{"id":5799,"date":"2011-03-14T12:33:20","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T19:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=5799"},"modified":"2011-03-15T21:45:30","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T04:45:30","slug":"leave-jesus-out-of-the-budget-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/leave-jesus-out-of-the-budget-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Leave Jesus Out of the Budget Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gary<\/a>
Gary Bauer<\/figcaption><\/figure> by Gary Bauer –<\/p>\n

We have an obligation to help the poor. But nowhere does the Bible state that the power of government should be used to take one man\u2019s money by force of law and give it to another man. Jesus\u2019 admonition was a personal command to share, not a command for Caesar to \u201cspread the wealth around.\u201d …<\/p>\n

Jim Wallis, a self-identified \u201cChristian leader for social change,\u201d has embarked on a crusade against Republican budget cuts he believes are \u201cunbiblical.\u201d But Wallis and others on the evangelical Left are on dangerous ground when they claim to know exactly which budget items God would approve and which he would cut.<\/p>\n

Wallis has launched the \u201cWhat Would Jesus Cut?\u201d campaign to fight against Republican cuts in the 2011 and 2012 budgets\u2014cuts to welfare programs, college grants, and international aid\u2014and against Republicans\u2019 proposed 2% increase in defense spending.<\/p>\n

The campaign\u2019s premise, as the group declared in a recent Politico ad, is that \u201ccutting programs that help those who need them most is morally wrong.\u201d <\/p>\n

In a February Huffington Post <\/em>op-ed, Wallis lashed out at Republicans after their Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government until the end of the 2011 fiscal year passed the House. The budget cut $43 billion in international aid and other programs that, Wallis wrote, \u201cbenefit the most vulnerable members of our society, such as nutrition programs for our poorest women and children.\u201d<\/p>\n

unlike Jim Wallis, conservatives don’t conclude that Jesus wants us all to become Big Government, pacifist, income-redistributing, tax hikers and deficit spenders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThis proposal,\u201d Wallis added, \u201ccomes just months after billions of dollars were added to the deficit with an extension of tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wallis neglects to mention that the wealthiest 2% of Americans already bear a disproportionate share of the tax burden. Nor does he acknowledge that those tax cuts will make it more likely that small businesses will hire more workers. Wallis wants jobs for everyone, but he doesn\u2019t like employers.<\/p>\n

Liberal evangelicals have been moralizing about budget cuts for years. When George W. Bush proposed budget cuts back in 2006, he was accused of \u201ctrying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.\u201d In a 2006 e-mail to supporters, Wallis wrote, \u201cSpending more money on nuclear warheads and tax cuts that benefit the rich is not a strategy that would be affirmed by the biblical prophets.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad Wallis knows exactly where each budget item ranks for Jesus. As a Christian conservative, I often think about political issues and ask, \u201cWhat would Jesus do?\u201d But, unlike Wallis, I don\u2019t conclude that He wants us all to become Big Government, pacifist, income-redistributing, tax hikers and deficit spenders.<\/p>\n

We have an obligation to help the poor. But nowhere does the Bible state that the power of government should be used to take one man\u2019s money by force of law and give it to another man.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

We have an obligation to help the poor. But nowhere does the Bible state that the power of government should be used to take one man\u2019s money by force of law and give it to another man. Jesus\u2019 admonition was a personal command to share, not a command for Caesar to \u201cspread the wealth around.\u201d<\/p>\n

We certainly can live Christ\u2019s admonition to assist \u201cthe least of these\u201d through international aid. And our government will continue to give billions of dollars a year, even if the cuts are enacted.<\/p>\n

But even the modest cuts proposed by Republicans will not be enough to lift the severe debt burden our children and grandchildren are being forced to bear. It is not \u201cbiblical\u201d to burden our children with such crushing debt. In fact, it is immoral.<\/p>\n

Wallis says he believes that the moral test of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable and poorest citizens. If that\u2019s true, then Wallis should call for cutting subsidies to Planned Parenthood, America\u2019s largest abortion business, and other groups that promote abortion\u2014the killing of the most vulnerable among us.<\/p>\n

But I haven\u2019t seen Wallis or other evangelical liberals complain about the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Obama administration is spending to promote abortion here and abroad.<\/p>\n

The only budget cuts Wallis seems to approve of are those that reduce military spending. \u201cThe most corrupt government spending is military spending,\u201d Wallis has said.<\/p>\n

It is not \u201cbiblical\u201d to burden our children with such crushing debt. In fact, it is immoral.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I\u2019m not surprised that some on the evangelical Left are attacking the military. Many evangelical liberals seem to believe all wars are unjust and that even defensive violence is immoral. Their morality would leave the weak and defenseless at the mercy of thugs, dictators, and tyrants.<\/p>\n

Not long after 9\/11, I debated religious Left author Tony Campolo at Wheaton College in Illinois. During the debate, Campolo suggested that the Patriot Act and war in Afghanistan were unjust. I told him, \u201cI know this is hard for you to believe, but the enemy is not John Ashcroft, the enemy is Osama bin Laden.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure about that,\u201d Campolo responded. \u201cWhen you start taking away the rights of the American citizens, when you undercut the Bill of Rights in order to pursue security, I think you become more dangerous than bin Laden.\u201d Not surprisingly, these remarks elicited a chorus of boos from the audience.<\/p>\n

I think Wallis and Campolo may be confused. They appear to be asking themselves not what Jesus would do but rather what Obama, Reid, and Pelosi would do. The answer to that question isn\u2019t in the Bible. It is in the headlines: They are driving us deeper into bankruptcy. If their policies aren\u2019t reversed, they will lead to a level of suffering and economic collapse that would make Jesus weep.<\/p>\n

HT: Human Events<\/a> (read full article)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Gary Bauer – We have an obligation to help the poor. But nowhere does the Bible state that the power of government should be used to take one man\u2019s money by force of law and give it to another man. Jesus\u2019 admonition was a personal command to share, not a command for Caesar to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[67,72,18,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-leftism","category-politics","category-religious-left"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}