Let's look at some of Keely Emerine-Mix's rather uncharitable views regarding Libertarians and conservative Christians.
She does not name any names, so before we get into it, we should admit that what she has to say about these groups can probably be applied to someone, somewhere. I'm glad to say that I don't know any of them personally. She tells us,
'I am not a Libertarian. In fact, I think that many of our local Libertarians are, unlike my son, "Libertarians" who rest in that particular philosophy because in it they find abundant comfort in their disregard for the poor, a disregard that manifests as a Christian mandate to stand against any non-military taxation from the State.'
As I said, I don't doubt there are probably some people who call themselves libertarians who fit that description. However, such a position is hardly characteristic of Libertarians in the United States.
The Libertarian Party clearly states in its platform, "The United States should both abandon its attempts to act as policeman for the world and avoid entangling alliances. We oppose any form of compulsory national service . . . American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with the world and its defense against attack from abroad. We would end the current U.S. government policy of foreign intervention, including military and economic aid. We recognize the right of all people to resist tyranny and defend themselves and their rights. We condemn the use of force, and especially the use of terrorism, against the innocent, regardless of whether such acts are committed by governments or by political or revolutionary groups."
Here is a link to a representative article at the Cato Institute about the dangers of American military dominance.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute and its sister news and opinion portal LewRockwell.com are very strongly against America's huge standing military and its network of hundreds of military bases around the world, and current levels of military spending are typically viewed as grossly unnecesary and, in view of of the immorality of the way America's military is abused, obscene.
Almost all of Ron Paul's many followers -- although it is not selling as well has his No. 1 bestseller The Revolution: A Manifesto, his book End the Fed is currently ranked 49th overall in books at Amazon and earlier it was ranked at No. 2 among nonfiction books -- are strongly in favor of drastically downsizing America's military.
Bringing up the rear of the most influential Libertarian organizations, The Acton Institute and Reason Magazine are far more supportive of the military than any of the above.
Those are currently the most influential Libertarian organizations, by a large margin, and among them support for military taxation is a definite minority position. The majority sees the military as something that needs to be cut back considerably -- even reduced to a tiny fraction of its current size.
"I've learned that not all Libertarian economic thought is malicious in both origin and intent."
Well that's a mighty charitable thing of Mrs. Mix to say.
Ahem. Let's get one thing out of the way -- there is an ugly perspective, called Objectivism, closely affiliated in many observers' minds with Libertarianism. It was founded by Ayn Rand and it behooves us to consider what she had to say about charity: "My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue."
Now Ayn Rand's views expressed above are clearly hostile to the Christian faith. Her hostility should come as no surprise given that her life was characterized by what the Bible would describe as gross sexual immorality. She equated Christian charity with Communism. (Maybe she had learned about Christianity through the writings of Keely Emerine-Mix?)
It is important to distinguish clearly between Libertarianism and Ayn Rand's Objectivism. In End the Fed, Ron Paul says,
Although Ayn Rand never spoke kindly of libertarians and I never contemplated becoming a supporter of objectivism as a total philosophy, I did read all her novels and received her objectivist newsletter essentially the whole time it was published. She challenged many of my beliefs that I had taken for granted and forced me to understand and defend them better. However, she never convinced me of her definition and application of altruism. Equating voluntary Christian charities with Communism made no sense to me. But she also built up my excitement for championing freedom."
Now if there is any group that is likely to resist accepting the thinking of Ayn Rand, it is Christians. So if you are talking about Christians who also happen to be Libertarians, the likelihood that they will lean toward Ayn Rand's thinking regarding charity and the poor will be very small indeed.
Now we get to the point where Mrs. Mix differs clearly with my thinking, with Libertarianism, and with the Bible.
"I lean strongly toward a democratic social safety net provided by government for the interest of the poor; in fact, how something affects "the least of these" is the lens through which I view any socio-political issue. Poverty and the socio-economic structures that ensure it is, to me, the defining problem of this age, a problem that begins when good Christians are fed "Biblical" exegesis that excuses them from considering the righteousness of Christ toward the poor, manifested in governmental policy, as a legitimate exercise of power. For me, it's all about caring for the poor, and I believe Christians are called to expect from the State attitudes and actions that aid them."
