You probably already know Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s powerful if-then statement, spoken during the apartheid era in South Africa: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
You may not know the sentence that followed: “If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
As committed Christian citizens in the US, we want to speak out on behalf of the mouse.
That means that we need to speak out in rebuke to many of our fellow Christians, especially white Christians, who comprise the elephant.
It’s fashionable for some Christians to complain about the secularization of our country, and to call for Christians to “take back” their country. What they seem to ignore is that the country is already theirs. About 88% of current members of Congress already claim to be Christian, with nearly 60% identifying as Protestant and 27% as Catholic. (In the Supreme Court, the numbers are reversed, with 67% Catholic and 22% Protestant.)
So, in America, we have to face a hard truth: our problems don’t exist in spite of Christianity’s power and influence, but because of it.
For example, Republicans, with their white Evangelical and Catholic base, are working on a new elephant budget in the House Appropriations Committee. They are pushing to decimate and eliminate programs that help the poor, the sick, and the hungry. They are weakening legal protections for the environment of which we all are part.
They want to cut Food and Nutrition for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). They want to cut education and job training funding. They want to gut climate change and clean water programs. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, approximately 5.3 million people, mostly infants and young children, will be harmed by these proposed cuts. 4.3 million children will have their fruit and vegetable benefits cut. In the midst of devastating heat waves and fires, the Republican proposal cuts funding for the Environmental Protection Agency back to pre-1990 levels – a move that will hurt 100% of children (and adults) in a wide variety of ways for decades to come.
Seniors, veterans, domestic violence survivors, poor families, and disabled persons will also suffer, because the Republican bill cuts significant funding for the Legal Services Corporation. This program provides basic legal assistance that helps keep vulnerable individuals and families safe and together and in their homes.
The irony is heartbreaking. You might expect love of neighbor, care for the Earth, compassion for the elderly and sick, and opposition to racism to be high values of such a highly Christian Congress. But the current Republican budget proposal seems to reflect the thinking of Ayn Rand far more than the heart of Jesus Christ.
Their proposal certainly does not help build a nation that seeks to turn swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks Their proposal does not build a nation that values Black lives or immigrant lives or LGBTQ lives or the lives of women. Their proposal does not build a nation that joins God in caring for the flowers of the field or the birds of the air.
The so-called Christian Nation they aspire to looks more like a caste-system where conservative and libertarian white Christian men are firmly at the top of the pyramid. It’s about a massive ongoing redistribution of wealth and power, funneling more of both to the people who already have it, and taking it away from those who are most in need.
Yes, their so-called Christian nation is biblical – but in the worst possible way: it’s built on Matthew 25:43: “For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, “I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”
In 2021 Pope Francis wrote: "There is always something that isn't working … (with) people taking a path against the community, against democracy, against the common good. Thank God that this has burst into the open and is clear to see well, because like this, you can put it right. Yes, this must be condemned, this movement, no matter who is involved in it."
As people of faith, we cannot sit quietly while members of Congress who claim to be Christian attempt with their budget proposals to destroy programs that help children and the poor and the Earth itself. Because we believe in the beautiful message of Jesus, we have to speak up and challenge these members of Congress, especially if they call themselves Christians. They are the elephant, and they are doing great harm.