EDITORIAL

12/15/2005

Clueless Christians

By Bob Ellis

Editor

Some 115 clueless religious activists were arrested Dec. 14 in Washington D.C. for blocking the entrance to a congressional building. No, they weren’t protesting abortion, or threats to religious freedom, or even indecency on television.

The protesters were there to proclaim their dissatisfaction with a House plan to cut spending on social programs. Republicans, with the hangover clearing from their drunken spending spree of the past four years, have finally realized they must reduce some of the government bloat they’ve created.

Predictably, there are those who can’t bear to see a single dollar escape the maw of socialism. The Washington Post quoted Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) as saying, "When you look at all denominations you see a real commitment to address the needs of the poor."

What is baffling to some is that many religious people are not joining this group of protesters in Washington. Those who support the protest appear unable to fathom why all religious people would not join them in “defending the poor.” Well, the reason they don’t understand that is because they’re clueless about not only how their own government is supposed to run, but equally clueless about what the one they call “Lord, Lord” says about the poor.

The Bible is filled with statements about the poor:

• Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits (Exodus 23:6)

• He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses (Proverbs 28:27)

• During the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it (Exodus 23:11)

• If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. (Leviticus 25:35)

But there are some other verses about the poor and needy which liberals somehow never seem to get around to reading:

• If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold. (Leviticus 25:25)

• Do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit (Exodus 23:3)

• Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly. (Leviticus 19:15)

• If a man will not work, he shall not eat. (2 Thessalonians 3:10)

• These should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family (1 Timothy 5:4)

• As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list…they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house (1 Timothy 5:13)

• If any woman who is a believer has widows in her family, she should help them and not let the church be burdened with them, so that the church can help those widows who are really in need. (1 Timothy 5:16)

Something the protesters are almost certainly oblivious to is the fact that the spending they want to preserve is completely unconstitutional. Nowhere does the Constitution authorize spending on social programs. Take a look at what the Founders and early statesmen said about it:

• A wise and frugal government...shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. – Thomas Jefferson

• Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated. - Thomas Jefferson

• With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. – James Madison

• I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. – James Madison

• (And if he still hasn’t made himself clear…) Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. – James Madison

• We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. — Congressman Davy Crockett

It’s interesting to note that the Catalogue for Philanthropy’s “Generosity Index” notes that liberal areas of the nation (which could be called “compassion country,” by the way they tout “compassion”) lag far behind the more conservative areas of the nation in giving (incidentally, South Dakota was #3 in generosity behind Mississippi and Arkansas, while Massachusetts—home to socialist bloviators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy—ranked 49th). Especially interesting is how Mississippi, which is ranked as being the poorest state, is the 6th highest giver, while Massachusetts is ranked #3 income, yet 39th in the amount given.  Hmmm. 

Can we surmise, therefore, that the liberal philosophy toward compassion is to use government to reach into his neighbor’s wallet and give generously, whereas the conservative’s philosophy is to reach into his own pocket and give generously—of his own free will?

This difference is really what is at the heart of the difference between authentic Christian compassion and the forced, government-mandated socialist compassion of liberals. Just as God chose not to create man and force him to robotically render love and praise to his creator, God chose to give him the free will to decide whether to render compassion to his neighbor—and how to render it.

The freedom to choose how to render compassion is also central to the difference in the authentic Christian approach and the government approach. Government is, by nature, incapable of discriminating between true need and professed need; Christians are instructed by the Bible to discriminate between someone who really needs help and someone who’s looking for a free ride. A government bureaucracy, for the most part, is incapable of getting to know an individual and determining the root cause of their need; if government doesn’t understand how the need arose, it can’t understand how to truly resolve the need—it can only throw money at it. The Biblical approach calls for Christians to get to know those in need, to “suffer with” them—which is what the word compassion means—so they can understand why the need arose and how to address it. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that the responsibility for caring for the needy lies with the family first, then with the church and the willing compassion of others. Nowhere does the Bible—or the U.S. Constitution—recommend that government dispense welfare.

Sometimes the compassionate answer is NOT giving money to someone in need. There are times when the compassionate response is to teach a person why they came to be in need (poor work ethic, substance abuse, gambling addiction, etc.) and how they can overcome that problem. Sometimes the compassionate thing to do to someone who is unresponsive in correcting the cause of their need is to allow them to remain in need until they become willing to do the right thing. All too often, the government’s version of “compassion” is to provide just enough assistance to the needy so that they can continue the counterproductive practices which created the deficiency in the first place.

Those Bible verses above reflect the human tendency to try to get away with what they can—something liberals refuse to understand. A good program for dispensing “compassion” must acknowledge the depraved nature of man, something the 1996 Republican welfare reform did a good job of starting, but that no government program can ever truly deal with at the root level. There are, however, many private aid agencies across the country that do understand this, and they are where many good Americans give their money. Love INC is one of those groups which tries to help the person, rather than just throwing money at them.

So you see, while these 115 arrestees think they did something noble by protesting and getting arrested, they really only did something that revealed the depth of their own ignorance. They showed the world that they lack even the most basic understanding of their own government, and worse, the religion they profess. It's one thing for the average person, or even the average Christian, to be ignorant of what the Bible and Constitution say about these things (though still not acceptable).  It's quite another for someone who's going to take the time and effort to join such a protest to not understand the issue with which they're getting involved. 

How much more productive their time might be spent if they worked to get their government to return to Constitutional spending instead of, like the drug dealer, keeping needy people addicted to aid and stuck in a cycle of poverty.

How much more blessed they would be if they followed the teaching of the God they profess and truly loved the needy, rather than trying to reach into someone else’s pocket to help them.