{"id":6593,"date":"2011-08-30T13:55:03","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T20:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=6593"},"modified":"2011-08-31T17:11:39","modified_gmt":"2011-09-01T00:11:39","slug":"the-church-as-the-bride-of-caesar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/the-church-as-the-bride-of-caesar\/","title":{"rendered":"The Church as the Bride of Caesar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rev.<\/a>
Rev. Robert A. Sirico<\/figcaption><\/figure> by Fr. Robert A. Sirico –<\/p>\n

It is telling that the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em> report<\/a> on the religious Left\u2019s\u00a0Circle of Protection<\/a> campaign for big government describes the effort as one that would \u201csend chills through any politician who looks to churches and religious groups as a source of large voting blocs,\u201d because, in fact, this is not an honest faith-inspired campaign to protect the \u201cleast of these\u201d from Draconian government cuts, as claimed. It is a hyper-political movement that offers up the moral authority of churches and aid organizations to advance the ends of the Obama administration and its allies in Congress.<\/p>\n

The Circle of Protection, led by Jim Wallis and his\u00a0George Soros-funded<\/a> Sojourners group, is advancing a false narrative based on vague threats to the \u201cmost vulnerable\u201d if we finally take the first tentative steps to fix our grave budget and debt problems. For example,\u00a0Wallis frequently cites cuts to federal food programs as portending dire consequences to \u201chungry and poor people.\u201d <\/p>\n

Which programs? He must have missed the General Accountability Office\u00a0study on government waste<\/a> released this spring, which looked at, among others, 18 federal food programs. These programs accounted for $62.5 billion in spending in 2008 for food and nutrition assistance. But only seven of the programs have actually been evaluated for effectiveness. Apparently it is enough to simply launch a government program, and the bureaucracy to sustain it, to get the Circle of Protection activists to sanctify it without end. Never mind that it might not be a good use of taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n

It is also telling that the group\u2019s advertised \u201cEvangelical, Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, African-American, and Latino Christian leaders\u201d who are so concerned about the poor and vulnerable in the current budget negotiations have so little to say about private charity, which approached $300 billion last year. To listen to them talk, it is as if a prudent interest in reining in deficits and limiting government waste, fraud, and bloat would leave America\u2019s poor on the brink of starvation. It is as if bureaucratic solutions, despite the overwhelming evidence of the welfare state\u2019s pernicious effects on the family, are the only ones available to faith communities. This is even stranger for a group of people who are called to \u201clove the neighbor\u201d first and last with a personal commitment.<\/p>\n

Although the Circle of Protection has been endorsed by a few Catholic bishops, the predictably left-leaning social justice groups, and Catholic Relief Services, the Catholic Church in America has long moved beyond the heady (and increasingly-distant) days of the 1980s when knee-jerk opposition to any reduction in government spending was the norm. That still holds, even if some of the staff and a few of the bishops at the Bishops\u2019 Conference still imbibe such nostalgia.<\/p>\n

The actions of Wallis and the co-signers of the Circle of Protection are only understandable in light of political, not primarily religious, aims. Wallis, after all, has been serving as self-appointed chaplain to the Democratic National Committee and recently met<\/a> with administration officials to help them craft faith-friendly talking points for the 2012 election. And when Wallis emerged from that White House meeting,\u00a0he crowed<\/a> that \u201calmost every pulpit in America is linked to the Circle of Protection \u2026 so it would be a powerful thing if our pulpits could be linked to the bully pulpit here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Think about that for a moment. Imagine if a pastor had emerged from a meeting with President George W. Bush and made the same statement. I can just imagine the howls of \u201cTheocracy!\u201d and \u201cChristian dominionism!\u201d that would echo from the mobs of Birkenstock-shod, tie-dyed, and graying church activists who would immediately assemble at the White House fence to protest such a blurring of Church and State.<\/p>\n

But in the moral calculus of Jim Wallis and his Circle of Protection supporters, there\u2019s no\u00a0 problem with prostrating yourself, your Church, and your aid organization before Caesar. As long as he\u2019s on your side of the partisan divide.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Rev. Robert A. Sirico is president and co-founder of the Acton Institute<\/a> in Grand Rapids, Mich.<\/em><\/p>\n

Full article here: NRO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Fr. Robert A. Sirico – It is telling that the\u00a0Washington Post report on the religious Left\u2019s\u00a0Circle of Protection campaign for big government describes the effort as one that would \u201csend chills through any politician who looks to churches and religious groups as a source of large voting blocs,\u201d because, in fact, this is not … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,133,15,123,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war","category-leftist-hypocrisy","category-moral-issues","category-religious-left","category-roman-catholic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6593","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=6593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}