What Would Jesus Cut? The Religious Right vs. Their Own Bible

The Test Jesus Set

  <p>In Matthew 25:31–46, Jesus describes the final judgment of all nations. He doesn't ask about church attendance, prayer frequency, or which political party people voted for. He sets exactly one test:</p>

  <blockquote>
    <p>"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."</p>
    <p>"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."</p>
    <p>— Matthew 25:35–36, 40<sup><a href="#s1">[1]</a></sup></p>
  </blockquote>

  <p>Those who helped the hungry, sick, and stranger are welcomed into the kingdom. Those who didn't — who "did not do it to one of the least of these" — are told to "depart into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."</p>

  <p>This isn't a parable. It's not metaphorical. It's the clearest statement in the Gospels about what God expects from people and nations. Jesus identifies <em>himself</em> with the vulnerable: to serve them is to serve him. To neglect them is to neglect him.</p>

  <p>This article applies that test — Jesus's own test — to the political party that claims him most loudly. Not as partisan attack, but as moral accounting, using the standard they chose for themselves.</p>

  <h2>What the Bible Actually Says</h2>

  <p>The Bible is not ambiguous about caring for the poor. It's arguably the single most repeated moral command in scripture — mentioned more than 2,000 times across the Old and New Testaments. Here are the verses that matter most, because Republican politicians quote from the same book.<sup><a href="#s2">[2]</a></sup></p>

  <h3>Direct Commands to Care for the Poor</h3>

  <table>
    <thead><tr><th>Verse</th><th>Text</th></tr></thead>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Matthew 25:35–40</strong></td>
        <td>"I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in... whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me."</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Luke 4:18</strong></td>
        <td>"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor... to set the oppressed free."</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Matthew 19:21</strong></td>
        <td>"Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven."</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Proverbs 14:31</strong></td>
        <td>"Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God."</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Proverbs 21:13</strong></td>
        <td>"Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will also cry out and not be answered."</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Isaiah 10:1–2</strong></td>
        <td>"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed."</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>James 2:15–16</strong></td>
        <td>"If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?"</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>1 John 3:17</strong></td>
        <td>"If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?"</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Deuteronomy 15:7–8</strong></td>
        <td>"If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites... do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need."</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Matthew 10:8</strong></td>
        <td>"Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give."</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>

  <h3>Warnings Against the Wealthy Who Ignore the Poor</h3>

  <table>
    <thead><tr><th>Verse</th><th>Text</th></tr></thead>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Luke 6:24</strong></td>
        <td>"But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort."</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Luke 16:19–25</strong></td>
        <td>The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus: a wealthy man who ignored a starving beggar at his gate is sent to torment after death.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Matthew 19:24</strong></td>
        <td>"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td><strong>Amos 5:11–12</strong></td>
        <td>"You levy a straw tax on the poor and impose a tax on their grain... you deprive the poor of justice in the courts."</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>

  <p>This is not cherry-picking. These themes run from Genesis to Revelation. The Bible mentions caring for the poor and vulnerable more than it mentions heaven and hell combined. More than prayer. More than sexual morality — the issue the religious right talks about the most.</p>

  <p>If someone claims the Bible as their moral authority, this is what that authority demands.</p>

  <h2>The Coalition: How the Religious Right Became the GOP's Base</h2>

  <p>White evangelical Protestants are the Republican Party's most loyal voting bloc. In 2024, 82% of white born-again or evangelical Christians voted for Trump. As of early 2025, 72% approved of his presidency. The Republican coalition is 80% Christian: 42% evangelical, 21% Catholic, 14% mainline Protestant.<sup><a href="#s3">[3]</a></sup></p>

  <p>This wasn't always the case. Evangelicals were politically disengaged through most of the 20th century. The Moral Majority, founded by Jerry Falwell in 1979, transformed them into a partisan force — initially around issues like school prayer, abortion, and opposition to the ERA. By the Reagan era, the alliance was cemented: evangelicals would deliver votes, and Republicans would deliver socially conservative policy.<sup><a href="#s4">[4]</a></sup></p>

