Best essay I have read on the subject, and it goes far beyond the story of the day. A quote:
One can argue (unconvincingly, in my view) that Christian morality and teaching mandate government and political efforts to aid the poor and oppressed — as opposed to our individual responsibilities along such lines, or those facilitated collectively through the church. What one can not do is square such a constricted, monotone theology with Christianity’s vast octaves of orthodox teaching and history. If Christianity is nothing more than do-good government social programs which require no personal moral transformation, which frequently cause more harm than good to their intended beneficiaries, and require no personal sanctification or sacrifice — then who needs Christianity at all? Wrapping social programs in Scripture verses and Jesus-talk does not make them “Christian” any more than putting mascara on a pig makes her Miss Universe.
and another:
The problem with ministers like Reverend Wright and others, who wrap their political and social agendas in Christian facades and Bible-talk, is that they are partly right. That social justice, concern for the poor and the underprivileged, and the mitigation of hatred and racism are — and have always been — emphatic teachings and priorities for Christianity is indisputable. But Christian opposition to injustice and oppression is not its sole and central doctrine, but rather a manifestation of the personal deliverance of the individual from the slavery and oppression of sin which Christianity offers. The half-righters have interchanged cause and effect — and thereby have guaranteed that the results of such efforts will be harmful rather than healing. For to be partly right is to be totally wrong — when the part in error is core truth about the nature of man and his relationship to God. Good deeds arising out of the darkness of the unredeemed heart invariably foster repression and dependency rather than deliverance and liberty. As Ratzinger points out, speaking of the natural evolution and outcome of liberation theology as a solution to oppression:
… the overthrow by means of revolutionary violence of structures which generate violence is not ipso facto the beginning of a just regime. A major fact of our time ought to evoke the reflection of all those who would sincerely work for the true liberation of their brothers: millions of our own contemporaries legitimately yearn to recover those basic freedoms of which they were deprived by totalitarian and atheistic regimes which came to power by violent and revolutionary means, precisely in the name of the liberation of the people.
Read the whole thing.
