Reforming the Farm Bill

The Rev. Linda Maloney wrote this excellent op-ed piece for the Rutland (Vt.) Herald about the need for reform of the Farm Bill currently in front of the U.S. Senate.

It’s been a summer of bounty in Vermont. Milk prices are up, the strawberries were spectacular, and the apple trees are groaning with a fine crop. Vermont farmers are meeting the energy crisis in creative ways that actually combat pollution of air and water. And Vermont and California dairy producers are working together to develop a sustainable pricing system not dependent on government help.

But across the country, and around the world, the picture is not so positive. Earlier this summer I was in Minnesota and heard small farmers talk about how the 2002 Farm Bill, now up for revision, has been hurting them. In July, I made a personal visit to Washington, D.C. to ask our Senators and Congressman to support reform of the bill, to shift money from harmful commodity subsidies to conservation, energy, and rural development programs—the kinds of things Vermont farmers need to sustain their creative work and grow their incomes. Congressman Welch did vote for an important amendment that would have moved our farm programs in that direction, but it was defeated. Now, as Congress reassembles after the August break, it’s the Senate’s turn at the Farm Bill and I hope they will muster the political will to enact meaningful reform that was lacking in the House of Representatives.

Commodity subsidies are the biggest problem. Originally, in the days of the Great Depression, they were meant to provide a safety net for all farmers when prices were too low. But now they have the opposite effect: These aren’t price supports; they’re price depressors! In a crazy cycle, bloated subsidies for just a few crops, flowing almost entirely to just a few farmers, actually drive down crop prices by encouraging overproduction. To be clear, it’s not a small pot of money. We’re talking $20 billion a year but only one-quarter of U.S. farmers receive these subsidies, and of that one-quarter, the top 10 percent get 75 percent of the payments. The bigger the crop production, the higher the check the producer receives. This drives up the price of land by encouraging large scale producers to gobble up smaller farms and expand production. That, in turn, drives farmers off the land and prices beginning farmers out of the market for farmland. Food production is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and in fewer and fewer crops. It’s no wonder the late Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota called the 2002 “Freedom to Farm” bill really “Freedom to Fail”!

Such policies discourage conservation and good farming practices. They instead promote excessive production of corn, sending thousands of tons of fertilizer and other pollutants down the Mississippi, resulting in an expanding “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. Subsidies aren’t good for our health either, as they push cheap high-fructose corn syrup into our diet, helping to cause obesity. Worse yet, our agricultural subsidies keep farmers poor in other countries. And don’t think there’s no direct connection between our overproduction of corn and the migration of Mexican farmers into the United States in search of work!

Cotton is the starkest example. Subsidized overproduction here means low prices for farmers everywhere, and in areas like West Africa that depend heavily on cotton exports, those low prices are deadly. A typical cotton-producing household of ten persons in West Africa earns about $200 per person per year. That includes cash from cotton sales plus the value of food and other goods the household produces for itself. There are 365 days in a year. Clearly, people earning $200 a year are living on less than a dollar a day. And we’re helping to keep them in poverty with our tax dollars.

Meaningful reform of cotton subsidies would raise the world price of cotton enough to increase household incomes in West Africa by $46 to $114 a year for the whole family. Sound like nothing? To us, it might not mean all that much, but for a West African family, it could mean enough food for one child for an entire year, in a region where 40 percent of children under 5 are malnourished. Or it could mean that all the children in the household could attend school. After all, nothing fights poverty like education. Or it could mean that the household could have health care.

We now have the opportunity to make change happen, an opportunity that won’t come around for another five years.. If we love life, if we love the earth, we need to act now. We must call and write our Senators, urging them to reform the commodity title, shifting money away from subsidies and into clean energy, conservation, and rural development initiatives that will help our farmers at home and at the same time make life better for farmers around the world. Let’s do it now. Five years from now will be too late.

Eat In to Help Out -- AGAIN!

It's time to start planning now for our second Eat In To Help Out week - Sat. Oct. 13 - Sunday Oct. 21 -- coinciding with:

*The end of the Jubilee Cancel Debt Fast - Oct. 15
*The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty - Oct. 17
*The Millennium Campaign's Stand Up Against Poverty - Oct. 16/17

Eat In to Help Out is when you host a dinner (or lunch or some meal) for your friends and then everyone puts the amount of money they would have spent "eating out" and you all decide where to send it to "help out" against global extreme poverty (send it to ERD, make a microloan through Kiva, support something in your companion diocese relationship, etc.).

