Talk lately claims yes.
Two “talkers”. Robert Putman, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University: ” . . . most organized religion has focused on issues regarding sexual morality, such as abortion, gay marriage, all of those. I’m not saying if that’s good or bad, but that’s what they’ve been using all their resources for . . . It’s been entirely focused on issues of homosexuality and contraception and not at all focused on issues of poverty.”
I wonder just how many church budgets Professor Putman has checked! Methinks not many. Me also thinks the good professor probably wants the church to give to the government to help the poor. Maybe not. Just saying . . .
Putman wasn’t the only church critic. Our own President Obama said this: “’Despite great caring and concern,’ the president remarked, when churches pick “the defining issue” that’s “really going to capture the essence of who we are as Christians,” fighting poverty is often seen as merely “nice to have” compared to “an issue like abortion.’”
Really? With due respect Mr. President, how many church elders meetings have you attended in the last year? How many church doctrinal and vision statements have you read? How many pastors have you visited to find out what their churches may be doing to help the poor?
Three reasons. I’m writing on this topic for three reasons. One, you may hear this kind of church criticism and assume it’s true—or have no information to contradict it—thus leaving you with a sour taste in your mouth about the church.
Two, recently I’ve heard one top-rated media personality criticize the church for its lack of “leadership” regarding world problems. Here we have the president and the professor (sounds like a 60’s Disney movie) criticizing the church for not agreeing with them about the poor. Frankly, when you gentlemen show you’ve gotten your house in order, then maybe you can evaluate us. Jesus said something about that, didn’t he? “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3). (It doesn’t look like the Federal Government is running real well these days and Harvard just ain’t what she used to be!)
And, three, I came across this column written by Ross Douthat in last Sunday’s “New York Times” which I thought addressed the issue well . . .
It would be too kind to call these comments wrong; they were ridiculous. Not only because (as Putnam acknowledged) believers personally give abundantly to charity, but because institutionally the churches of America use “all their resources” in ways that completely belie the idea that they’re obsessed with the culture war.
As Mark Hemingway of “The Weekly Standard” pointed out, “Even the most generous estimates of the resources devoted to pro-life causes and organizations defending traditional marriage are just a few hundred million dollars.” Whereas the budgets of American religious charities and schools and hospitals and other nonprofits are tabulated in the tens of billions. (Indeed, as Bloomberg View’s Megan McArdle noted, some of that money—from Catholic sources—paid Obama’s first community-organizer salary.)
This reality is reflected in the atmosphere of most churches and the public statements of their leaders. Anyone who tells you that America’s pastors are obsessed with homosexuality or abortion only hears them through a media filter. You can attend Masses or megachurches for months without having those issues intrude; you can bore yourself to tears reading denominational statements and bishops’ documents (true long before Pope Francis) with a similar result. The belief that organized religion is organized around culture war is largely a conceit of the irreligious.
Is there a version of the Obama-Putnam critique that makes any sense? Maybe they just meant to criticize religious leaders who make opposition to abortion more of a political priority than publicly-funded antipoverty efforts. But even this critique essentially erases black and Latino churches (who reliably support social programs), ignores decades worth of pro-welfare-state talk from Catholic bishops, and treats the liberal Protestant mainline as dead already.
It also conveniently absolves liberalism of any responsibility for pushing churchgoing Americans toward the small-government G.O.P. That’s an absolution that the Obama White House, with its pro-choice maximalism and attempts to strong-arm religious nonprofits, particularly needs.
No, to actually save the critique, you have to transform it completely. There is a case that churches are failing poorer Americans. But the problem isn’t how they spend money or play politics. It’s a more basic failure to reach out, integrate, and keep them in the pews.
This is the striking story of the last 30 years: Despite the stereotype of religion as something that people “cling to” (to quote a different moment of condescension from this president) in desperate circumstances, actual religious practice has collapsed more quickly among Americans with weaker economic prospects than it has among the college-educated upper class.
Mere religious affiliation has weakened for the poor and working class as well. The much-discussed rise of the “nones” — Americans with no religious affiliation — has been happening in blue -collar America as well as among the hyper-educated.
From a religious perspective, this a signal failure: A church that pays out to help the poor, but doesn’t pray with them, looks less like a church than what Pope Francis has described, unfavorably, as merely another N.G.O.
But even from a secular perspective it’s a problem, because (as Putnam’s work stresses) the social benefits of religion are stronger further down the socioeconomic ladder, and these benefits are delivered through community, practice, and belonging. So churches that spend or lobby effectively for the poor but are stratified come Sunday morning offer less to the common good than if they won a more diverse array of souls.
This critique actually lays a heavier burden on believers than the one Obama and Putnam offered. Their unjust accusation is easily answered by citing what religious Americans do already. The just one, though, requires doing something new.
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