AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Among the many debates at the moment on Capitol Hill, Matthew 25, the Bible passage. It's figuring into how politicians argue about how the U.S. should treat immigrants and other vulnerable people. Jack Jenkins from Religion News Service is here with us with the details. Good morning.
JACK JENKINS: Good morning.
RASCOE: So let's start with the text. Can you explain Matthew 25 for people who may have missed Sunday school or just not familiar?
JENKINS: (Laughter) Yeah. Matthew 25 is a passage in the New Testament from predictably the Book of Matthew. It's where Jesus is seen as generally discussing how God judges humans and, well, who gets into heaven. It's a section that's often referred to as the sheep and the goats passage. And while the text varies a bit depending on the translation, that's because the sheep, as it were, are framed as righteous followers of Jesus.
As Jesus explains in the passage, he says, I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. And the passage goes on for a bit and then eventually concludes, truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.
RASCOE: OK. So what's the political debate about Matthew 25?
JENKINS: Yeah. So Jesus' words may seem clear to some, but it turns out which people count as the least of these and who should help them is a matter of debate. Pope Leo actually referenced Matthew 25 recently while critiquing the Trump administration's immigration policies. Here's what he said in November of last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
POPE LEO XIV: Just a couple days ago, we heard Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 25, which says, Jesus says very clearly, at the end of the world, we're going to be asked, you know, how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him or not?
JENKINS: So then a few weeks later, House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked by a reporter to respond to the pope, and he said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIKE JOHNSON: People cite passages out of the Old Testament and they say, well, you're supposed to take care of the sojourner and the neighbor, treat him as yourself, welcome then in. Yes, but that is an admonition to individuals, not to the civil authorities.
JENKINS: So Johnson there referred to the Old Testament. He made it clear in a social media post later that day that he thinks the same argument applies to Matthew 25, that it's about individuals and not governments.
RASCOE: I understand that an argument over Matthew 25 also took place during a congressional hearing this spring.
JENKINS: Yeah. That's right. Here's Republican representative Michael Cloud of Texas talking about Matthew 25 at an oversight hearing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICHAEL CLOUD: I was struck by part of your opening statement because you invoked Matthew 25, and that's a scripture we see tossed around a lot up here but often without context.
JENKINS: So Cloud went on to argue that Matthew 25 is not about lobbying the government and that Christian charity, as he described it, is ultimately voluntary. Now, Cloud was interrogating Reverend Mariah Tollgaard there, who is a United Methodist minister in St. Paul, Minnesota. He didn't allow her a full response during the hearing, but I followed up with her via email, and she told me that Matthew 25 is, quote, "not a bootstrap story about self-optimization. It is Jesus' stark reminder that God's judgment is revealed in how a community treats those who are hungry, sick, strangers or imprisoned." That's a pretty common interpretation of Matthew 25, that it's about how a community takes care of vulnerable people.
RASCOE: And, Jack, you've reported on an extraordinary meeting between House Speaker Johnson and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia where Matthew 25 came up. Tell us about that.
JENKINS: Yeah. This was unusual. The situation kind of escalated last month when Johnson had a faith-focused meeting with Senator Warnock after the Georgia senator, who is also a prominent pastor, questioned Johnson's faith. I caught up with Warnock on the Senate subway, and he said that Matthew 25 came up in their conversation.
RAPHAEL WARNOCK: He told me that Matthew 25 was about individuals and not nations, when the text actually says nations. But I don't want to get into a back-and-forth Bible study because I don't - by the way, I'm not interested in living in a theocracy.
JENKINS: But Warnock - who leads Reverend Martin Luther King's former church, by the way - told me that he felt as a pastor, he had to say something to Johnson not just for religious reasons, but also for political ones.
WARNOCK: It's a very narrow individualistic faith, and I think it has consequences for the kind of policy you end up with.
JENKINS: So no matter what, it seems clear that these divisions aren't going away, and I'm willing to bet we'll hear more scriptural sparring in Congress in the months to come.
RASCOE: That's Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service. Thank you so much for joining us.
JENKINS: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