It’s this easy:

STEP 1 - Instead of going out to eat, invite your friends to come over to your apartment or house. Ask them to bring the money they would normally spend going out to eat.

STEP 2 - Once you have set the date, go to our online map and register your party so we can track all the different places that are hosting. Or just click on the "Add Yourself" button on the map above.

STEP 3 – Enjoy a great meal together, using some simple resources EGR will provide to have a discussion about global poverty and the MDGs.

STEP 4 – Take the money you would have spent "eating out" and “help out” – give it somewhere to help make the MDGs happen. You can give online to Episcopal Relief & Development, find a microfinance project on Kiva, give to something you’re already involved in – it’s your choice.

STEP 5 – Get on the map again. Log into our online map and record:-Where the dinner was (San Francisco)-How many attended (7)-How much money was raised ($120)-Where the money was given (through Kiva to a project in Kenya)

STEP 6 - Reflect on what you learned. Did you learn something new? Share it with a new group of friends! Maybe even host another dinner...When we’re all done we’ll have a big map of all the places that “ate in,” all the places in the world that were “helped out” and a running total of diners and how much money we raised. Not a bad night’s work!

The idea is for these dinners is to be a low key way to engage people one on one with the MDGs. They don’t have to be huge, or a big deal – invite 3 or 4 folks over, or 8, whatever works for you and your friends. You can invite friends who are already working with the MDGs, or people who have never heard of them before. Sound like fun? Great!

By Sept. 13, you'll be able to go to http://www.eatin2helpout.org/ and find all of the information that you'll need, including a how-to guide for dinner hosts, an information sheet on the MDGs, possible conversation starters and questions for discussion, and a link to put your dinner party on the map. If you still have questions or reservations, email info@eatin2helpout.org.

Arrival at the Orphanage

This is part of a continuing series of reflections by Sam McDonald, Episcopal youth minister from the Diocese of Ohio, on his 6-week trip to Tanzania and South Africa.

"Pilgrimage is belief in action." Phil Cousineau The Art of Pilgramage

This book I am reading is challenging in me all sorts of ways in how to frame and see this time in Africa. Cousineau writes, “Imagine your pilgrimage as a metamorphis. Through simple acts of intention and attention, you can transform even a sleepwalking trip into a soulful journey. The first step is to slow down. The next one is to treat everything that comes your way as part of the sacred time that envelops your pilgrimage.”

As a Youth Minister, I am constantly enveloped in searching to make the sacred come to life for others. I am finding myself searching for the sacred here in Africa. Eliade writes, “The sacred is always the revelation of the real. An encounter with that which saves us by giving us meaning to our existence.”

I have preached a sermon that life is NOT the pursuit of happiness, but the pursuit of meaning. I don’t think I have ever completely unpacked that idea, but perhaps it flows back into the “revelation of the real”, as a gift of the sacred experience, whatever form that may take and integrating that revelation more intentionally into your life. Here in Africa, for me, it is the people, in the midst of extreme poverty, sharing themselves with us.

We left from Arusha, stopping to get supplies, and running a few errands, which included as short stop to see Mwasiti. Mwasiti is the oldest of the children from the orphanage, and is the young woman a group of teenagers from St. Paul’s helped give scholarship money so she could attend college and law school Mwasiti is currently working at an internship at a law office. The drive to her office was some of our first close up experiences of the level of poverty of which we are totally sheltered from in the United States. We drive through a collection of brick shacks and Meredith explains that this is considered a nicer neighborhood since the houses are made from brick, and not mud or dung. (We experience those villages later in the day out in the country on our way to the orphanage.) Mwasiti comes to greet us, and she is everything and more that Meredith describes. She is gentle, smart, warm, articulate, and has a smile that makes you immediately feel welcome.

I will soon come to know that this welcoming nature, Karibu!, defines much of the spirit of hospitality of the people in Tanzania.

Read the entire post here.

Stop Trying To "Save" Africa

This article from the Washington Post should be required reading for everyone working with the MDGs and global mission. It gets to the heart of the unique gifts the Church has to bring to the Millennium Development Goals. As Christians, we see people not as economic entities or as things broken that need to be fixed. We see each person as a uniquely gifted creation of the divine, bearing the image of God. For us as Christians, the work of the MDGs is about all of us bringing our gifts to the table and seeing where God is calling us to use those gifts together for the building up of the whole Body of Christ and the healing of the whole world. For us as American Christians, the most important virtue we need to bring to the table is not material generosity (though that is important, too), but humility.

