American Evangelicals – money & beliefs?

Christianity Today has just released an article summarising the views of a poll conducted amongst American Evangelicals regarding the federal budget (thanks to Kirk for the heads up on this). Whilst there is some interesting data in there, one thing in particular caught my attention:

The top choices among evangelicals for the chopping block are economic assistance to needy people around the world (56 percent), government assistance for the unemployed (40 percent), and environmental protection (38 percent). In each of these categories, evangelicals were more supportive of decreasing spending than are other Americans. In fact, evangelicals were more supportive of funding cuts in every area except military defense, terrorism defense, aid to veterans, and energy.

Now. I think it is right that the way that Christians think about money should be different to the way general mainstream politics has in mind. However, I am not convinced that this is the type of distinctive behaviour I had in mind.

Whether or not government should be involved in caring for the poorest and most vulnerable in society (and abroad) is of course a political decision as much as a theological one. Personally, I think they should be involved, because a society that cares for its vulnerable is generally a healthy society where greater equality also leads to better family life, greater respect for self and others, less crime and higher happiness levels (see things like The Spirit Level and Prosperity without Growth for two recent examples arguing for this sort of understanding).

Likewise, although there is always the danger of a dehumanisation of care if it is administered through central government, and this certainly is a theological issue that the church should be thinking about, I think there is also a danger in government farming out care wholesale to the third sector, a la Big Society, because there is always the danger of trying to get care on the cheap.

However, it strikes me that these results speak something of a problem in attitudes in American Evangelicalism. The results seem to speak of a political world-view that is individualistic, imperialistic and based on fear.

Individualistic because it lacks a communal understanding of justice. Instead of saying that it only matters if me and my family are happy, safe and secure, the gospel says that what happens to the poor, the unemployed, the disabled, those overseas matters to me because I am linked with these people by a myriad of relationships because I myself am a relational person crafted by a relational God. Therefore, care for the poor, debt relief and environmental issues matter because they are to do with inter-generational and intra-generational justice issues, and our God is a God of liberation.

Imperialistic because a favour for the military and energy security is based on the need for our nation to be militarily powerful. To be the nation state that is capable of winning in any war. However, even if one goes along with the Niebuhrs and argue that war is sometimes morally ethical (which is personally not a viewpoint I can subscribe to), the gospel calls for Christians to model peace-making to the world. It calls the church to be a community that reminds people that the world is at the heart peaceful – and peace isn’t an absence of violence brought around by big armies (that’s a post-Enlightenment perspective, not a Christian one) but, as Hauerwas notes, peace is fundamentally based upon truth. Therefore, far from supporting the world’s biggest military superpower, Christians should be undermining this superpower and teaching imaginative, creative ways of peacemaking in a dangerous world.

And based on fear because the concern about military attack and energy shortages is based on an assumption that people are queuing up to attack us and therefore we must prepare for the worst and be able to win the victory – the classic phobia of military superpowers (see, for example, Brueggeman or Walter Wink) Except the gospel reminds us the only enemy we have has already been defeated and the symbols of this victory are the peaceful elements of bread and wine.

Billy Graham once said that our wallet was a theological document that told us what we believed in – I wonder what gospel these results say that American Evangelicals believe in.

I wonder what MY own outgoings and the way I spend MY time says I believe in.