This perspective is jam-packed with errors. The Bible definitely teaches the need for a "social safety net" for the interests of the poor, but it is definitely not one provided by the civil magistrate. In fact, when the civil magistrate attempts to provide such a safety net, it brings disaster upon society.
We have a great example of this in 2 Samuel 24. David's taking of a census of the people was enough to anger God so that He brought a plague upon the land that killed 70,000 people. That should tell us what God thinks of the Welfare-Warfare State.
There is one thing I particularly want to stress to Mrs. Mix with regard to how we as Christians are to manifest our love for the poor:
GOVERNMENT WELFARE PROGRAMS ARE TO THE POOR WHAT CARBON CREDITS ARE TO GLOBAL WARMING: THE ONLY DIFFERENCE THEY MAKE TO THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE POLITICIANS AND BUREAUCRATS BEHIND THE PROGRAM GET FATTER, AND THE WHOLE SOCIETY BECOMES POORER.
In the case of global warming, it is not such a big deal -- after all, the problem only exists only in the fantasies and goosed-up computer programs of some scientists with vested interests in proving that the Hockey Stick From Hell is real. However, the poor are real and they will be with us always, so we had better find ways of helping them that are actually going to help them and not just serve as a superficial band-aid to appease our guilty consciences.
For Mrs. Mix, if it really is all about caring for the poor, we can happily affirm that her heart is in the right place. But that does not alter the truth that her anti-biblical, Hegelian perspective ends up nourishing only the State.
Sadly, Mrs. Mix is living in a fantasy world, one in which we can go into debt to the tune of a hundred trillion dollars (and counting), spending our way to the realization of God's kingdom on earth. We have already virtually condemned our children and grandchildren to joining the ranks of the poor, and if the kinds of social policies that she supports are implemented things will only become worse.
There is also a great irony in that the expansion of government welfare programs in America has always gone hand-in-hand with the expansion of government warfare programs. The wars that we wage are resulting in the death and impoverishment of millions of innocent people around the world for no good reason except to fatten the merchants of death. FDR did it, LBJ did it, and Bush-Obama are doing it.
And for the life of me I cannot fathom how getting a faceless government bureaucracy to substitute for direct Christian action qualifies as fulfilling God's commandments regarding the poor.
The degree of confusion and gross distortions that Mrs. Mix gives us in the next paragraph is astounding.
"Put another way, if the Church spent as much energy in advocating for and serving the poor, through taxes as well as their own efforts, as it does in scouring the Old Testament for proof-texts that government is evil and the poor always complicit in their poverty, we would have the kind of revival here and abroad that truly shows the light of Christ working within us. But a cottage industry of "Christian" works promoting blame, insouciance, comfort and entitlement has sprung up, books and speeches and ministries that assure affluent believers that the poor are to be judged, feared, and ultimately ignored. In the name of Christ, of course."
Let's get one thing very clear: to the extent that we are taxed by the government, our ability to serve the poor with our money is accordingly reduced. Currently we work about half of each year just to pay taxes. The total debt burden of the United States amounts to about one-third of a million dollars per person. And the situation is continually worsening. This is an impossible situation and cannot go on indefinitely. Sooner or later -- probably sooner rather than later -- the entire house of cards is going to come crashing down. Furthermore, the last sentence in the previous paragraph is a slander of Christians. Essentially Mrs. Mix is saying that if left to our own devices we would indeed just sit by and let people starve to death. That's why we need to have the government hold a gun to our heads. I don't know about Mrs. Mix, but I have faith that the Holy Spirit actually does indwell Christians.
Showing posts with label government welfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government welfare. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Missing the Missed Point, part 3
Now we get to the part of Keely Emerine-Mix's post where she says something that is halfway sensible -- the church has too often tended to shun sinners as unworthy of our charitable attentions. There is definitely a real and present danger of that in churches, and it is heinous in part because it implies that if they are left outside the church because they are unworthy, we are inside the church because we were somehow found worthy. And of course that is both atrocious theology and a denial of God's abundant grace toward us.
