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Disruptive Christian Ethics
responsibility,” such as sexual behavior (as it has been in welfare policy),
wouldn’t just public practices mandate scrutiny and regulation of those
who actually wield political and economic power in this nation, rather
than targeting those with little or none?
I would not advocate establishing public policy based upon certain
examples of personal sexual behavior. But Mary’s confrontational approach
stresses the reversal of unjust political and social conditions and prompts
us to envision, in concrete terms, what God’s intervention might encom
pass. The role of the prophet is to stir up her audience’s concern about
God’s judgment of their unrighteousness. Applying not only the same
moral scrutiny, but also the same legislative remedy of regulation to policy
makers and public opinion shapers as they have implemented for the poor
may best illustrate what Mary’s prophetic call might mean within our social
context. The enactment of public policy regulating the family and finan
cial lives of all policy makers and public opinion shapers receiving any pub
lic funds or benefits (such as salaries, grants, tax breaks) on the basis of
alleged moral failures in the personal choices of certain individuals among
them would be controversial. It would no doubt create indignation about
the unfairness of collective punishment as well as assertions about the enti
tlement of this group to privacy in matters strictly related to their families
and personal lifestyles. This indignation about fairness and respect for pri
vacy could, perhaps, then be extended to poor black and Latina mothers
and others who seek public assistance.
Might such a reversal approach be a more effective step toward a just
welfare policy than begging and pleading with leaders to believe that poor
mothers and their children are actually suffering under destitute condi
tions that they do not choose or desire? I don’t know.
Churches breaking their primary allegiance to the state's agenda
. The
church’s role has to be identified in a liberative ethical response to the Mag
nificat’s pronouncement of God’s harsh judgment of the political leaders
who rest upon “their thrones” of power. If the response from the churches
were to be guided by this biblical injunction, they would probably find
themselves in conflict with the political establishment. Biblical scholar
Richard Horsley reminds us of the ancient political setting that the Mag
nificat refers to: “In the very structures of the imperial situation, imperial
regimes ruled through local aristocracies and client-kings, and the latter
were dependent on the imperial regime for the maintenance of their priv
ileged position at the head of their own people---- To assert the only true,
divine rule, God had to put down the pretentious human rulers.”106Thus
the Magnificat speaks to the oppression suffered by the lowly and hungry