Please circulate this widely. If your congregation is working on the MDGs ... or planning a mission trip or pilgrimage .. or in any other way engaging in global relationship-building (and I hope you are!), find time to read this together, discuss and pray.

The sin Iweala names is sin borne out of our best intention ... but it is sin nonetheless. And addressing it is not only important for Africa (and other places) but for our own salvation and growth together as Christ's body.

-Mike+

By Uzodinma Iweala
Sunday, July 15, 2007

Last fall, shortly after I returned from Nigeria, I was accosted by a perky blond college student whose blue eyes seemed to match the "African" beads around her wrists.

"Save Darfur!" she shouted from behind a table covered with pamphlets urging students to TAKE ACTION NOW! STOP GENOCIDE IN DARFUR!

My aversion to college kids jumping onto fashionable social causes nearly caused me to walk on, but her next shout stopped me.

"Don't you want to help us save Africa?" she yelled.

It seems that these days, wracked by guilt at the humanitarian crisis it has created in the Middle East, the West has turned to Africa for redemption. Idealistic college students, celebrities such as Bob Geldof and politicians such as Tony Blair have all made bringing
light to the dark continent their mission. They fly in for internships and fact-finding missions or to pick out children to adopt in much the same way my friends and I in New York take the
subway to the pound to adopt stray dogs.

This is the West's new image of itself: a sexy, politically active generation whose preferred means of spreading the word are magazine spreads with celebrities pictured in the foreground, forlorn Africans in the back. Never mind that the stars sent to bring succor to the natives often are, willingly, as emaciated as those they want to help.

Perhaps most interesting is the language used to describe the Africa being saved. For example, the Keep a Child Alive/" I am African" ad campaign features portraits of primarily white, Western celebrities with painted "tribal markings" on their faces above "I AM AFRICAN" in bold letters. Below, smaller print says, "help us stop the dying."

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe.

Read the entire article here

Upon Arriving In Africa

Sam McDonald, youth minister at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, OH, has embarked on a six week trip to Tanzania and South Africa. He will be periodically posting updates letting us "tag along" with his experiences and thoughts. Keep checking back!

There has been a lot of anticipation on my part for this trip to Africa. I am so grateful to Alan Gates, our rector, and to the vestry and parish, for asking me if I would be interested in making this trip with Meredith Bowen to Tanzania, and then to meet up with Rich and Mary Nodar in South Africa. So many people at St. Paul’s have been asking me in the months leading up to this week if I was excited, and wanting to know about the trip. But frankly, I have been so busy planning and also leading 6 weeks and 100 people on mission trips to Harlan County, KY, I wasn’t as present to the leading up to this trip to Africa as I might have otherwise been.

However, I have been giving several unexpected gifts in preparing for this Summer. I keep using this word “trip” in describing my time in Harlan, and now Africa. I am going to stop doing that. Last Spring, we brought Rob Burlington to speak with those involved in Youth Ministry at St. Paul’s. Rob is the Youth Minister at All Saint’s, Atlanta and I admire his work and ministry there. Rob taught us about the experience of pilgrimage, and explored with us what it means for people of faith. In our time with him, I realized that in fact, our “trips” to Harlan, KY are as much a spiritual pilgrimage for us who go, as much as it is a mission trip to build homes for the needy and to come to know and love the people of Appalachia. Let there be now doubt, we do go to serve others as an imperative of our faith, but know I am seeing us as pilgrams, who go to offer ourselves AND to be open to receive what is offered to us from the people and the mountains, by the unearned grace of God.

That insight, and Rob’s encouragement, led me to frame this time in Africa as a pilgrimage for me as well. He introduced us to a book, The Art of Pilgramage by Phil Cousineau. It really is a wonderful book, and I would encourage everyone to read it regardless of how much a pilgram you may think you may or may not be. Even a walk around the block in the morning can be a pilgrimage for you! Phil Couseneau writes that all is required to be a pilgrim is a longing ( a “Holy Longing” is what he says Goethe called it) to be caught up in a deeper quest for meaning.

Cousineau writes that a pilgrim pays attention to the details of the ordinary, because beauty is a by-product of ordinary things. He writes, “We can only discover the real thing though deep observation, by the slow accretion of details.”

