Helen Lovejoy, the minister’s wife on The Simpsons, often shrieks the title of this post as a catch-all phrase. It reminds me of the Poverty Bait-and-Switch sometimes used by some liberals to change the subject when they are losing a debate (“Won’t somebody please think of the poor!”).
Their basic reasoning is that the Bible says more about poverty than about fill-in-the-blank, so we have to address that first. News flash: Conservative Christians are well aware of the needs of the poor and are doing a lot about it with their own time and money (unlike secular liberals). Check out the beliefs of the founders of large, effective Christian ministries and see for yourself if their views were orthodox or not.
Helen & Co., we were already thinking of the poor. And yes, we should continue to care for the poor. But that doesn’t mean we can’t address other issues as well.
And yet, when the Christian Coalition was looking for a president, their president elect, Rev. Joel Hunter refused to take the job because they refused to put poverty or the environment on their agenda.
Certainly plenty of conservatives care about these issues, as do plenty of liberals. Unfortunately, I think the leadership of most of the political organizations on both sides are too wrapped up with other issues to do anything but give lip service.
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