  <p>The deal worked. Since the 1980s, white evangelicals — roughly 14.5% of the population — have consistently made up 25–31% of the electorate. They punch far above their weight because they vote in high numbers and vote as a bloc.</p>

  <p>But the deal had a cost: the Republican Party absorbed Christian identity as branding while pursuing fiscal policies that directly contradict Christian teaching about the poor. The evangelicals got prayer breakfasts and abortion restrictions. The donor class got tax cuts.</p>

  <h2>The Rhetoric: Bible on the Campaign Trail</h2>

  <p>Republican politicians don't just accept evangelical support — they actively perform Christian identity as a core part of their political brand.</p>

  <p><strong>Speaker Mike Johnson</strong> is the most prominent example. A self-described "Bible-believing Christian," he told Congress on his first day as Speaker that "scripture, the Bible, is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority." He led Republican colleagues in prayer, invoked "In God We Trust," and has said he doesn't believe in the separation of church and state. NPR reported his "close ties to Christian right — both mainstream and fringe." After his elevation, religious rhetoric in Republican congressional communications measurably increased.<sup><a href="#s5">[5]</a></sup></p>

  <p>Johnson then presided over the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which contains the largest cuts to food assistance and Medicaid in American history.</p>

  <p>The pattern repeats across the party:</p>
  <ul>
    <li>Candidates quote scripture at rallies, then vote to cut programs that feed the hungry</li>
    <li>They invoke "family values," then oppose the child tax credit that cut child poverty in half</li>
    <li>They call themselves "pro-life," then strip healthcare from pregnant women on Medicaid</li>
    <li>They pray publicly — despite Matthew 6:5, where Jesus explicitly condemns those who "love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others"</li>
  </ul>

  <p>This isn't about private faith. It's about using faith as a campaign tool while legislating its opposite.</p>

  <h2>The Votes: What They Actually Did</h2>

  <p>Here is a fact-checked record of how Republican legislators voted on legislation directly affecting "the least of these" — the hungry, sick, stranger, and imprisoned that Jesus identified himself with.</p>

  <h3>Feeding the Hungry</h3>

  <p><strong>SNAP (Food Stamps):</strong> The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, cut SNAP by $186–300 billion through 2034 — the largest cut in the program's history. It expanded work requirements, cutting food assistance entirely from 3.2 million adults per month, including 800,000 parents of school-aged children. Passed with exclusively Republican votes.<sup><a href="#s6">[6]</a></sup></p>

  <p><strong>School Lunches:</strong> The same bill raised the Community Eligibility Provision threshold from 25% to 60%, kicking 24,000 schools off the program and eliminating free meals for 12 million students. It cut federal spending on school lunches and breakfasts by $700 million, impacting 420,000 children per month. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's conservative blueprint, called for eliminating the provision entirely.<sup><a href="#s7">[7]</a></sup></p>

  <p><em>"I was hungry and you gave me something to eat."</em> — They voted to take food from 3.2 million adults and 12 million schoolchildren.</p>

  <h3>Caring for the Sick</h3>

  <p><strong>Medicaid:</strong> The OBBBA slashed Medicaid spending by $700 billion–$1.3 trillion, the largest cuts in the program's history. It imposed work requirements on adults 19–64 starting December 2026. CBO estimated 17 million Americans would lose coverage.<sup><a href="#s8">[8]</a></sup></p>

  <p><strong>ACA Premium Credits:</strong> The bill failed to renew premium tax credits that helped 22 million people afford marketplace health insurance, effectively pricing them out of coverage.</p>

  <p><strong>Medicaid Expansion:</strong> As of 2025, 10 states — all Republican-led — still refuse to expand Medicaid under the ACA, even though the federal government pays 90% of the cost. These 10 states account for 42% of America's uninsured population despite being only 28% of the total population.<sup><a href="#s9">[9]</a></sup></p>

  <p><em>"I was sick and you looked after me."</em> — They voted to strip health insurance from 17 million people and refused free federal money to cover their poorest residents.</p>

