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James is, without a doubt, my favorite book in the entire Bible. I’ve reread it several times, but the line that has stuck out to me most recently was chapter 1, verse 27:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

I love this line, because it brings up the two things that churches can focus on the most: social justice and personal purity. It’s interesting because liberal churches tend to be very intense about social justice and caring for the poor, while conservative churches will focus much more on staying holy and pure.

This division is seen in the moral compasses of liberals and conservatives. A psychology professor started a website called YourMorals.org where he started a poll on a variety of moral questions. He then grouped people’s responses to see how much they cared about harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. The results are below. Liberals tend to care more about harm and fairness than conservatives, and conservatives care more about purity and authority than liberals.

The green is my score and just proves that I’m really weird.

I love James 1:27 because it indicates that we must care about both. It challenges both conservatives and liberals to expand their moral compasses.

But most importantly, I think it summarizes Matthew 22: 37-40 perfectly.

Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Staying holy and unpolluted by the world is the clearest way of loving God with all your heart and soul and mind. Caring for the widows and orphans is the clearest way of loving your neighbor as yourself. James 1:27 just sums up Jesus’ two greatest commandments and re-establishes that this is the religion that God wants. This is the religion that God finds faultless. This is the religion that God finds pure.

So what religion are we living out? Is it true Christianity – all of the challenging parts as well? Or are we just settling for our own biased moral compasses and using Christianity as an excuse?

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7 Responses

  2. Jordan Monge

    Thanks, Judith!

    I also wanted to throw a bit in about how evangelism is not something listed in James, my thoughts on that subject aren’t fully developed yet.

  3. George

    James, of course, was Luther’s famous “epistle of straw” – but that is a story for another time.

    I’m leery of this data. More than 5.5 liberals post for each conservative who polled…but still the point is clear. I like how you link together Matthew, James and modern theological perspective to underline the most fundamental principles. Well done!

  4. phillip mutchell

    Jesus’ comment was to Jews as members of that covenant and James is addressing the 12 tribes so stop your generalising and absurdly irrational pleas to care for any as a Christian act.

  5. Jordan Monge

    George – Martin Luther was absolutely *nuts*. James is an *amazing* book. I’m a bit leery of the data as well, but I think it got skewed in part because a NY Times Columnist wrote about it there. Assuming the readership of the NY Times is more liberal, the resulting hits at the poll would have been slightly skewed. However, that to me suggests that they were probably getting more liberal conservatives as well. My guess is that the results would be even stronger if they got more conservatives.

    Phillip – The audience for the comments is irrelevant; the question is what did Jesus mean when he said “neighbor”? What did James mean when he said “orphans and widows”? In Luke 10:29-37, Jesus is asked “Who is my neighbor?” and his response is the parable of the good Samaritan. I think that provides the answer – a neighbor is any human being, regardless of tribe or religion. It is not a generalization. It is not irrational. It is what Christ and God command.