What do you know about the religious left?
Beginning this month in Christianity Today, Acton is introducing a new advertising campaign that asks readers to look at the economic implications of policy questions put forward by religious leaders. The first ad looks at the top down planning, command-and-control orientation of many humanitarian aid programs and opens with this…
Hold on. Note what this is about. The morally informed public policy institute is holding a group of morally informed religious leaders to account for their aid programs. Transparency is a good thing. So what does that ad say?
“In developing countries, two million children die each year from common diarrhea. Even though a 10¢ dose of oral rehydration therapy can cure it. The remedy is cheap and effective — so why can’t we get it to those poor people?
According to the Religious Left, rich countries just don’t care enough about the poor. Their solution? Government policies that advance a more ‘just distribution’ of wealth. But, will more money get that lifesaving stuff to the mother in Ghana watching her child die?”
Underlying all this – the humanitarian aid program in question and the ad campaign questioning it – is the fundamental issue of whose morals are determining public policy. And Acton has set up a new Impact Campaign page to help citizens navigate the rhetorical minefield this election year to learn more about faith and policy questions. Great resources like this are always valuable for maintaining a just society. But they’re even more critical now that two political candidates and parties with dramatically different worldviews are battling to control the White House.