  <h3>Welcoming the Stranger</h3>

  <p>The OBBBA dedicated major funding increases to border enforcement and immigration restriction. Meanwhile, the same bill cut the social services that help legal immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers integrate — language programs, resettlement assistance, community health centers in immigrant-heavy areas.</p>

  <p><em>"I was a stranger and you invited me in."</em> — They voted to build walls and cut aid.</p>

  <h3>Caring for Children</h3>

  <p><strong>The Child Tax Credit:</strong> In 2021, Democrats expanded the CTC through the American Rescue Plan. The result: child poverty fell from 9.7% to 5.2% — cut nearly in half, the lowest rate ever recorded. The expansion lifted 2.1 million children out of poverty. Every Republican in Congress voted against it.<sup><a href="#s10">[10]</a></sup></p>

  <p>When the expansion expired at the end of 2021, Republicans blocked its renewal. Child poverty shot back up to 12.4% in 2022 — a 138% increase. 3.7 million children fell back below the poverty line because Republicans decided it cost too much.<sup><a href="#s11">[11]</a></sup></p>

  <p>The cost of the expanded CTC: roughly $100 billion per year. The cost of the TCJA tax cuts (mostly benefiting the wealthy): $1.9 trillion over ten years. Republicans found the money for tax cuts. They could not find it for children.</p>

  <h2>The One Big Beautiful Bill: A Case Study in Matthew 25 Violations</h2>

  <p>The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by President Trump on July 4, 2025, is the single most comprehensive piece of legislation to test against Jesus's standard in Matthew 25. Let's score it.<sup><a href="#s6">[6]</a></sup></p>

  <table>
    <thead><tr><th>Matthew 25 Command</th><th>What the Bill Did</th><th>Impact</th></tr></thead>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>"I was hungry and you gave me food"</td>
        <td>Cut SNAP by $186–300B; raised school lunch eligibility threshold</td>
        <td>3.2M adults lose food aid; 12M students lose free meals; 420K children affected by school lunch cuts</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>"I was thirsty and you gave me drink"</td>
        <td>No water infrastructure provisions; clean energy cuts</td>
        <td>Rural water systems lose funding</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>"I was a stranger and you took me in"</td>
        <td>Major border enforcement spending; cuts to resettlement services</td>
        <td>Enforcement up, welcome down</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>"I was naked and you clothed me"</td>
        <td>TANF (welfare) unchanged but SNAP/Medicaid cuts reduce overall safety net</td>
        <td>Families pushed deeper into poverty</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>"I was sick and you visited me"</td>
        <td>Cut Medicaid by $700B–$1.3T; Medicaid work requirements; ACA credits lapse</td>
        <td>17M lose health coverage</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>"I was in prison and you came to me"</td>
        <td>No prison reform provisions; increased criminal enforcement funding</td>
        <td>More incarceration, less rehabilitation</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>

  <p><strong>What the bill gave instead:</strong> $4 trillion in tax cuts through 2034, primarily benefiting high earners and corporations through TCJA extension. CBO projected it would add $3.4 trillion to the deficit.<sup><a href="#s12">[12]</a></sup></p>

  <p>On every single criterion Jesus named, the bill moved in the opposite direction — cutting aid to the exact categories of people Jesus identified as his proxies on earth. And it did so to fund tax cuts for the wealthy — the group Jesus warned about more than any other.</p>

  <p>The bill was passed by a Congress whose Speaker told America that God raised him up, on a holiday celebrating the nation's founding. It was supported by 82% of white evangelical voters.</p>

  <h2>The Children: Where "Pro-Life" Ends</h2>

  <p>The religious right's most prominent policy position is opposition to abortion, framed as protecting the sanctity of life. "Every life is precious." "Life begins at conception." "We are a pro-life party."</p>

  <p>If that's the standard, the outcomes in states that banned abortion tell a devastating story.</p>

