Recently, I was asked whether or not Evangelicals have lost the high ground by supporting President Donald J. Trump. I responded with that I would argue that Evangelicals never held the high ground except in their own imagination. That is not to say that others who march under the Christian banner have either. The high ground is not something to achieve, but rather to receive. Our measly efforts in this regards pale in light of the captain of our salvation, and the true standard-bearer. We all, like sheep, have all gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way, and the LORD has [therefore] laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53: 6). He holds the high ground and that is on a hill called Golgotha and upon a cross on which He as hanged. There is where we find the high ground, not in some smug pietistic theology.
So, then our basic appeal is “What would Jesus do?” That, too, must be our standard; and as far as I can see none of us have reached that highpoint. I say this because for us to get down in the swamp and wrestle with the rest of political varmints will only serve to muddy us up. It is true that politics makes strange bedfellows, and I see no greater example of this than for Evangelicals and others as far as that goes to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to all that is going on in Washington under the guise of righteous expediency is simply wrong.
If we as Evangelical want to take the high ground (and we should) we must answer why we did not speak out when little children were separated from their parents, or families were split apart with daddy sent one way while mom and the children are sent (sometimes separately) the other way—yet, I would venture to say that most Evangelicals have done just that, that has remained silent. When the streets of our major cities are littered with filthy lean-to and cardboard sheds with those that call this home, we cannot take the role of the goody-goody priests in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. We must roll up our sleeves and bandage the wounds and feed these hungry mouths, too, regardless of the circumstances.
I am sorry but looking out for those in such dire straights is not a partisan matter, it is a matter for a good clean Christian conscience. How is it that we can get all weepy-eyed over street people and refugees on some foreign soil and not see the need next door? These are biting words, some would say insensitive; however, they are true words. What I have written cannot be taken as a blanket statement, however. To be truthful there are several para-church organizations that are stepping up to the challenge; however, once again, I must ask is it enough, is it reflective of what should be done?
Take the metroplex of Dallas-Fort Worth, an area encompassing a population of 7,539,711. Most of the Evangelical churches are satisfied with delegating (when they do) most of their responses to the aforementioned needs (crisis really) to the bureaucracy of professional humanitarian organizations (some with questionable credentials) rather than personally take on the load themselves. A sanitized hands-off response is not what James had in mind when he delineated what undefiled religion is. Those widows and children of whom he spoke are but examples and enfleshed symbols of a larger need. A need for which we are responsible for on a personal level. We simply must not surrogate love by farming it out to an insensitive bureaucratic governmental agency or a professional humanitarian organization with agencies funded and controlled by how well they publicly market their “product.”
I am sorry, human misery is not a commodity.
Yours for a better tomorrow,
JimR_/
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