So, government “charity” versus Judeo-Christian charity. Helping people. It must be done, no question about that. But how?
The key word in “helping people” is the word “help.” As I mentioned in my first article, I often give of my resources to aid people here in Thailand, but I frequently give people bread or food rather than money because I don’t believe I’m truly helping someone if I provide him/her money with which they use to buy booze or cigarettes or drugs. I try to be a little judicious with how I help people, but we can’t always know. I’d rather err on the side of love, however, and hope I’m doing them some good.
But giving money to people who use it to murder or butcher their offspring, or commit fornication so they can have more babies and get more money, or who simply refuse to work and who parasite off others…this is not helping people, and has absolutely nothing to do with godly, righteous, Christian charity. Now, of course, not all of government “charity” goes to things that are blatantly godless and sinful; some government “charity,” I’m sure (I hope), surely goes to the truly “needy poor,” to those who will use it for righteous, decent, godly purposes like taking care of their families in some needful way.
But there is absolutely no doubt that countless billions—trillions—of honest, hard-working taxpayers’ money over the years has gone to support people who have absolutely no true claim to it as a “needy” individual. Just look at the fraud stories we see almost every day in the news as evidence of this. Fraud is not Christian; it’s theft, and no Christian would willingly support it. Fraud, abuse, and waste, lazy indigents lining up for money taken from honest, hard-working people—this is another reason why our Founders believed that government should not be involved in charity. The more you give out, the more people you are going to have standing in line to get it. How many Americans and others around the world are cheating and defrauding honest people by government force? They—and the Left who supports this—have absolutely no conscience whatsoever. To claim that is Christianity is simply to illustrate a complete and utter blasphemous abuse of Jesus’s teaching. He would never condone that.
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When we do charity, personally—as I insist we all should do—we have more control over who the money goes to. People, of course, make mistakes, and we should be willing to help them recover from them—if they are willing to “go and sin no more.” Helping them to continue their impenitent lifestyle is no help at all.
I can and do direct the money or food I give to Thai people, though again I can’t always be sure it is spent well. If the government does have any oversight of the trillions of dollars it has handed out to Americans and the world, they are doing an incredibly horrible job of it—as all the stories of fraud, abuse, and waste abundantly illustrate. That isn’t what any religion or our Founding Fathers teach is the purpose of government. You don’t help people when you keep them indigent, in sin, or dependent upon government. Teaching people to be irresponsible, that they have a claim on other people’s money, that they have little to no responsibility to provide for themselves and their loved ones—that is neither Judeo/Christian, or frankly, intelligent societal practice. Having a country full of such people can only be detrimental to any society. What positive contributions do the on-the-street defecators in San Francisco make to their city? We mustn’t encourage that by giving them free money.
And forcefully taking money from the honest, hard-working people who are the backbone of any healthy society in order to keep people in sin, indigence, or dependence is as sinful and unrighteous as any action could be.
The more money government takes from decent people through taxation, the less money those people will have to direct charity where it really needs to go.
But America, and probably most countries, have too much handed “charity” over to the government now, and we have no clue whether it is really helping people who genuinely need it or whether it is being grifted by the lazy and promiscuous for their own licentious purposes. The Left, of course, either doesn’t understand that, or, more likely, doesn’t care. All they want is the money, because money means power, and that is exactly, and all, the Left is about. If they truly cared about people, they would also care about the taxpayers who are forced to hand over their hard-earned money, and the Left would also insist on intense government scrutiny and oversight of government “charity” to make sure the money is truly helping people who need it. They never do that; the money buys votes and power, and that’s their only concern.
Christian love means truly helping people when they need it (financially and otherwise). People aren’t being helped if they aren’t being lifted out of a deplorable condition (financially or otherwise). But more than that, God-like love means helping people out of sin, helping them to be right with God, helping them on the road to heaven. That part of Christianity the Left cannot tolerate.
All power to the government! Including government “charity,” i.e., forced virtue. And any Christian who opposes the Left’s “vision” of a government-controlled earthly utopia is a “hypocrite.” No, they aren’t, and I’m too Christian to say what I think of leftists who argue like that. Our Founders, as nearly always, had it right, and we would be wise to return to their thinking. Sadly, that’s probably impossible now.
Check out my substacks: “Mark It Down! (mklewis929.substack.com) and “Mark It Down! Bible Substack” (mklbibless.substack.com). Both free. Read my new book! "Kendrick and other stories," four great tales of the Old American West, available on Amazon Kindle. Read my other books as well: "Whitewater," "River Bend," "Return to River Bend," and "Allie’s Dilemma," all available on Amazon. Follow me on X: @thailandmkl
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