  <h3>After the Dobbs Decision (2022)</h3>

  <p>A 2025 study published in JAMA found that states with abortion bans experienced a <strong>7% increase in infant mortality</strong> — equivalent to 247 excess infant deaths — and a 10% increase among infants with congenital anomalies (204 additional deaths). Among Black infants in ban states, mortality rose 11% above expected levels.<sup><a href="#s13">[13]</a></sup></p>

  <p>Maternal mortality data is even more stark. A 2025 analysis from the Gender Equity Policy Institute found that states with abortion bans experienced 59 excess pregnancy-associated maternal deaths and 478 excess infant deaths since Roe was overturned. In Texas, which implemented a near-total ban earliest, maternal mortality rose 56% overall and 95% among white women in the first year of the ban. By 2023, maternal mortality rates in ban states were <strong>twice as high</strong> as in permissive states.<sup><a href="#s14">[14]</a></sup></p>

  <p>The people disproportionately affected: non-Hispanic Black women, Medicaid beneficiaries, unmarried individuals, those without college degrees, and those in the South — the populations with the least political power and fewest resources to travel for care.<sup><a href="#s15">[15]</a></sup></p>

  <h3>The "Pro-Life" Contradiction</h3>

  <p>Here is the factual record of how "pro-life" Republicans voted on policies affecting children after birth:</p>

  <ul>
    <li><strong>Voted against</strong> the expanded Child Tax Credit that cut child poverty in half</li>
    <li><strong>Voted to cut</strong> SNAP, removing food assistance from 800,000 parents of school-aged children</li>
    <li><strong>Voted to cut</strong> free school lunch programs for 12 million students</li>
    <li><strong>Voted to cut</strong> Medicaid, which covers 40% of all US births and nearly half of all children</li>
    <li><strong>Voted against</strong> ACA premium renewals that covered 22 million people including children</li>
    <li><strong>Refused to expand</strong> Medicaid in 10 states, leaving millions of children uninsured</li>
  </ul>

  <p>"Pro-life" in practice means: you must be born, but once you are, you're on your own. The same legislators who criminalize abortion refuse to fund the pediatric healthcare, nutrition assistance, and poverty reduction that would keep those babies alive.</p>

  <p>The data doesn't support "pro-life." It supports "pro-birth."</p>

  <h2>The States: Red State Outcomes vs. Blue State Outcomes</h2>

  <p>If Republican governance reflects Christian values better than Democratic governance, the states they control should show better outcomes for the vulnerable. They don't.<sup><a href="#s9">[9]</a></sup></p>

  <h3>Poverty</h3>

  <p>Many of the states with the highest poverty rates are in the South and Southwest under Republican control. The 2024 Census data shows the official poverty rate at 10.6%, but the distribution is deeply uneven — Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, Alabama, and Arkansas consistently rank among the highest-poverty states, and all are solidly Republican.<sup><a href="#s16">[16]</a></sup></p>

  <h3>Food Insecurity</h3>

  <p>In 2024, 13.7% of US households (18.3 million) were food insecure. The rates are highest in Southern states. Black households face food insecurity at 24.4%, Hispanic households at 20.2%, and Native American households at 30.9% — all populations concentrated in red states that have cut safety net programs.<sup><a href="#s17">[17]</a></sup></p>

  <h3>Uninsured Rates</h3>

  <p>Ten states account for 42% of America's uninsured population despite being only 28% of the total. All ten declined Medicaid expansion. All ten voted for Trump. The national uninsured rate climbed from 7.9% to 8.2% in 2024, driven primarily by Medicaid coverage losses in states that didn't expand.<sup><a href="#s9">[9]</a></sup></p>

  <h3>The Pattern</h3>

  <p>Republican-led states have higher poverty, higher food insecurity, higher uninsured rates, higher infant mortality, and higher maternal mortality than Democratic-led states. These are not opinions — they're Census data, USDA data, and CDC data.</p>

  <p>Democratic-led states tend to adopt broader Medicaid eligibility, expanded child tax credits, universal school meals, and larger safety net programs. Republican-led states emphasize lower taxes and reduced direct spending. The results are measurable: blue states have fewer hungry children, fewer uninsured adults, and fewer dead mothers.</p>

