LAST
week two prominent Americans — an eminent social scientist and the
president of the United States — decided to answer the question: How
have America’s churches failed the poor? Their answer was one deeply congenial to the progressive mind: They’ve been too obsessed with the culture war.
“Over the last 30 years,” Harvard’s Robert Putnam told The Washington Post,
“most organized religion has focused on issues regarding sexual
morality, such as abortion, gay marriage, all of those. I’m not saying
if that’s good or bad, but that’s what they’ve been using all their
resources for ... It’s been entirely focused on issues of homosexuality
and contraception and not at all focused on issues of poverty.”