(Since that is about the only decent point she makes in this post, maybe Mrs. Mix could have substituted a link to John Ford's Stagecoach, as that movie has just about the same perspective and points as her post, but in a much more entertaining format.)
There is a great irony, however, in Mrs. Mix's charge that the great sin of the post-World War II church has been the deliberate neglect and avoidance of sinners, because one of the chief causes -- if not the number one cause -- of all the problems that she rightly points out in the latter part of the second paragraph and in subsequent paragraphs is -- you guessed it: the rise of the government welfare State. That's right, the government welfare State that Mrs. Mix so loves and wishes to see grow ever larger and stronger and more involved in all areas of life, as the foremost agency of God in promoting the well-being of people on this earth, is the primary isolator of the "prim and proper people" (the "haves") from what Mrs. Mix likes to refer to as the comfortable middle-class white church's "great unwashed" (the "have-nots").
So at least as regards the final part of the post in question, I have to congratulate Mrs. Mix on pointing to a very serious problem. Unfortunately for her, she and her fellow pantywaist liberal Christians are largely responsible for causing this problem, and just about everything that she proposes as solutions will only make this problem worse. The more the Welfare State grows, the greater will become the chasm dividing people according to economic class and race in this country. The resentment across this divide is mutual: people on the receiving end of government hand-outs think they are entitled to them, and they resent the middle and upper class, and the middle class resents the poor people who are seen as leeches and as dragging down the overall level of the entire society. The only solution is a return to biblical blueprints for welfare, getting the government out of these activities and returning them to the family and the church.
Liberals love the Welfare State in part because it creates the illusion that everybody's needs are being adequately met WITHOUT any liberal actually having to go out and get his or her hands dirty. And of course that also applies to a lot of people who would not self-identify as liberals but for whom, nevertheless, the existence of the Welfare State is found to be mighty convenient.
Fortunately for the Gospel, however, such approaches are bound to FAIL and sooner or later (probably after the whole house of cards comes tumbling down) everyone is going to be forced to resume doing thing's God's way. Of course, by that time we will all be much poorer but from that point forward things will start to look up.
(Since that is about the only decent point she makes in this post, maybe Mrs. Mix could have substituted a link to John Ford's Stagecoach, as that movie has just about the same perspective and points as her post, but in a much more entertaining format.)
There is a great irony, however, in Mrs. Mix's charge that the great sin of the post-World War II church has been the deliberate neglect and avoidance of sinners, because one of the chief causes -- if not the number one cause -- of all the problems that she rightly points out in the latter part of the second paragraph and in subsequent paragraphs is -- you guessed it: the rise of the government welfare State. That's right, the government welfare State that Mrs. Mix so loves and wishes to see grow ever larger and stronger and more involved in all areas of life, as the foremost agency of God in promoting the well-being of people on this earth, is the primary isolator of the "prim and proper people" (the "haves") from what Mrs. Mix likes to refer to as the comfortable middle-class white church's "great unwashed" (the "have-nots").
So at least as regards the final part of the post in question, I have to congratulate Mrs. Mix on pointing to a very serious problem. Unfortunately for her, she and her fellow pantywaist liberal Christians are largely responsible for causing this problem, and just about everything that she proposes as solutions will only make this problem worse. The more the Welfare State grows, the greater will become the chasm dividing people according to economic class and race in this country. The resentment across this divide is mutual: people on the receiving end of government hand-outs think they are entitled to them, and they resent the middle and upper class, and the middle class resents the poor people who are seen as leeches and as dragging down the overall level of the entire society. The only solution is a return to biblical blueprints for welfare, getting the government out of these activities and returning them to the family and the church.
Liberals love the Welfare State in part because it creates the illusion that everybody's needs are being adequately met WITHOUT any liberal actually having to go out and get his or her hands dirty. And of course that also applies to a lot of people who would not self-identify as liberals but for whom, nevertheless, the existence of the Welfare State is found to be mighty convenient.
Fortunately for the Gospel, however, such approaches are bound to FAIL and sooner or later (probably after the whole house of cards comes tumbling down) everyone is going to be forced to resume doing thing's God's way. Of course, by that time we will all be much poorer but from that point forward things will start to look up.