So, on my pilgrimage to meet my longing for deeper meaning, one of my Spiritual Disciplines will be to pay attention, be present, to the people, the sounds, the details of ordinary life and maybe I will get the slightest glimpse of the real. Pilgrims are often giving gifts for their journey, and many of those who went to Harlan this Summer filled my bag (and my heart) with gifts for my pilgrimage. One was a book of quotes and inspirations from Archbishop Desmond Tutu. She wrote an inscription on the inside, rightly reminding me to “be present to as much as possible in Africa”, holding me accountable to the same expectations I have for those who go to Harlan.

So, what have I noticed already that has touched my soul?

-On the LONG plane ride from Detroit to Amsterdam, I had the honor of sitting next to a young Bulgarian violinist. She came to the U.S. at age 13, but goes back every year to see family. She was reading from a small book the whole time, I asked her what it was. She explained that it was her Prayer Book, written in Slavic, and that she was doing her best at reading the Psalms. She wasn’t proficient enough to read all the words, but she said, “I really am just reading it because I am a nervous flyer, and somehow, this book always comforts me.”

-The Amsterdam Airport provided some fun relief in the middle of our trip. The Café’ and Shops are fun. Jeanie and I snuck off to “see the little museum”, which we absolutely did, . . . .right after we popped into the Casino located in the airport and blew $10 in Euros on the slot machine. Jeanie really is the spark plug of vitality for us all. I needed to do some laughing after the long flight. (by the way, we really did make it to the museum, and it is really neat, and small. It had a wonderful exhibit of Dutch Realism, which was striking! I think CMA ought to do something like it at our airport)

-Another long flight from Amsterdam to Mt. Kilimanjaro Airport. Flying over the Sahara, and seeing an oasis here and there is amazing. I rode next to a wonderful Welshman who consults with NGO’s who develop water and sanitation projects in Tanzania. I have him my St. Paul’s Card, and hope to hear from him.

-Upon arriving at Mt. Kilimanjaro Airport, I knew things we going to shift gears. It is a small reagional kind of looking airport even though it serves international flights. Upon setting foot in the airport at 9pm local time, the electricity went out! That certainly woke me up, and encouraged me to pay attention! The lights came on again after a few minutes, and proceeded to go out again about 3 more times. Very exhilarating experience.

-Electricity is certainly at a premium and hard to come by. Meredith arranged for a driver to pick us up he is wonderful! The parking lot of the airport Is filled in darkness, no lights. There is a long line of drivers all with cards with the names off all the people arriving. I took a mental picture of it.

-Our driver loads all the luggage on top of the Land Rover type vehicle. He explains he need to go buy some rope in the airport to tie down our stuff. He returns with an old truck tire inner tube. Luckily, Meredith had a pair of scissors, and Murato and I began to cut strips of rubber to serve as tie-downs.

-We arrive at the Bella Luna around 11pm. We grab a quick snack of freshly baked flat bread, catch our breath at the huge thatch roofed/open air dining room. Head to our lovely small rooms and quickly fall asleep insides the mosquito nets draped over the four post bed.

-4:30am, we are all awakened by a precocious rooster outside our rooms. This is soon followed by the beginning a repeated calls from the Mosque for morning prayer. First he calls out, then chants, then calls again. Its mystical, mysterious, I know I MUST pay attention to it, because it is stirring something inside me. I am compelled to wake up, and sit and listen. When the cycle ends, I open up my Prayer Book and Bible, and realize I should be reading the daily office and lection during my pilgrimage. I am using Forward Movements Day by Day to serve as a reflection on each days readings. I feel like I have truly arrived in Africa.

From South Africa to New Orleans to CDSP - Summer MDG Musings

Jennifer Morazes, M. Div. and current MSW/PhD. student UC Berkeley

(picture shows youth group participant in New Orleans mission trip with EGR Board member Marc Andrus)

Who is My Neighbor?

So much has happened this summer that it is difficult to process. Despite my intentions to write about my experiences and thoughts sequentially, my external communication has been stifled. Perhaps this stifling has been the result of a feeling I have experienced that, having worked both on the national and international level for ten years in the areas of homelessness, trauma/violence and resource distribution, I can no longer compartmentalize what I witness both nationally and internationally. However, expressing this synthesis becomes difficult in words and conceptually, as – especially as Americans – we tend to struggle with the question of “Who is my neighbor?” and we are very protective of the boundaries we form in answering this question.

Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation was born at a time when, as Americans, we felt vulnerable. Yet, in the vulnerability of 9/11, some Americans felt compelled to reinvigorate conversations about authentic and just relationships internationally. We recognized that, despite our best efforts, we cannot exist without others. We are (like others in the world) also at risk, but in this recognition comes the hope of partnership and relationship, an acknowledgement of our humanity.

No where has our vulnerability as a nation been more plain to me than in my trip to the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. The reality of New Orleans is that while the risk we experienced from 9/11 was “external”, the errors in New Orleans were human and domestic. New Orleans has been most affected not by the natural effects of Hurricane’s Katrina and Rita, but by miscalculation, by ignoring the levee weaknesses prior to the hurricanes. And, if we seek to quibble about whether this was in fact “error”, there can be no mistake that true neglect has affected residents since then. Here in the United States, it is important to honestly know that it was only three months ago that electricity and water was restored to parts the Lower Ninth, and the local public school is scheduled to open in August - two years after the levees broke! In working with an area summer camp, it was apparent that in spite of the care and concern and investment of their parents and community, the kids are behind - at crucial development periods educationally. Many of the local men actively seek work but are not finding work, and overall people seek shelter, food, comfort - the most basic and Biblical needs! The scar and badge of the area is signified by the mark upon house after house by the Guardsmen who, after the searches, marked the house as searched with the number found dead. This image - which is actually a Cross on its side - is a reminder that as a nation and people, we are not far removed from two years ago, and we are all commended to invest in our neighbor in the Coastal region.

Some may debate the priority of investing in vulnerable communities locally or donating to projects globally. However, in reality, there is no “either-or.” As Americans, we must realize that our commitments lie with our brothers and sisters in the Gulf Coast just as they do in the Philippines, or Tanzania. If 9/11 or the levees breaking has taught us anything, it is that we must disregard artificial boundaries and see the common thread which weaves us together. Having worked alongside students in Southern Africa through the Anglican Students Federation, I can honestly say that many of the concerns of the students there were similar to those of the residents of Louisiana currently – economic investment, just resource distribution, and recognition of the collective strength and capital of those who have been disenfranchised. This national experience can help provide us with a small window into the daily experiences of others in other countries and their challenges for basic needs.

After returning from my trip to New Orleans, I participated in a class offered at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific taught by Dr. Sheila Andrus. Again, I witnessed many connections forming which replace some of these either-or divides, especially in regards to the environment. The air people breathe is literally influenced by the practices of adjoining countries. So, as we affect the health of people in Canada through our practices, we also breathe the air from China and are affected by their practices. We share air, we share water, and ultimately we all share responsibility. Along the lines of health care practices, the most effective measures employed in countries such as Haiti to administer medication –such as providing people transportation to their medical appointments and training peers in the community to teach about the medications – are very similar to assertive practices employed in community mental health settings to aid homeless people with mental illness and people with HIV in the United States. Sharing these models is also part of our collective responsibility.

My entrance into this conversation, admittedly, straddles this local-global connection in a vivid way. My father was drafted in the Vietnam War and suffered trauma as a result of his service. At one period, he was homeless on the street like many Vietnam War veterans. This is a story of local-global misconnection – a story which exemplifies a distorted relationship based upon violence, violence in which no one wins. Through my own vulnerability and the struggles which ensued from this experience, I seek to identify and form models of hope and partnership, rather than those based upon violence and power misused.

Perhaps the most important lesson we can learn as Americans is to offer non-intrusive support to our international neighbors. In 2001, I had the privilege of attending the Anglican Students’ Federation of Southern Africa’s yearly conference. I was inspired by the work of then student organizer Francisco Zandamela in his conviction that international ties must be formed around concerns such as viable economic solutions and HIV. The conference title was “Transforming Victims into Victors” and the point was that our call in our histories – personal, interpersonal, communal, even international – is not to be victimized by the past or what we may see as “failures." Instead, the process of identifying both the stones and seeds in our own hearts provides us with the potential for how we ALL can engage in the process of transforming our histories, through the promise of Christ, into victories.Francisco almost single-handedly organized a conference for young adults on HIV, a very important conference for this very at risk population in Southern Africa. Through the conference, many young people were inspired to get tested and to change behaviors that may put them at risk. Another inspiring piece of the conference for me was seeing connections formed from people from very different parts of the world. For me, Francisco’s life, which ended tragically in a car crash six-months later, was a testament to John’s truth: Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. Our relationship to others and ourselves is a reflection upon our relationship to the Divine. I expect there are local leaders like Francisco emerging to engage the issues confronting the Gulf Coast.

