Is it a Christian's Duty to Help Expand Government Charity?

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Jimmy Carter is probably quite honest in his opinion (left), although he seems frighteningly deficient in his understanding of the American system of government and the Scriptures' advice on the subject.  Scripture does say, "Render unto Caesar, the things that are Caesar's and even did a miracle to help Peter pay his taxes. The moneylenders were the crony capitalists of Jesus' day and He did not approve of their activities at all. Jesus said if the government asks you to carry a burden one mile carry it two. Jesus was talking about a government ruled by kings and emperors. He was not talking about a government of the people, by the people and for the people. If He were He would have very likely had some things to say about our responsibility not to let our government drag people out of their beds and make them carry heavy loads for the Army.

Because our American government derives its power and its mission from the people, we are charged with responsibility for what it does. That is why we vote - to guide our leaders and to tell them what we want them to do.  And in that process, yes, we may have to pay our taxes to support things we do not like, but that enough of our citizens voted to do anyway. Thanks, however, to our constitution, we are not required to shut up and give tacit approval to those things the government does that we think are wrong or even misguided by our silence. It is our responsibility in a democratic republic to provide guidance to our government's representatives as to how we want to run things.

If we see that government doesn't do a thing very well, it ought to be our responsibility to require that our government representatives step aside and stop interfering with those who do perform those tasks well. After all, it is our government. Our congress, senate, judiciary and administration were not seen by our founders as infinite law generating machines. At some point, if you keep adding laws and systems to a government, eventually it collapses of its own weight. I do believe that, unless we can get a few congresses that abolish more laws than they make, we are not far from that collapse now.

Jesus never said we could buy freedom from guilt or our responsibility to the poor at a discount by making our neighbors pay "their share". Charity by taxation is a way for wealthy people to not have to pay as much to fulfill our Christian duty to the poor. That's one powerful reason for some wealthy people to favor charity through government taxation. It costs them less and they don't have to feel guilty because they can tell themselves, "It's the government's responsibility, not mine."

Charity to the poor, the widows and orphans has always been a duty Christians are expected to perform regardless of what "everybody else" does. We are not relieved of that duty simply because the government demands we pay a high tax rate so it can give help to the poor. We can't shuffle off our responsibilities that way. It is not allowed. We are commanded to give real help to the poor, to set them on their feet and help them become strong and independent - to set them free. The type of help the government gives is not help at all, but a subtle enslavement of those it purports to help. It serves the interests of the wealthy and powerful because it creates a large dependent class who will reliably vote for those who pay them their pittance. That is all.

Christian charity as God would have it, sets free the poor, the disabled, the sick and the poor of spirit. True charity will always set people free, not just make them reliable political supporters.

© 20114 by Tom King

One is a Tragedy: 10,000, a Statistic

Thousands are dead in Muslim-led violence against Christians in Bangui last summer and it's started up again.

C. Africa Crowd Lynches Fleeing Muslim

What the headline does not say is that all this comes on the heels of a wave of horrific Muslim violence against Christians after last year's coup which replaced the elected president with a Muslim usurper.  Except in that bit of violence, it wasn't the death of a single guy who fell off a bus fleeing from angry people that the Muslim para-militaries had been persecuting. 

The anti-Christian violence last year resulted in thousands killed or wounded for no greater crime than being Christian or living in a Christian village. The difference is that along with the rest of the world, Christians are appalled at the brutal death of the Muslim man, but for the death of the many Christians last year, news outlets were virtually silent and unsympathetic. It is said that one death is a tragedy, tens of thousands of deaths is a statistic. This fact makes those who restrain themselves and their fellow believers from murdering wholesale, vulnerable to being cast as monsters in the "if it bleeds, it leads" modern media. The media excels at wringing public tears from personal tragedies. They are utterly hopeless at making people feel the same pitch of emotion over the systematic murder thousands. The violence does get reported but in sweeping general terms. Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, the individualized pathos has been missing - until now.

No doubt someone in the media will use this story to gin up sympathy for persecuted Muslims and try to pin it on Christian hate-mongers. The story does make a last minute mention of the fact that the Muslims were doing far worse to Christians last summer. It also hints that not all of the participants or even the persecuted were, in fact, Christian. Other media outlets will not be even close to that accurate when they tell the story.

To be fair the media has semi-consistently reported  on the violence against Christians (back on page 10 or 12), but it's all seemed rather without any real enthusiasm. There's an almost embarrassed tone some journalist get when they're talking about Christians who have been wronged, but then they get downright teary-eyed over an Israeli missile attack on a Palestinian village/terrorist missile launching base or a Muslim beaten to death by a mob, some of whom come from Christian villages. The media may appear to give coverage to both sides of the story, but reporters learn in journalism school, just how to tune the data to fit the story in your head and just who they ought to tune out. It would be nice if we could get as much outrage out of the Muslim media over the persecution of Christians as you get from Christian media over persecution of Muslims.

Jesus said that if they persecuted Him, we could expect they would persecute us. All that we really can do about that is pray for them that persecute us. We're under orders to do so from our Commander.

© 2014 by Tom King