 million. Preserving the funding for the top 10 cuts that would most hurt poor and hungry people would cost about as much as 5,000 troops in Afghanistan.

This is the simple math. Bring 5,000 troops home from Afghanistan and save funding for Head Start; low-income energy assistance; the Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program; Hunger Free Communities Grants; McGovern-Dole food aid programs; the Development Assistance Account; the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; the Global Health and Child Survival Account; and the Peace Corps. Most of these programs have enjoyed significant bipartisan support in the past because they are cost-effective and save the lives of children and families. Is every item of Pentagon spending more important to our well-being and security than school lunches, child health, and early education programs?

 Our churches have long opted out of this argument for fear of hurting feelings or alienating members…but by doing so we’ve abdicated our biblical responsibility to witness to the Gospel.  And the results are clear in the way the debate is framed these days.  I wish more evangelicals had Wallis’ courage to say what they know to be right.