Keown: Piety, poverty and the new Christian vote

They stood on the corner of Park and Tremont streets for most of the day on Sunday – armed with postcards, shoeboxes, and a mammoth sign emblazoned with utterances by McCain, Obama, Christ and Solomon (the wise bloke).

The shoeboxes bore the words ‘Drop Poverty Cards Here.’ The refrigerator-box sized cardboard placard quoted McCain and Obama, saying government has a responsibility to the poor; Jesus, advising that whatever we do “for the least of these,” we do for him; and Solomon (the wise bloke), imploring us to give voice to the voiceless.

The postcards, to be mailed to candidates in November’s elections, began with “Because of my faith I pledge to make overcoming poverty central to how I cast my ballot.”

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these were religious folk. In Boston.

They were twenty- and thirty-somethings representing that much-misrepresented fellowship of faith here in our proudly liberal and highly educated hub: evangelical Christians. This is not Mississippi, this is Massachusetts.

Throw a stone in Boston and you are more likely to hit a PhD than a person who prays. But these folk wanted to be noticed.

“The stereotype is that evangelicals vote based exclusively on a few ‘family values’ issues” said David Whitlock, holding a box of cards. “But Jesus talked of our responsibility to the poor more than about any other political issue.”

Candidates who previously assumed that a pro-life platform guaranteed the Christian vote can no longer do so. Many of today’s young evangelicals are demanding an ethos from their representatives that extends beyond the womb, one that also protects and upholds the dignity of the living in life as well as gestation.  

"In low-income neighborhoods of Boston, one child in three goes to bed hungry," said Margaret Sloat of Project Bread. "That is unacceptable to those of us trying to follow the teachings of Christ."

Every great American social movement began from the grassroots under the leadership of people of faith.

Around the world a child dies every 3 seconds. There isn’t yet a great social movement to stop this stupidity. But it’s being built on Tremont Street by people of faith. Again.

Thomas Keown is a freelance writer living in Somerville. He can be reached at thomaskeown@hotmail.com.