John Divers: Christian convictions

Regarding the Jan. 4 Focus column “Graham will try to rally the Christian conservative vote”: Franklin Graham declared his political neutrality, but his ultra-conservative views will end up supporting the Republican candidate, the choice of most evangelical Christians.

As an evangelical Christian, albeit a liberal one, I lament that for conservative evangelicals the social issues of abortion and gay marriage outweigh the “weightier” issues of economic justice: a living wage, wealth inequality, alleviation of childhood poverty.

It has been pointed out that much of the electorate votes against its own economic interest because it is convinced that only the Republican Party stands for Christian values.

One can have a conviction about the wrongness of abortion without that becoming the litmus test for which party represents Christian values. That difference was expressed, I think, by the Catholic Sister Joan Chittister, who said, “I do not believe that just because you are opposed to abortion that makes you pro-life. In fact I think in many cases your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born, but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why do I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there.”

This story was originally published January 19, 2016 at 5:05 PM with the headline "John Divers: Christian convictions."