A ray of right in the snarkiness

Anyone who slogs through the mix of diatribes and syncretism of secular humanism, social gospel and gelded evangelicalism that characterizes Keely Emerine-Mix's blog will have a high price to pay, but occasionally there can be exchanges that are actually profitable, such as this one.

She asks,

Where does the unchurched clerk at Dollar Tree, raising kids on $9 an hour, go when she's diagnosed with cancer and her family is far away, broke, and her ex isn't paying child support? If "government welfare programs" are abolished, is a lingering, painful death the penalty for not being a member of a church in . . . [a] . . . Reconstructionist heaven-on-earth?

To which the following very good reply was given:

'Mrs. Mix’s argument is a variant of the "But would you let people starve?" question. Readers are given the impression that not only I but the GREAT MAJORITY of Christians would be content to let people starve, so that if all government welfare programs were ended NOBODY would step in to fill the gap. Nobody, that is, save Mrs. Mix and people like her, who consider it an appropriate manifestation of Christian love and virtue to have the State hold a gun to everyone's heads and say, "You foot the bill for this woman's cancer treatment or we'll blow your brains out."

'That question is the standard last-ditch response by someone who has heard the well-reasoned arguments that government welfare financed by taxation increases the number of poor people, increases welfare recipients' dependence on the state, reduces society's productivity and therefore its wealth, creates resentment among people who bear the burden of taxes hardest, continues to perpetually expand despite the failure of the programs, and actually benefits mostly welfare bureaucrats rather than the people ostensibly to be aided. The so-called "Christian Reconstructionist" is not the one who causes these things to happen; they are a consequence of violating God's law -- just as surely as hitting the pavement is a consequence of jumping out a window. But that does not stop Mrs. Mix from portraying someone like me as callous for being the bearer of unpleasant truths. I and Christians of like mind are presented as heartless and unconcerned about the poor.

'I wouldn't let people starve or go without medical treatment, as far as it lies with me to prevent it. I want to strike at the root of the problem while avoiding the ditch of "liberal" humanism. To do this we must face squarely the complete failure of all forms of government welfare, from education to health care to bailouts of Wall Street. I also want to avoid falling into the ditch of "conservative" humanism by embracing true Christian compassion and justice.

'The hypothetical unchurched clerk is getting a lesson in God's covenantal faithfulness. Hallelujah! Of course, hers is the position of ALL of us outside of Christ. We ALL need the saving work of the Good Samaritan. And we are all called to imitate the Good Samaritan ourselves.

'The health care problem is a subset of the poverty problem. The biblical approach to curing the problem of poverty has ultimate roots in the biblical approach to curing the reality of Hell. The solution to the problem of Hell is faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ. This is also the solution to all the problems of poverty.

'Only God can truly heal us. But men who are in rebellion against God do not want to hear this message. They want healing, but only on their terms, not on God's. Unwilling to become humble before God, they seek salvation from the State -- the self-proclaimed healer of our age. The idol of the State as savior is in the process of failing. Hallelujah!

'They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

'In every country with socialized medicine, the state of veterinary care is far superior to human medical care (e.g., no "death panels," no waiting lists, lower prices for comparable goods and services, and far greater freedom to choose from among any and all available treatments). If only humans could have access to the same freedoms granted to animals! If such freedoms were allowed, the free market would provide far better solutions than what is possible under the current system of socialized medicine (let alone what Obama would impose on us). If taxes remained under the control of the individual taxpayers, the people as a whole would have both the responsibility and the means to take care of society's welfare needs -- assuming of course that Christians were willing to actually act like Christians.'

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Then Mrs. Mix replied,

. . . the root cause of poverty in America is injustice -- systemic, widespread, fundamental injustice and inequality . . . to use Proverbs that describe, generally, life in a pre-industrial, agrarian society to condemn poor people in 21st-century U.S. is an example of both an abuse of Scripture and a callous perspective on what is really happening with people.

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This last bit shows Mrs. Mix's confusion pretty well. For starters, she does not understand the first thing about economics. Second, and even more importantly, she again exposes her hostility to Scripture when she relegates it to irrelevance. The Book of Proverbs is striking in how it repeatedly warns against slothfulness as a cause of poverty, and I can vouch from direct personal experience that it still applies today. How has anything changed in thousands of years to obviate the truth of the statement "He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a destroyer"? Nothing at all.

There is a sense in which one can affirm that the things she points out do in fact play an important role in perpetuating poverty, but the sense is almost exactly opposite what she intends. Because the number one perpetuator of systemic, widespread, fundamental injustice and inequality, the number one creator of dependence and the great enemy of true empowerment of the oppressed is the modern government welfare system.

ACORN, anyone? Ostensibly set up to promote the sorts of things that are dear to Mrs. Mix's heart, they -- and no doubt their politician friends (such as a certain long-legged mack daddy who shall remain unnamed) -- are revealed to be happy collaborators in the most blatant and disgusting forms of oppression imaginable. That sort of cynicism and hypocrisy is par for the government's course. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are cut from the same fabric as ACORN, except many times worse. ACORN is bush league compared with them. (And given all the money he has received from them, nobody can complain if I point out that Obama is a "Freddie Mac daddy.")

If we as Christians dig down deep enough we cannot avoid the conclusion that in the most fundamental sense, the root cause of poverty is spiritual; no approach that fails to come to grips with that fact can hope to make a lasting dent in the problem. But modern government welfare does not address the spiritual aspect anywhere near adequately and therefore it cannot possibly work in the long run.