I debated writing this… I’m going to get some push back on this for sure (or at least I’m fairly certain. Or perhaps people will read this, shake their heads in disgust and move on).
So there’s this picture of a quote from Stephen Colbert (above) going around “The Facebook” and it goes like this:
If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.
Now, before I go any further, understand this; I am in no way opposed to helping the poor and needy. I am in no way suggesting that we despise the poor and oppressed. Indeed, as Christians, it is our duty to help the poor and needy as Stephen Colbert indicates.
What I am going to push against is the implied notion that this help must necessarily be done by means of the government. Again note that I feel this is implied in the statement. But it is not explicitly stated. Since it is not explicitly state, I could be getting the wrong implication.
However, the point I am going to make stands regardless.
This is the argument I hear from folks who want to perpetuate government welfare programs (for instance). That as a Christian Nation, we have a duty to help the poor, so therefore we must have welfare, government healthcare, free education (provided by the government) etc. etc.
If I were to say something like what Colbert said, I would rephrase the first part to this:
“If we are going to be a Christian nation, but the people of this nation are not characterized by their generosity to the poor…”
You can see from my rephrasing where I might be going with this. There are three spheres of authority that are biblically delineated. Those are:
- Family
- Church
- Civil
There is of course some overlap of all three, but the idea that civil government would be involved in charity is misplaced in my judgement. Helping the poor and needy, the widows and the orphans falls into two of the three spheres of authority: Family and Church. For the civil government to care for the needy would necessitate (as we see today) that they derive those resources from those under it’s jurisdiction. For the government is not a producer of resources, but must therefore acquire those resources by taking them from someone. This is known by another name: Socialism. It is nothing more than wealth redistribution.
Government is there for the enforcement of civil law and for defense of the land. That (along with a couple of other very limited things) is the job of the civil government according to a Biblical worldview.
The real problem we have in this nation is that the Church, and her members (families) have abdicated the God given calling to exercise care for the poor, for the widow and orphan. We have allowed our civil government to take over this duty that belongs only to us and it is wrong. But it’s a vicious cycle. That the government does this makes it hard for us to do that which we have been called.
Because it is a circular problem, it is very hard to break, but break it we must in order to get our nation back into a biblical framework.