  <p>By Jesus's standard in Matthew 25, the states that perform best for "the least of these" are the ones governed by the party that doesn't claim the Bible as its policy guide.</p>

  <h2>The Irony: Red States Take More Than They Give</h2>

  <p>Here's the part that makes the hypocrisy structural, not just rhetorical.</p>

  <p>Red states receive $1.24 in federal funds for every dollar they pay in taxes. Blue states receive $1.14. Between 2018 and 2022, blue states contributed nearly 60% of all federal tax receipts but received only 53% of federal contributions. Red states contributed 40% but received 47%. That 7% gap represents a transfer of more than <strong>$1 trillion</strong> from blue states to red states.<sup><a href="#s18">[18]</a></sup></p>

  <p>The states that preach fiscal independence and oppose government assistance are the ones most dependent on government assistance. The states that vote to cut SNAP and Medicaid have the most residents on SNAP and Medicaid.</p>

  <p>Republican voters in Mississippi, West Virginia, and Alabama are disproportionately likely to be on the programs their elected representatives vote to cut — programs funded disproportionately by tax dollars from New York, California, and Massachusetts.</p>

  <p>This isn't irony. It's self-harm, orchestrated by representatives who campaign on Christianity and govern for donors.</p>

  <h2>The Defense: "Charity, Not Government"</h2>

  <p>The religious right's primary theological defense for opposing government safety net programs rests on a single argument: caring for the poor should be voluntary Christian charity, not coerced government taxation. The Foundation for Economic Education frames it clearly: "Government welfare programs executed through law and the enforcement of law — by threat or application of force — are opposed to Christian acts of charity which must be performed by an act of individual will."<sup><a href="#s19">[19]</a></sup></p>

  <p>This argument has three problems:</p>

  <h3>1. The Bible Doesn't Make That Distinction</h3>

  <p>Isaiah 10:1–2 directly addresses <em>lawmakers</em>: "Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights." The prophets consistently held <em>governments</em> — kings, rulers, nations — responsible for caring for the poor, not just individuals. The Matthew 25 judgment is of <em>nations</em>, not individuals.<sup><a href="#s2">[2]</a></sup></p>

  <p>The early church in Acts 2:44–45 practiced communal ownership: "All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need." This wasn't voluntary charity — it was a systematic, community-wide redistribution to eliminate poverty.</p>

  <h3>2. Private Charity Cannot Replace Public Programs — The Math Doesn't Work</h3>

  <p>Total US charitable giving in 2024 was approximately $557 billion — across all causes (religion, education, arts, international, health, etc.). SNAP alone costs $113 billion per year. Medicaid costs $800+ billion. Social Security costs $1.4 trillion. The entire US charitable sector could not replace even one of these programs, let alone all of them.</p>

  <p>The argument that churches should replace government in caring for the poor has been empirically tested and has failed. It fails every year by a factor of roughly 10x.</p>

  <h3>3. The Proponents Don't Actually Increase Charitable Giving</h3>

  <p>If the argument were sincere — "we oppose government aid because we believe in private charity" — we would expect Republican legislators to champion charitable giving incentives and maximize their own giving. Instead, the TCJA's near-doubling of the standard deduction in 2017 actually <em>reduced</em> charitable giving by eliminating the tax benefit of donations for millions of middle-class households. The people who passed the tax cuts made private charity less rewarding while also cutting public aid.</p>

  <p>The "charity, not government" argument is a rhetorical device, not a theological position. It gives cover for cutting programs that help the poor in order to fund tax cuts for the rich — the exact transaction the Bible warns against most explicitly.</p>

  <h2>The Counterpoint: What Democrats Actually Voted For</h2>

  <p>This analysis would be incomplete without scoring the other party against the same standard. Democrats don't campaign on Christianity as aggressively, but many are themselves people of faith, and their voting records can be measured against the same Matthew 25 criteria.</p>