Dr. Ron Paul's Rx for health insurance and more
Ron Paul on NPR: Leave Government Out of Insurance Plan (length of audio segment 8:26)
And the transcript is here.
This provides an extremely important and valuable perspective for Christians. We need to be stimulating CHURCH involvement in welfare, not STATE.
Trouble is, most people today -- including most Christians, I'm afraid -- are incapable of taking God at his word and instead feel that we must look to the State to be the vehicle for salvation in this world. This ties right into the other, even larger issue taken up in the second part of the NPR interview; namely, the evil Federal Reserve System that Ron Paul wants to see eliminated.
The vast majority of the Octopus State's tentacles would shrivel up and disappear if the Federal Reserve System was eliminated and free competition in the realm of money was restored. Gresham's Law is succinctly explained in the first sentence of this article: Bad money drives out good under legal tender laws. The corollary, of course is that when legal tender laws are eliminated and people have the freedom to enter into contracts using any method of settlement that they like, good money drives out bad. Anyone who really wants to strike at the root of the Welfare-Warfare State needs to push for the end of the Fed.
That the Fed is going to end seems almost a certainty, but the question is whether it will be ended as an act of political willpower driven by angry Tea Partyers* -- in which case perhaps the United States itself will survive -- or whether its end will coincide more or less with the split-up of the United States. Regardless of which direction things go in, Christians will need to take a larger role in the provision of welfare through works of charity, so we had better prepare for that day by redoubling our involvement with works of charity now. (Rev. Wilson's recent sermon is highly recommended in this context.)
* I am convinced that the Tea Partyers represent much more of an independent, emerging third party than they represent the interests of the Republican Party establishment. They are far more Libertarian, Conservative and Populist than Republican. Obama is feeling their heat but they're not nostalgic for Bush by any means.
And the transcript is here.
This provides an extremely important and valuable perspective for Christians. We need to be stimulating CHURCH involvement in welfare, not STATE.
Trouble is, most people today -- including most Christians, I'm afraid -- are incapable of taking God at his word and instead feel that we must look to the State to be the vehicle for salvation in this world. This ties right into the other, even larger issue taken up in the second part of the NPR interview; namely, the evil Federal Reserve System that Ron Paul wants to see eliminated.
The vast majority of the Octopus State's tentacles would shrivel up and disappear if the Federal Reserve System was eliminated and free competition in the realm of money was restored. Gresham's Law is succinctly explained in the first sentence of this article: Bad money drives out good under legal tender laws. The corollary, of course is that when legal tender laws are eliminated and people have the freedom to enter into contracts using any method of settlement that they like, good money drives out bad. Anyone who really wants to strike at the root of the Welfare-Warfare State needs to push for the end of the Fed.
That the Fed is going to end seems almost a certainty, but the question is whether it will be ended as an act of political willpower driven by angry Tea Partyers* -- in which case perhaps the United States itself will survive -- or whether its end will coincide more or less with the split-up of the United States. Regardless of which direction things go in, Christians will need to take a larger role in the provision of welfare through works of charity, so we had better prepare for that day by redoubling our involvement with works of charity now. (Rev. Wilson's recent sermon is highly recommended in this context.)
* I am convinced that the Tea Partyers represent much more of an independent, emerging third party than they represent the interests of the Republican Party establishment. They are far more Libertarian, Conservative and Populist than Republican. Obama is feeling their heat but they're not nostalgic for Bush by any means.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
The very quintessence of government "welfare"
If you want to understand the very quintessence of government welfare, you need to see the following three-part series of videos. The content is, frankly, deeply disturbing. It is the stuff of nightmares. Tragically, it is also the stuff of reality for thousands of children each year in the USA, with similar nightmares being played out in other "civilized" countries around the world.
Innocence Destroyed - Part 1 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Innocence Destroyed - Part 2 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Innocence Destroyed - Part 3 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Here we have the tyranny of good intentions in perhaps the most horrifying form imaginable. It is symptomatic and symbolic of all that is wrong with government welfare. There is no "good deed" that the government cannot manage to completely screw up and transform into a vehicle for the perpetration of great evil. Despite the best of intentions that people might have, everything from education to health care and all other forms of welfare provide a great stage for the government to prove, day in and day out, that "a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." The solution to this institutionalized cruelty is not "reform." The solution is to get the government out of areas where it has never had any legitimate role to begin with, and to put those functions back where they belong, with the church and the family. We must stop seeking salvation from the false god of the State and start seeking salvation from the one true living God. At the very least, if that is part of the lesson that people bring away from watching these videos, then the deaths of the children will not have been in vain.
