St. Maximos' Hut

Sen. John Kerry recently called the Republican budget approved by the U.S. Senate "immoral" and said it will hurt cities (story here):

"As a Christian, as a Catholic, I think hard about those responsibilities that are moral and how you translate them into public life. There is not anywhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ, anything that remotely suggests--not one miracle, not one parable, not one utterance--that says you ought to cut children's health care or take money from the poorest people in our nation to give it to the wealthiest people in our nation."

James Taranto of Best of the Web points out in response that:

Contemporary liberals are happy to beat you over the head with the Bible, but only when completely technocratic matters, like budgets or environmental regulations, are at stake. When the subject turns to abortion or same-sex marriage or Terri Schiavo, suddenly they become absolutists about the separation of church and state.
In other words, they fear and oppose religion when it comes to matters of sex and death--the two great mysteries of life, and the two areas where a religious outlook has the most to offer.

This makes me all the more convinced that there needs to be some engagement between economists and religious leaders (not that Kerry counts as one), to help the religious community sort out the key facts about economic policy.

BTW, I am not surprised that Christ did not directly address current policy issues in US politics or that, if he did during his time on earth, that the authors of the Gospels omitted those parables, etc.