IN THEORY:Should we do more for the poor?

Evangelical leader Rick Warren and dozens of other pastors across the country recently pledged to do more to help disadvantaged children by adopting them or providing foster care. Warren argued that not enough Christians do enough for the poor. "Do you agree, and do you think this will be a constructive way to help the indigent?

I am always happy to see my colleagues call for more community outreach. At our center, the goal is to have every one of our members doing some kind of community work. In fact, every third Sunday we go so far as to invite community outreach groups to enroll our congregants into their programs.

My only question to any religious group working in the community is this: Are you doing this to help them or convert them?

Love doesn't know a Christian from a Jew. Only we do. You just have to make sure that you're doing it for the right reasons.

PASTOR JIM TURRELL

Who can quarrel with, let alone quibble over, turning from flailing the Bible for proof-texts that justify discrimination to embracing its mandate to offer succor to the less fortunate?

Over and again, Hebrew Scripture summons us to care for the widow, stranger and orphan, while in the New Testament we read: "That which you do to the least of your brothers you do to me." While the Bible does command us to condemn others, it is usually in the context of now long-vanished peoples. Have you met a Hivite, Perrezite or Amorite lately?

I do not imagine that when we appear before the Judgment Throne we will be asked if we ensured that commitments between homosexuals did not attain the status of marriage. I do, though, foresee a questioning of our own commitment to the protection and uplift of God's creatures. Will God examine our position on Roe vs. Wade, or rather inquire into our cultivation of a caring and abundant spirit? Did we use the Bible as a wedge or a bridge?

The sine qua non of religious conviction is too often confined to adhering to what divides "us" from "them." God's litmus test, however, is not creedal certainty or doctrinal dogmatism that legitimizes denunciation of others. Rather, God calls us to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with him. As a son of the Jewish people, Jesus rightly gave far greater emphasis to "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you invited me in," than to excoriating others and calling down punishment.