“Going to the Mat”

At a conference on poverty on May 12th, the President of the United States of America made some rather interesting comments as he contrasted the issue of poverty with other issues that are important to Christians (which he defines in a broad sense). One of those statements was:

This may sound self-interested because there have been—these are areas where I agree with the evangelical community and faith-based groups, and then there are issues where we have had disagreements around reproductive issues, or same-sex marriage, or what have you. And so maybe it appears advantageous for me to want to focus on these issues of poverty, and not as much on these other issues.

“A few disagreements” is an understatement. He is pro-abortion; the Bible is pro-life. He is pro-homosexual and now pro-homosexual “marriage” as well. The Bible condemns homosexuality consistently throughout, and to use marriage, which was designed by God for one man and one woman (Gen. 2:18-24), in connection with two people of the same gender is an absurdity. He once referred to Romans 1:26 as “an obscure passage in Romans,” but it is a prominent passage in a well-known and beloved book of the Bible. He claims that the subject of poverty should be at the forefront of the Christian agenda rather than social issues. He gives his advice that poverty should never be secondary, which is based on “one who has worked with both churches and worked in communities.” He adds:

There is great caring and great concern, but when it comes to what are you really going to the mat for, what’s the defining issue, when you're talking in your congregations, what’s the thing that is really going to capture the essence of who we are as Christians, or as Catholics, or what have you, that this is oftentimes viewed as a “nice to have” relative to an issue like abortion.

Poverty will always be an issue, and it could be a matter of life and death, but abortion involves death 100% of the time. Christians are therefore more willing to go “to the mat” for it than poverty; it is obviously a more fundamental and vital subject. Homosexual “marriage” seeks to redefine one of the most important concepts of society, in operation since the beginning of mankind. Christians continue to fight for the truth on these issues.