NCC Pushes for Peace & Kids

Posted by Brian Tubbs Mar 15, 2007

The National Council of Churches USA is joining with close to 50 other religious organizations to tell the U.S. Congress to spend money on "peace" and not "war." Utilizing the theme of "children," the NCC USA is telling Congress to make priorities of the following issues:

• affordable, quality healthcare for all children in the U.S.
• comprehensive, mandatory and aggressive anti-global warming legislation to protect future generations; and
• adoption by Congress new "Spending for Peace, Not War" priorities.

One question....are these "Christian" issues?

Critics have long charged that conservative religious organizations such as the Christian Coalition and Jerry Falwell's now-defunct Moral Majority were wrong to imply that God had a position on issues such as tax cuts and education vouchers. Yet many of these same critics will embrace religious activism for global warming legislation.

This author is certainly not suggesting that Christians can't or shouldn't enter the political arena and bring their moral convictions to bear. One of the greatest Christian statesmen in history was a man named William Jennings Bryan, who crusaded against children slaving away in sweat shops and pushed for greater protections on workers during the Industrial Age. However, Bryan's opponent in the 1896 presidential election was also a professing Christian -- Republican William McKinley.

Who speaks for God? What guidelines or principles should guide us in answering that question?