DALLAS (ABP) — Care for people Jesus called “the least of these” requires response from both congregations and government, according to specialists who focus on ministry to the poor and on church-state relations.
As participants in both church and state, Christians should minister directly to the poor and also advocate to the government on their behalf, specialists stress.
Christians are “citizens of two kingdoms,” says Stephen Reeves, legislative counsel for the Baptist General Convention of Texas' Christian Life Commission. “We have loyalty and allegiance to God's kingdom, as well as being American citizens.”
Churches should follow Jesus' model — and doing things to help the poor is following his model, he added.
“As American citizens, we have the opportunity to influence policies and our elected officials. In being good citizens of both God's kingdom and the United States, you can do that by advocating in the political realm.”
First and foremost, ministry to the poor is a Christian concern, others say.
“Jesus urges the [church] community to be involved in the needs of ‘the least of these,'” said Fritz Gutwein, a lifelong Baptist who works as field coordinator for the National Council of Churches. “If we want to live in community with one another, we must be concerned about ‘the least of these.'”
But people who say that only the church, and not the government, should care for the needs of poor people aren't thinking clearly, added Jimmy Dorrell, executive director of Mission Waco, a faith-based community ministry in Waco, Texas.
“Practically, it's fallacious to believe the church can do what the government does for the poor,” Dorrell said. He cited research that shows each church, synagogue and mosque in America would have to contribute $300,000 each year to fund the basic poverty-relief programs provided by the government.
“People say, ‘The church should be doing it,' but we've lost that battle,” he reasoned. “We're giving only about one-half of 1 percent of each congregation's budget to meet the needs of the poor.”
Besides, the scale of need is just too massive for the church alone, Gutwein added.
“There are needs that can only be met by government; the church is just not capable of doing it,” he said. “Think about healthcare, or feeding the hungry. Those are huge tasks. They're similar to infrastructure: We wouldn't expect the church to pave all the roads between a person's home and church.”
Melissa Rogers, an attorney and visiting professor of religion and public policy at Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, N.C., echoed that theme, stressing that church and government should tend to their appropriate roles.
“There are some things that essentially only the government can do — like building and rebuilding levees in New Orleans or ensuring every American has healthcare,” Rogers said. “And there are some things only religious communities can do — like spreading the gospel and meeting other spiritual needs.
“And an additional part of the religious community's job is to call on the government to do what only it can do, like maintaining a safety net for people in particular need of assistance, and making sure they're safe and secure in the wake of disasters.”
Plus, when it comes to a problem of scale, there aren't a whole lot of other viable options, the BGCT's Reeves noted.
Some Christians also need to get over the erroneous notion that government can't be trusted to do something good, like helping poor people, Dorrell added.
“We've determined the government and society are evil, and we're good,” he said. “That's bad theology. Government was ordained by God; it's the structure God created to take care of people.
“We as faith-based people should be the corrective force. Clearly [government] goes off course. It's the role of Christians to navigate back to a biblical viewpoint.”
So, if both church and state are involved in helping people in need, how do people of faith negotiate the fault line between the two potent institutions?
A key is how the work is focused and financed, explained Cynthia Holmes, an attorney from Clayton, Mo., who has served on the boards of several First Amendment organizations.
“The government needs to engage in social programs, but it doesn't need to do the work of the church or the mosque or the synagogue,” Holmes said. “The Good Samaritan didn't say: ‘Hang on. I'm going to get a government grant to take care of you.'”
And even though the tasks are enormous, congregations must keep their focus and identity clear, Rogers added.
Congregations “embody a religious mission and are the core of the religious sector,” she said. “They should always maintain their independent and prophetic voice and not be encumbered by government rules and regulations.”
Holmes noted that churches have a theological reason for not abdicating their responsibility to care for the needy. “As Christians, if we ask the government to do our ministry for us, that ministry is diminished,” she said. “A cup of water given in the government's name is not the same as Jesus' name.”
Both Holmes and Rogers suggested that if churches wish to set up programs that receive government funding, they should create completely separate corporations.
“Churches should never seek or accept government funding for what they do,” Rogers said. Churches that want a ministry that receives government grants can “spin off separate religiously affiliated organizations,” but even then, the lines between what is done for the general good and what is religiously oriented should be bright and wide.
“Don't use [government] money to proselytize,” Holmes stressed. “Don't ask the government to do for you what it wouldn't do for others and discriminate against others. … And don't feel discriminated against just because the government won't advance your religion.”
A church goal in this kind of ministry should be “transforming culture,” Dorrell said. That involves calibrated collaboration — working and interacting with both private and public sectors, including the government, whose services meet the needs of the poor and disenfranchised. “We collaborate, but we're not beholden to,” he noted.
Rogers offered similar advice to faith-based ministries.
“Religion and government should be in conversation about these issues. But neither one should be commanded, controlled or co-opted by the other,” she said. “Conversation is always good. Cooperation is sometimes good. But having either the government or religion trying to command, control and co-opt the other is never good.”
Churches can model appropriate conversation by being nonpartisan, Gutwein said. “It's better to define the issues and talk about the issues, rather than get involved with the personalities. Authenticity is important. We can't pretend we're focusing on the issues and then wink and nod as we point toward a candidate.”
Another important part of conversation is advocacy on behalf of the poor, Reeves said.
“While the government is not the be-all and end-all, it is right to advocate that the government play a role [in meeting human needs], just as the church plays a role,” he said. “It is legitimate to look at our government's budgets, to see that they reflect our Christian values.… Advocate and vote for folks who will be good stewards of our tax dollars, just as you would hope you would have a good stewardship committee in your church.”
And churches should bear witness to advocacy with their actions, Gutwein insisted. “You can't do one without the other. You can't be involved in advocacy without being involved with the homeless who are on the street corners.”
Besides, involvement may not only serve the needy, but it just may save the church, he added.
“It's important for churches to be involved if they're going to survive,” he explained. “People don't come to church because of orthodoxy, but because of what churches do.… The primary thing is what the church is doing, not what they believe. People get the orthodoxy after they come to church.
“Charity, development, advocacy and justice. To meet the needs of ‘the least of these' in society, we have to be involved in doing them all.”
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— This story is part of a series on the biblical passage of Luke 4.