Onward Christian Organizers

* Jubilee Jobs helps place over 1,000 people a year in entry-level jobs and then returns a year later to assist them in obtaining living-wage jobs. It's active in the District's living-wage campaign.

* Christ House is a 34-bed infirmary for homeless men and women too sick to be on the streets yet not sick enough to be in the hospital.

* Joseph's House and Miriam's House offer home, community, and hospice care to homeless men and women with AIDS and cancer.

* Samaritan Inns provides intensive in-patient recovery for men and women with addictions and then 6-month follow-up programs and long-term housing for hundreds.

* Manna has built close to 1,000 houses for very low-income people to purchase.

* Academy of Hope is one of the largest adult education programs in the city.

All of these organizations hire and serve religious and non-religious people without distinction; all began well before anyone talked about "faith-based initiatives." And that's just a very partial list. And from only one faith community. Indeed, take away the institutions in Washington DC that have been initiated and largely maintained by people of faith and there's not much left in the way of non-governmental services specifically for the poor. I doubt it's strikingly different in other cities around the country.

And it's not only in charity work but also in activism for justice that we're present. Bread for the World organizes churches politically to speak out on issues of world hunger. While the Children's Defense Fund isn't overtly religious, its founder and director Marian Wright Edelman is a deeply spiritual Christian as are many of its workers. Most of the liberal churches have offices in Washington, lobbying for peace and justice.

We're your friends.

You may not have noticed us because most of us don't proselytize for our faith; we hope to be the body of Jesus, not talk about it. And we aren't actually out to convert you to our religion, although we will try to convert others to our work for the poor and the oppressed. In fact, the only time Jesus is recorded as having said anything about who is going to be rewarded and who punished, he gave the good word to anyone who saw the poorest of the hungry and gave them something to eat, the thirsty and gave them something to drink, strangers and invited them in, those needing clothes and clothed them, those who were sick and looked after them, those in prison and came to visit them. It doesn't really matter whether you "praise the Lord" or, in fact, what you say about what you believe. What counts for us is what you do for the poor and oppressed.

I'm as frustrated as you by the Christian right. Any Christian who believes that homosexuality is a more important issue than justice for the poor just hasn't read his Bible straight. But religion (of any stripe) has always been hijacked to support the Establishment; God is made captive to the King, and the poor have to approach God on the King's terms. That's not the faith that Jesus proclaimed.

So, give us a break. Not all Christians are alike, and more of us, I suspect, are on your side than on the other.

David Hilfiker spent his medical career as a physician with low-income people in rural Minnesota and inner-city Washington DC. No longer in active practice, he is the Finance Director for Joseph's House, a ten-bed home and community for formerly homeless men with AIDS. Along with numerous articles, he is the author of three books, Healing the Wounds: A Physician Looks at His Work, Not All of Us Are Saints, and most recently, Urban Injustice: How Ghettos Happen (Seven Stories Press).

This article appeared first, with an introduction by Tom Engelhardt, at Tomdispatch.com.