It’s right there in the Bible — Matthew 25:31-46.

Jesus says that one of these days, “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”

To his right will be the blessed, to his left the cursed.

The blessed, he says, will be those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take in the stranger, care for the sick and visit the prisoner.

The cursed, he says, will be those who didn’t.

And when the cursed squawk about their fate, Jesus, according to the New International Version of the Bible, will say, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”

So why aren’t churches in Kansas doing more to get state lawmakers to restore recent cuts in welfare spending — cuts that both Republicans and Democrats agree are the deepest and harshest in state history?

So far, advocates for the state’s poor and disabled say the churches’ silence has been deafening.

‘It’s discouraging’

“We’ve been very disappointed with the lack of response,” said Shannon Jones, spokeswoman for the Big Tent Coalition, a group of 63 organizations lobbying for restoration of the cuts.

“It’s discouraging,” said Robert Harder, an ordained United Methodist minister and former secretary of the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services.

From left, Raymond Williams, Jim Briggs, volunteer Dane Norwood and Jennie Nora share breakfast together at the Jubilee Cafe's site at First United Methodist Church, 946 Vt. Jubilee Cafe.

Harder, who helped organize the Big Tent Coalition, said he’s asked the Kansas Catholic Conference, the Kansas Ecumenical Ministries and the church-sponsored Public Assistance Coalition of Kansas to join the group.

All three said no.

“There is a difference between individual piety and social holiness,” said Harder, who’s also an unpaid lobbyist for the United Methodist Church of Kansas. “For some people, an individual responding to another individual in need is enough; they don’t see or accept the need to be involved in the broader, public policy-type discussion.”

The United Methodist Church of Kansas is the only church group that’s joined the coalition.

Ugly mixing?

At the Topeka office of Kansas Ecumenical Ministries, executive director Joe Hendrixson said the group’s decision not to join the coalition shouldn’t be interpreted as opposition to restoring the cuts in welfare spending.

Instead, he said it’s a reflection of the members’ hope to avoid the ugliness that comes when religion and politics are mixed.

“There’s always been a debate within the church community as to whether the proper role is that of caregiver and service provider or one of advocacy on the public-policy level,” Hendrixson said.

Rather than joining the Big Tent Coalition, Hendrixson said, the state’s ecumenical churches prefer to couple their mission work with writing or calling their legislators.

“As a group, we prefer the quieter approach,” he said. “Our tendency is to work behind the scenes and not in the forefront.”

Kansas Ecumenical Ministries represents mainstream Protestant churches across the state.

Mike Farmer, executive director at Kansas Catholic Conference, said that while the conference has “an unwritten policy against joining coalitions,” it has not been shy in lobbying for restoration of the welfare cuts.

“We’re not in the Big Tent Coalition, that’s true,” Farmer said. “But we stand with them, side by side. They’ve testified in committee and so have we.”

Priorities

Across the state, Farmer said, Catholics have been persistently encouraged to support restoration of the cuts.

“Our position is that, as a state, our No. 1 priority has to be caring for our most vulnerable citizens — womb to tomb, whether it’s the unborn, the poor single mom trying to raise a family or the elderly, it doesn’t matter,” said Farmer, a former Republican legislator from Wichita.

The two groups don’t agree on everything.

Two weeks ago, the Big Tent Coalition urged legislators to raise taxes by $100 million, the amount it said was needed to restore the cuts and move people off waiting lists.

The Kansas Catholic Conference is not calling for a tax increase. Instead, it’s pressing legislators to choose between funding schools and caring for the poor.

“We’re not in any way against public education,” Farmer said. “But we are saying that priorities have to be set, and it’s our position that caring for the poor and disabled have to be our top priority.

“If that’s the case, then the question becomes: Is it fair to take 54 percent of the budget off the table when we look for ways to cut spending?” Farmer said, referring to public education’s share of the budget.

He added, “Is it fair for all the cuts to come from the remaining 40 percent?”

The Big Tent Coalition has refused to endorse calls for raiding the state’s education budget.

“We’re not going to play the game of being pitted against other programs or agencies,” Jones, coalition spokeswoman, said. “Our position is that the state has an obligation to provide and fund essential services for all of its citizens — all doesn’t mean one group and not another, it means all.”

Farmer said the Kansas Catholic Conference was prepared to back a tax increase if legislators balked at tapping the public-school budget.

“If it looks like that’s the only way to fund necessary services, then, yes, we will,” Farmer said.

Not their job

Rep. Bob Bethel, R-Alden, serves on the budget subcommittee charged with crafting the SRS budget. He’s also a pastor at First Baptist Church in Alden and Raymond.

Bethel said the debate about church involvement in the legislative process was flawed from the start.

“I’ll get in trouble for saying this,” he said, “but what’s happened over the years is the church — whether we want to admit it or not — has given away its responsibility for the poor. That responsibility has been given to government, and that’s unfortunate.”

Now, he said, the state’s social service needs exceeded what government and churches were able to provide.

“Government needs to do its part,” Bethel said. “But I’d like to see churches do more.”

That won’t happen anytime soon, said the Rev. Joe Alford, Episcopal chaplain at Canterbury House at Kansas University and director of Jubilee Cafe, a program that’s provided meals to Lawrence’s homeless for the past eight years.

“We don’t have that kind of money — we can’t raise that kind of money,” Alford said.

Alford said he’s too caught up in running Jubilee Cafe to bother with the Legislature.

“I write letters from time to time,” he said. “But my job, I think, is to educate students on the plight of the homeless, the working poor.”

Harder said the Big Tent Coalition both regrets and respects church leaders’ decision not to get involved in the legislative process.

“We’re not pointing fingers at anyone,” he said.

Still, Harder said, there was something everyone could do.

“I’d like to see pastors, priests and ministers across the state devote a Sunday sermon to the needs of the poor in Kansas,” he said. “They can call it, ‘The Poor Among Us.'”