[High Praise! to The Gormogons]
So while it is the Christian thing to help the poor, care for the sick and elderly, and feed the hungry, it doesn’t mean that we should shrug off our personal calling in lieu of hoping and voting in such a way that the federal, state, or local government will do that for us….
…as per Matthew 25, our salvation is bound up in how we treat the poor, how we as individuals treat the poor in our midst. How can we love them if we never see them? If all we do is pay our taxes and buy a gift for the giving tree at Christmas? The Lord did not tell us to outsource the works of mercy.
Harvey, you’re my favorite atheist. Getting Bible believers to become Bible doers is hard work. Gonna steal that outsourcing phrase for Sunday.
@1 – I don’t care where wisdom comes from. When something makes sense, it makes sense.
The only honest liberal I ever met admitted to me that he supports government transfer payments because he likes not having to personally choose the objects of his charity.
Apparently liberals are just a bunch of lazy bums.
What is more likely to promote conscientious behavior?
Having to look the starving poor in the face and consider that you might have to personally do something to help them, or let the .gov cloak them in a Somebody Else’s Problem field?
sure, makes no difference to just allow a bunch of faceless bureaucrats take my money and dole it out for me… I’m sure they are pros with big hearts and will do it more efficiently than I ever could.
The simple truth is that government has no business being responsible for Charity.
The definition of Charity is “money freely given”.
The government has NO money freely given. All money taken by the government is taken at the point of a gun and inherently cannot be “freely given”. The entire Socialist philosophy is empty since it is based on government.
God asks you to be charitable to a tithe, though He’s delighted if you give more
…whereas the government takes upwards of half.
Charity vs. Socialism
I think you can do a similar thing with a tithe to your local church. Now while it is given voluntarily, you kind of push off the responsibility to someone else to actually do the ground work.
Now my wife and I tithe, which we are called to do, but all that she makes as a substitute teacher we give away. That is our opportunity to do our ‘boots on the ground’ work. Like directly giving to someone doing missions work, or giving money to something where we actually go do the work as well, or whatever need arises. It requires extra, specific effort on our part to make use of that extra money that God has blessed us with.