The Poor Man As Brother Or Citizen?
By David N. Bass (10/06/03)
With apologies to humanists everywhere, let’s face facts: charity isn’t a human inclination. In fact, if left to its own devices, humanity will usually drift to the exact opposite. Historically, where there is no charity, there is no God; where there is charity, there is God. For proof we need look no further than America herself. Of all modern civilization our nation is the most religious and the most generous. The two are inseparably linked. Anyone who disagrees needs both history lessons and a good dose of common sense.
The Swedish born Gunner Myrdal once remarked: “No country has so many cheerful givers as America,” and few can refute that claim. But with the relapse of religion from public life has come the relapse of Christian charity. The state has instituted a false morality, the morality of welfare. It has largely diluted the church’s mission so clearly defined in the Four Gospels: to have compassion on the sick and needy without expectation of reward.
State-sponsored charity isn’t a modern invention. Its origins can be traced back to the Greco-Roman era. Unlike the early Christian church, which gave to relieve economic and physical distress without expecting anything in return, the Greco-Romans gave selectively and only to those who later bestowed a favor on the giver. This type of giving was the antithesis of Christian charity. In fact, the charity they bestowed was really no charity at all.
Charitable needs in the West were regularly provided for by the church from the first century to the ninth. But with the arrival of feudalism, church-allocated charity declined sharply. Feudal lords established a system by which the peasantry was dependent on them for charity. As a direct result of this, charity in England was largely secularized by the sixteenth century, and with it the foundations laid for our own corrupt system.
Today, the federal government of the United States has taken up the reins of a false charity, and sadly the church is doing little about it. Welfare isn’t centered on compassion like Christian charity is–it’s centered on votes.
The resemblance between the feudal lords of the middle ages and our government is nauseating to say the least. Just as the Greco-Roman way of giving was an affront to charity, so also is state sponsored welfare. Why? Because welfare acts through force, not free will. It’s funded through the involuntary collection of taxes, not the compassion of an individual. It encourages the loss of individual responsibility and places the state, not God, as sustainer. It rewards laziness and nullifies the Christian admonition that if a man shall not work, he shall not eat.
Those who think welfare coincides with Christian charity buy into a cheap philosophy. Welfare violates generally accepted beliefs on two fronts: it counters the American fostered idea of a day’s work for a day’s wages, and it defies Christ’s example of the Good Samaritan, who gave not because he was coerced, but because he had a heartfelt desire to help someone in need.
The Good Samaritan exemplified what Christian charity is all about. Welfare does not.
If you compare the two systems side by side the results are clear. Welfare creates a permanently dependent class; Christian charity lightens the burdens of the poor while encouraging an unselfish spirit.
Tyranny is the inevitable result of a government that classifies man rather than God as the giver of rights. Similarly, tyranny can’t be far away from a nation that relies on charity from man, in the Greco-Roman way, instead of from God.
I’m not denying the need for welfare-like help in America. Charity is a universal need, constant in all times and all places. But it is the responsibility of the church and individuals to meet those needs, not the government. We’re quickly losing sight of that important distinction.
The federal government has had its go at man-made charity. They’ve failed, and it’s about time we Americans recognized the fact. We need to wake up and smell the coffee: welfare is nothing more than thinly veiled godlessness, and that’s a major symptom of tyrannical governments. Isn’t the path of Christian charity better, the path that has worked for two thousand years, the path that will work for two thousand more?
Let’s once again return to the view of the poor man as a brother worthy of compassion, not a citizen clinging to the heels of Uncle Sam for dear life.
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