I learned from Francisco in Southern Africa, I learned from residents in the Lower Ninth Ward, and I learn from those confronting homeless daily in the United States. Simply put, we all breathe the same air, we are each other’s neighbor, and we all through our actions have the capacity to transform the crosses of suffering to those of resurrection. The ripple effects of our own everyday actions prove that our choices and the choices of others can no longer be considered in isolation. From what we buy, to what we breathe, our impact, OUR COMMUNITY, and OUR NEIGHBOR, extends from ourselves - globally. There is no longer a separation.

Red Letter Christians

The Saturday edition of the Decatur Daily runs a column by the Rev. James Evans, pastor of Auburn First Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala. He's been a leading progressive voice in the Baptist Church about a wider ballot of social justice and faith and politics issues during the past few years, and is an outspoken advocate for the poor in Alabama. I've heard him speak several times, and each time I'm deeply moved by his passion for serving the lesser among us. He is, indeed, one of those "Matthew 25" members of the clergy -- something I think we often forget we're ALL called to do.

His column this past Saturday excited me, and I wanted to pass it along as something to think about. Rather than opine myself, I'll just run it here and let it sit with you and your thoughts. When I read it, I had one of those moments where I said out loud "Dang, I wish I had written this!"

The column...

The language of my faith is replete with appeals for believers to "be faithful to Jesus." Other words include "faithful follower," "loyal disciple" and "let Jesus be Lord of your life."

The theology behind the language is simple and yet profound. Most Protestant evangelicals believe that Jesus fulfilled everything God has ever tried to tell us. They believe God has spoken authoritatively and truthfully through Jesus. As a result, what we need to know about living and being human the way God wants us to be can be found in the life and words of Jesus.

This line of thinking is what lies behind the WWJD bracelet craze from a few years ago. Any problem, any dilemma, any crossroad faced in life can easily be resolved simply by figuring out "what Jesus would do."

This simple theology has recently developed an interesting political angle. For two decades now, conservative evangelicals have been pursuing a social agenda that includes matters such as abortion, restriction of gay rights, and prayer and Bible reading in public school. They have also managed to gain enough control over several school districts in various places to seriously impede the teaching of evolution.

All of this, mind you, under the umbrella of "being faithful to Jesus."

But not all evangelicals dance to this hymn. There are Christians, Bible believers and Jesus followers, who are dismayed by the narrow use of the faith in the political arena. Outspoken critics such as evangelist Tony Campolo argue that the heart of Jesus' message is completely overlooked as conservative Christians try to impose their version of Christianity on the rest by means of the legislative process.

For instance, Jesus never spoke about homosexuality at all. In fact, the case can be made that he actually set aside the requirements in Leviticus that call for the execution of those who engage in sexual practices prohibited by the law. He at least set them aside on one occasion.

But beyond what Jesus did not talk about are the many important matters that he did talk about, and seemed to practice in his own life. Campolo believes it is time for Christians to rediscover the "red-letter" way of being faithful. What he is referring to is the practice of many Bible publishers of printing the words of Jesus in red ink. Campolo believes that "red-letter Christians" have concerns beyond the usual conservative laundry list of social issues.

The way this plays out politically is quite a bit different from what we have seen recently. Campolo, and others, are not interested in building a religious left with Democrats as the favored party — that's the same mistake conservatives have been making. They are telling candidates from all parties that if they are going to invoke the name of Jesus then let their actions and policies reflect the red-letter portions of the New Testament. And if they are not, then leave Jesus out of it.

It's really quite an illuminating exercise to simply go through the New Testament and read the red-letter parts. Toward the end of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus paints a picture of God's final judgment. Standing center stage in his vision of the end is an array of social outcasts.

Jesus calls them "the least of these," and suggests that if we have not cared for them, then we can't really claim to have known him. It's right there in red and white.

James L. Evans, a syndicated columnist, also serves as pastor of Auburn First Baptist Church. He can be reached at faithmatters@mindspring.com.

I would love to hear anyone's comments or feedback. How does this theology change how you look at your faith from day-to-day, rather than just on Sundays?