Kristof highlights recent trends in evangelical voters noted by Jim Wallis in his new book, The Great Awakening. Specifically, evangelicals seem to be more focused on humanitarian and international issues these days than ever before.
Particularly interesting to me (especially in regard to my previous post) was this:
“A recent CBS News poll found that the single issue that white evangelicals most believed they should be involved in was fighting poverty. The traditional issue of abortion was a distant second, and genocide was third.”
Poverty, huh? I wonder if evangelicals are lamenting the surrender of Edwards.
I wandered onto Kristof’s blog to read some comments from NY Times readers. It seems that many of them took issue with Kristof’s piece. One commenter berated Kristof for legitimizing Christian groups’ international presence. This was based on this commenter’s accusation that Christian groups have underlying motives of evangelization (in the form of conversions to the Christian faith), rather than service and justice. This got me wondering…is it possible to invest one’s time and money in international AIDS work, or toward an end to genocide in Darfur and not simultaneously, by one’s actions, be preaching the Social Gospel? I’m reminded St. Francis of Assisi’s instruction: “Preach the Gospel. And, if necessary, use words.”
The article also took a few jabs at bleeding-heart liberals for their intolerance for the intolerable and at bleeding-heart conservatives for the self-righteousness of their leadership during the last 15 years or so. But his point was this: it should no longer be acceptable to scorn people for their faith, even if we disagree with their politics. Kristof’s final sentence states:
“We can disagree sharply with their politics, but to mock them underscores our own ignorance and prejudice.”
Can we also agree, then, that faith influences our politics? Kristof seems to say so, without saying so.
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