The church must insist that the public policy and public practice of the US be measured against covenantal requirements of neighborly justice, mercy, and generosity. 

Such a society might be expected to organize is life and its resources around the shared destiny of haves and have nots.  For as far back as the tradition of Deuteronomy, the notion of "chosenness" had to do with attentiveness to needy neighbors.  If the "year of remission" in Deuteronomy 15: 1-18 is central to who Israel was as a chosen people, then even its own economy was subordinate to its obligations to its neighbors.  Likewise today, the church's challenge is to summon civil society to its best self.  Walter Brueggemann, Out of Babylon