Most if not all of the various welfare services ostensibly currently provided by the government are essential to the proper function of society, but in the nature of the case they can only fail when those functions are taken over by the State. The proper place for all of them is not under the authority of the State, but rather under the institutions of Family and Church. We must pray to God for help in restoring each of these institutions to their proper place in society. Until we do that, we are continuing to fail not only children like the ones in these videos, but all the people in our society who are in need of help.
See also:
Hitler Is Alive and Well in the Western World
Innocence Destroyed - Part 1 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Innocence Destroyed - Part 2 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Innocence Destroyed - Part 3 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Here we have the tyranny of good intentions in perhaps the most horrifying form imaginable. It is symptomatic and symbolic of all that is wrong with government welfare. There is no "good deed" that the government cannot manage to completely screw up and transform into a vehicle for the perpetration of great evil. Despite the best of intentions that people might have, everything from education to health care and all other forms of welfare provide a great stage for the government to prove, day in and day out, that "a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." The solution to this institutionalized cruelty is not "reform." The solution is to get the government out of areas where it has never had any legitimate role to begin with, and to put those functions back where they belong, with the church and the family. We must stop seeking salvation from the false god of the State and start seeking salvation from the one true living God. At the very least, if that is part of the lesson that people bring away from watching these videos, then the deaths of the children will not have been in vain.
Most if not all of the various welfare services ostensibly currently provided by the government are essential to the proper function of society, but in the nature of the case they can only fail when those functions are taken over by the State. The proper place for all of them is not under the authority of the State, but rather under the institutions of Family and Church. We must pray to God for help in restoring each of these institutions to their proper place in society. Until we do that, we are continuing to fail not only children like the ones in these videos, but all the people in our society who are in need of help.
See also:
Hitler Is Alive and Well in the Western World
(HT: Chris W., Don H.)
Shattered Lives: 100 Victims of KeelyCare
Read about it here.
To find out why it's called "KeelyCare," see her post here.
Why is the profit motive evil in the area of health care? Why don't we allow complete unregulated freedom in the health care industry, so that anyone could offer their goods and services freely to anyone else? Free competition would ensure the best possible health care solution for each person's needs and circumstances, just as free competition in the personal computer industry is good for consumers of personal computers. Health care providers would not cease to be liable for malpractice, just as a building contractor who screws up can be sued. (Some people might also opt for arbitration as an alternative to litigation, but in any case there would be avenues to the redressing of legitimate grievances even without the ridiculous over-regulation of the health care industry that we see today.)
If you want to ensure that something becomes expensive and in short supply, regulate it heavily.
It is telling that Mrs. Mix asserts,
It's appropriate to use Romans 13 as a primer . . . if God's instrument on this earth for doing corporate good is human government, then Christians really ought to expect that "doing good" for poor people is a duty properly discharged by the State. Not ONLY by the State, but primarily by the State as the means through which social welfare is protected on a grand societal scale out of reach for individuals and the Church.
Yikes. I'm having trouble deciding whether I want to file that statement under Hegelianism or Christianity. Not only is that quite a contortion of Romans 13:4, she seems to have overlooked the fact that verse 8-10 says quite plainly:
Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Love is in the nature of the case uncoerced except as a duty of conscience within individuals and groups owed to God Himself. Taxes that are used for welfare (including but hardly limited to health care) are taken by armed force -- the power of the sword. By no stretch of any consistent reasoning or biblical hermeneutic can "welfare" by civil government be equated with or considered a form of charity.
But Mrs. Mix DOES want to tell us that this is indeed charity. She writes of "Jesus' people [complaining bitterly] when asked to contribute through taxation for the benefit of the poor" (emphasis mine). Gee, when those IRS agents crashed through the door with their battering ram, dressed like a SWAT team with guns drawn and with large snarling dogs straining at their leashes, I never imagined that they were simply coming to ask if I wanted to contribute to a worthy cause.
