The message of Christ is not often so clearly presented in American media as it was yesterday, nor is that message as clearly contradicted in the same news cycle.
Yesterday, Pope Francis, while not actually changing any doctrinal stance of the Catholic church, clearly asserted in a rare and frank interview that compassion and mercy must be the light that radiates from the global church for the world to see, rather than the church’s current “obsession” with gays, birth control, and abortion.
At the same time that the Pope’s words were cycling through the media, other words were also coming through loud and clear: those of Republican lawmakers who have decided that the least of these will remain just that and, accordingly, voted to slash the food stamp budget by almost $40 billion.
The juxtaposition presented between these two events is striking. It also represents an enormous divide among Christians, and, frankly, demonstrates why so many feel Christianity is a religion full of hypocrisy.
Read the rest of today’s post at Sojourners.
jamie calloway-hanauer 
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I was really glad to see your post at Sojourners. It summed things up quite nicely, I thought. Thanks for more great writing.
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Thank you, Beth, for taking the time to read and comment! I’m so glad you liked the post. I received food stamps during undergraduate and law school, so the issue is one that is very important to me!
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Thanks for the link!
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Excellent article, Jamie. The idiocy of the debate on the SNAP policy coming out of the House is astounding. They abuse Scripture for their political purposes; Jesus had strong words for the Pharisees when they did the same. It all casts aspersions on our Savior.
Happily, God is bigger than that. Jesus taught us that when someone’s hungry, you feed them; you don’t send them off and tell them they have to go home and hope there’s something left in the pantry. (Matthew 14:13-21.)
Frances’ words this week show that he understands that. I’m glad he’s getting global coverage while the anti-SNAP idiocy in Congress is unlikely to be covered beyond our borders.
Cheers,
Tim
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Agreed, agreed, and agreed! And, of course, God is bigger than me when it comes to forgiving and loving those who make harmful decision, as well as when it comes to people like me, who may seem to be too harshly judging!: 🙂
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