Peter Roskam, “Serious Christian”

John H. Armstrong, a Christian author, editor and adjunct professor at Wheaton College writes a blog that I happen upon occasionally when it touches on matters related to the district. John is polite and thoughtful in his writing (accusations that could never be leveled successfully against me) and I enjoy the blog when I visit though I do not generally share his viewpoints.

Earlier this month John wrote a piece about enjoying Peter Roskam’s hospitality in Washington and being helped out by Roskam’s staff when his American Airlines flight was cancelled. Five words from that piece have been nagging at me ever since: “Congressman Roskam is a serious Christian.”

Reading those words I felt a visceral reaction and compelled to respond but at the same felt myself to have no real standing to do so. I no longer profess to be a Christian. I was raised in a Protestant community and ministered for a time within the Catholic church. I became disenchanted with the church and found that, once I removed myself from it’s influence , many of its claims of certainty to be pretty dubious.

I do retain a deep appreciation for the Judeo-Christian scriptures and the teachings of Jesus and it is based on my understanding and appreciation of that scripture that I have to say that I just don’t get it. I don’t understand how Evangelicals who ally themselves with the political right can reconcile the policies of these leaders that they so revere because they are “serious Christians’ when those policies are so devastating to the poor and the powerless with whom Jesus cast his lot:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has annointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

and to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

-Luke 4:18-19

How can anyone listen to the Jesus of the Gospels and profess to be his follower and then turn a blind eye to the kind of carnage being inflicted on trade unionists and indigenous people in Colombia in order to promote U.S. Corporate interests?

How can one hear his words and turn around to insist that workers should not be required to receive subsistence level wages for full time work while no restrictions may be applied to the huge compensation paid to corporate executives for success that is based on the labor of those workers?

How can listen to the teaching regarding hospitality to strangers and turn around and lay grievous burdens on the backs of migrant workers who come among us and provide us with needed services while providing themselves and their families with the means to a better life?

Pardon me John, and Peter. I don’t pretend to know what is in men’s hearts. But as I observe the self-congratulatory, triumphalistic, pharistical belief system that is accepted as “serious Christianity” by many on the right, I see little in it that relates too or even acknowledges the teachings and commandments of Jesus. I see this right wing public Christianity as having two main functions:

• -Relieving those with wealth and power from the actual necessity of observing the Gospel commandments

-Distracting those who might otherwise act on those commandments with an obsessive focus on sexual morality and other peripheral matters

The end of these being to maintain the status quo. To permit an unjust state of affairs where power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very few while countless millions suffer from poverty and hunger and illiteracy and disease and violence.

Shouldn’t “serious Christianity” mean getting serious about tackling economic injustice and ending violence against and oppression of the poor?