God flatly declares that, in addition to our private spiritual state, our social concern (or lack of it) — for the poor, for orphans and widows — also has a direct bearing on how our prayers are received. Other prophets, such as Malachi, get even more specific. Those who pay exploitative wages, who break marriage vows through adultery and divorce, who treat illegal immigrants badly, who refuse to share food with the hungry or provide shelter to the homeless, risk closing God’s ears to their prayers. As a twenty-first century American, those warnings cut me to the quick.
and how easily God’s command to defend ‘the fatherless and the widow’ is transformed into platitudes about homelessness, illegal immigrants, and exploitative employers—God is center left, just like me! therefore my liberal guilt isn’t just justifiable, it’s holy!