The commands of Matthew 25:31-40 are NOT fulfilled by government welfare. Those commands can only be fulfilled by direct, personal involvement with people in need. (Some delegation of tasks might be legitimate in this context -- even churches have deacons -- but the personal and volitional aspects and personal accountability must always be present, and those features are decidedly absent from government welfare.) Of course Mrs. Mix does not think that the State is to be the exclusive agency of social welfare, but she does clearly see it as the primary instrument on earth through which God works to provide welfare. This all the more amazing when one considers Mrs. Mix's clear hostility to the idea of a State officially confessing the Christian faith. Somehow she expects that in order to be in conformity with God's will, the State must provide massive government welfare programs but simultaneously must NOT be confessionally Christian. (As that would be getting into the dreaded Theonomy.)
When you read above-linked post by Mrs. Mix, it is quite clear that she wants the government to be kinda, sorta Christian. And yet she does not want it to be confessionally Christian: that would be evil. Go figure.
The irony, of course, is that when the most powerful institution on earth is kinda, sorta Christian, but is adamantly NOT confessionally Christian, it is in fact a rival religion. It is idolatrous.
If you give someone a sandwich while failing to give him the gospel, that is not charity. There is no charity in that. But this is exactly what government welfare does. Even Bush's "faith-based initiative" fiasco expressly enjoined recipients of funding from proselytizing or sharing the gospel! How any Christian can support approaches to welfare that are antagonistic to true biblical charity is beyond me.
We don't need to concern ourselves with whether the government has good intentions or evil intentions when it engages in government "welfare" activities. Regardless of what the intentions might be, the long-term outcome of such activities is always evil. Regardless of whether they are intended or unintended, the consequences are just as real, and just as pernicious.
To find out why it's called "KeelyCare," see her post here.
Why is the profit motive evil in the area of health care? Why don't we allow complete unregulated freedom in the health care industry, so that anyone could offer their goods and services freely to anyone else? Free competition would ensure the best possible health care solution for each person's needs and circumstances, just as free competition in the personal computer industry is good for consumers of personal computers. Health care providers would not cease to be liable for malpractice, just as a building contractor who screws up can be sued. (Some people might also opt for arbitration as an alternative to litigation, but in any case there would be avenues to the redressing of legitimate grievances even without the ridiculous over-regulation of the health care industry that we see today.)
If you want to ensure that something becomes expensive and in short supply, regulate it heavily.
It is telling that Mrs. Mix asserts,
It's appropriate to use Romans 13 as a primer . . . if God's instrument on this earth for doing corporate good is human government, then Christians really ought to expect that "doing good" for poor people is a duty properly discharged by the State. Not ONLY by the State, but primarily by the State as the means through which social welfare is protected on a grand societal scale out of reach for individuals and the Church.
Yikes. I'm having trouble deciding whether I want to file that statement under Hegelianism or Christianity. Not only is that quite a contortion of Romans 13:4, she seems to have overlooked the fact that verse 8-10 says quite plainly:
Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Love is in the nature of the case uncoerced except as a duty of conscience within individuals and groups owed to God Himself. Taxes that are used for welfare (including but hardly limited to health care) are taken by armed force -- the power of the sword. By no stretch of any consistent reasoning or biblical hermeneutic can "welfare" by civil government be equated with or considered a form of charity.
But Mrs. Mix DOES want to tell us that this is indeed charity. She writes of "Jesus' people [complaining bitterly] when asked to contribute through taxation for the benefit of the poor" (emphasis mine). Gee, when those IRS agents crashed through the door with their battering ram, dressed like a SWAT team with guns drawn and with large snarling dogs straining at their leashes, I never imagined that they were simply coming to ask if I wanted to contribute to a worthy cause.
