I can safely say that a significant majority of my Catholic colleagues and friends over the years, many of whom consider themselves to be “devout,” hold commitments that place them far nearer the progressive/liberal end of the social/political spectrum then the conservative end. The same is true of the vast majority of my non-Catholic Christian friends and colleagues who take their faith seriously. And this is not a surprise.
In her article, Dias writes that
[Biden’s] arrival comes after four years in which conservative Christianity has reigned in America’s highest halls of power, embodied in white evangelicals laser-focused on ending abortion and guarding against what they saw as encroachments on their freedoms. With Biden, “a different, more liberal Christianity is ascendant: less focused on sexual politics and more on combating poverty, climate change and racial inequality. For someone like myself, who has frequently claimed on this blog and elsewhere that I am a liberal because I am a Christian, this—if true—is very good news. But, clearly, not everyone agrees with me. As presented in the Gospels, Jesus was not a one issue guy. Unless, that is, one considers “love” to be a unifying issue. In his inauguration address, President Biden quoted St. Augustine, who in his City of God wrote that “a people is a multitude defined by the common objects of their love.” I have never been a huge fan of St. Augustine (I often tell my students that, with his focus on sin and human imperfection, Augustine was the first Protestant, a thousand years early), but this passage from The City of God is very helpful. As Princeton professor of religion Eric Gregory commented, this passage is useful in efforts “to open up the space for a nontheocratic way for Christians to understand what it means to be citizens in a plural society.” Justice, equality, mutual respect, concern for the “least of these,” are all objects of love that persons of all faiths can share, even with those with no faith commitment at all.
These are the objects of love toward which everything Jesus is reported to have said and done is pointed. Widows, orphans, the poor, the disenfranchised—these are the people who Jesus always raises to our attention as the most worthy recipients of attention and care. Such attention and focus is the purpose of what, in Catholic social thought, is called the “preferential option for the poor.” At the post-inaugural prayer service the day after the inauguration, Rev. William J. Barber II urged those present to address “interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation/denial of health care, the war economy, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism.” These are among the common objects of love that should draw the attention of everyone who loves this country and her or his fellow citizens, regardless of religious or faith commitment.
I found many of the inauguration events to be moving, but none more moving than the memorial service for the more than 400,000 Americans who have died because of Covid-19 that the President and Vice President led at the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial the evening before the inauguration.
About The Author
Harrison Okafor
editor
Judith is a believer, a lover of Christ and a Gospel freak person. A passionate gospel blogger and press writer. I work with GospelHitsNaija.net Media, no 1 Gospel music platform.