  <table>
    <thead><tr><th>Matthew 25 Command</th><th>Democratic Votes</th></tr></thead>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>"I was hungry"</td>
        <td><strong>For:</strong> SNAP expansion, enhanced SNAP benefits during COVID, universal school meals in multiple states, expanded WIC. <strong>Against:</strong> SNAP cuts in OBBBA.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>"I was sick"</td>
        <td><strong>For:</strong> ACA (2010), Medicaid expansion, ACA premium subsidies, insulin price caps. <strong>Against:</strong> Medicaid cuts, ACA repeal attempts.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>"I was a stranger"</td>
        <td><strong>For:</strong> DACA, refugee resettlement funding, asylum seeker protections. <strong>Against:</strong> family separation, border wall funding.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>"I was a child in need"</td>
        <td><strong>For:</strong> Expanded Child Tax Credit (cut child poverty in half), CHIP reauthorization, Head Start funding, free school lunch expansion.</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>"I was in prison"</td>
        <td><strong>For:</strong> First Step Act (bipartisan), sentencing reform, reentry programs. Mixed record — Biden-era DOJ was enforcement-heavy.</td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>

  <p>Democrats are not perfect on this standard. Obama deported more people than any previous president. Clinton's 1996 welfare reform imposed work requirements that pushed vulnerable families off assistance. Biden's American Rescue Plan may have overheated inflation, hurting the poor through higher prices.</p>

  <p>But on the core legislative votes — the ones that directly determined whether hungry people got food, sick people got healthcare, and poor children got support — Democrats voted <em>for</em> the biblical mandate with remarkable consistency, and Republicans voted <em>against</em> it with equal consistency.</p>

  <p>The party that doesn't quote the Bible legislated its values more faithfully than the party that does.</p>

  <h2>The Reckoning: Scored Against Their Own Standard</h2>

  <p>This isn't about which party is "more Christian." It's about whether people who claim Christian authority should be held to Christian standards — and whether voters who identify as Christians should examine whether their votes match their faith.</p>

  <p>The facts:</p>

  <ul>
    <li><strong>82% of white evangelicals</strong> voted for the party that passed the largest cuts to food and healthcare for the poor in American history<sup><a href="#s3">[3]</a></sup></li>
    <li>The Speaker who led that party <strong>told Congress God raised him up</strong>, then presided over legislation that cut meals from 12 million schoolchildren<sup><a href="#s5">[5]</a></sup></li>
    <li>States governed by "Christian values" politicians have <strong>higher poverty, higher hunger, higher uninsured rates, and higher infant mortality</strong> than states governed by secular progressives<sup><a href="#s9">[9]</a></sup></li>
    <li>The "pro-life" movement fought to ban abortion, then <strong>voted against every policy that would keep those children alive</strong> after birth — and infant mortality rose in ban states<sup><a href="#s13">[13]</a></sup></li>
    <li>The one policy that most perfectly fulfilled Matthew 25 in modern history — the expanded Child Tax Credit, which <strong>cut child poverty in half</strong> — was created by Democrats, opposed by every Republican, and allowed to expire because Republicans blocked its renewal<sup><a href="#s10">[10]</a></sup></li>
  </ul>

  <p>Jesus was explicit about this scenario. He described people who would call out to him on judgment day, claiming they served him. His response:</p>

  <blockquote>
    <p>"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."</p>
    <p>— Matthew 7:21</p>
  </blockquote>

  <p>The will of the Father, as stated by Jesus himself, is to feed the hungry, heal the sick, welcome the stranger, and care for the least among us. That's not a liberal interpretation. That's Matthew 25, in red letters, spoken by Christ.</p>

  <p>The religious right chose a political party that systematically does the opposite — and does it while quoting the same book that condemns them for it.</p>

  <p>Is there "footing" for this case? The footing is the foundation of the faith they claim. The question isn't whether the case can be made. The question is whether 82% of white evangelicals will ever read their own Bible and reckon with what it actually says.</p>

  <p>Because Jesus already scored this. And the goats didn't know they were goats either.</p>