The commands of Matthew 25:31-40 are NOT fulfilled by government welfare. Those commands can only be fulfilled by direct, personal involvement with people in need. (Some delegation of tasks might be legitimate in this context -- even churches have deacons -- but the personal and volitional aspects and personal accountability must always be present, and those features are decidedly absent from government welfare.) Of course Mrs. Mix does not think that the State is to be the exclusive agency of social welfare, but she does clearly see it as the primary instrument on earth through which God works to provide welfare. This all the more amazing when one considers Mrs. Mix's clear hostility to the idea of a State officially confessing the Christian faith. Somehow she expects that in order to be in conformity with God's will, the State must provide massive government welfare programs but simultaneously must NOT be confessionally Christian. (As that would be getting into the dreaded Theonomy.)
When you read above-linked post by Mrs. Mix, it is quite clear that she wants the government to be kinda, sorta Christian. And yet she does not want it to be confessionally Christian: that would be evil. Go figure.
The irony, of course, is that when the most powerful institution on earth is kinda, sorta Christian, but is adamantly NOT confessionally Christian, it is in fact a rival religion. It is idolatrous.
If you give someone a sandwich while failing to give him the gospel, that is not charity. There is no charity in that. But this is exactly what government welfare does. Even Bush's "faith-based initiative" fiasco expressly enjoined recipients of funding from proselytizing or sharing the gospel! How any Christian can support approaches to welfare that are antagonistic to true biblical charity is beyond me.
We don't need to concern ourselves with whether the government has good intentions or evil intentions when it engages in government "welfare" activities. Regardless of what the intentions might be, the long-term outcome of such activities is always evil. Regardless of whether they are intended or unintended, the consequences are just as real, and just as pernicious.
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.'
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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.
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.'
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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.
"Cross" + "hug" = "thug"
Thanks to Keely Emerine-Mix I am steadily learning to overcome my many prejudices and see the world through new, more truly Christian eyes. For example, in this post, she takes a critic to task for failing to remember Hebrews 10:33-34 when he writes of the "gun-to-your-head" thievery of the State in providing for the poor:
"Partly, whilst ye were made a spectacle both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion on me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance."
Now this is very interesting indeed. First, it is interesting because normally the first verses that come to mind in thinking of welfare -- especially health care -- for those outside the faith would be the parable of the Good Samaritan. However, Mrs. Mix can't cite those verses in this case because the content of that story makes her interlocutor's point that welfare is to be personal, direct, and voluntary, rather than impersonal, indirect, and involuntary as when the State comes and holds a gun to your head to take your money and give it to somebody else.
So it is a good thing that Mrs. Mix had this passage to refer to, because I was able to realize how I had been misunderstanding and misapplying it all along. Silly me, I used to think that this was describing how the State -- or some institution able to get the civil magistrate to cooperate in wielding the power of the sword -- was persecuting Christians for their faith, and the recipients of the epistle were being praised for their willingness to be persecuted for their faith at the hands of the State, and to share in the sufferings of others so persecuted. I had been under the mistaken impression that this implied that what the State was doing to these people was evil. But now, thanks to Mrs. Mix's excellent exegesis, I can see that what the State was doing there was actually a Very Good and Praiseworthy Thing, something that we can cite today as a reason why Christians should support all sorts of government welfare programs.
"Partly, whilst ye were made a spectacle both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion on me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance."
Now this is very interesting indeed. First, it is interesting because normally the first verses that come to mind in thinking of welfare -- especially health care -- for those outside the faith would be the parable of the Good Samaritan. However, Mrs. Mix can't cite those verses in this case because the content of that story makes her interlocutor's point that welfare is to be personal, direct, and voluntary, rather than impersonal, indirect, and involuntary as when the State comes and holds a gun to your head to take your money and give it to somebody else.
So it is a good thing that Mrs. Mix had this passage to refer to, because I was able to realize how I had been misunderstanding and misapplying it all along. Silly me, I used to think that this was describing how the State -- or some institution able to get the civil magistrate to cooperate in wielding the power of the sword -- was persecuting Christians for their faith, and the recipients of the epistle were being praised for their willingness to be persecuted for their faith at the hands of the State, and to share in the sufferings of others so persecuted. I had been under the mistaken impression that this implied that what the State was doing to these people was evil. But now, thanks to Mrs. Mix's excellent exegesis, I can see that what the State was doing there was actually a Very Good and Praiseworthy Thing, something that we can cite today as a reason why Christians should support all sorts of government welfare programs.
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