Government Charity

In the years prior to the 20th century, the standard source of charity for many societies (including the United States) was the Church. And well it should be. Many commands in Scripture address feeding the poor, tending to the sick, helping the homeless, caring for widows and orphans, all that sort of thing. To this day a large portion of charitable organizations and hospitals are still connected to the Church. (For some reason many of the detractors of Christianity today seem to forget that little detail.) However, for the last century or so, the task of caring for the needy has shifted from the Church to the government.

The biggest shift in America took place during the Great Depression. President Roosevelt enacted the Social Security Act to take care of the older generation. Other programs followed immediately. Today we have a host of government welfare programs that include Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program, and Medicaid. Entire government agencies have been constructed to manage these programs, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And now the debate is on regarding health care reform and the role of the government in it.

I am (again) not going to debate whether or not the President's plan is a good one. I'm not going to even argue (this time) whether it is a Christian issue or not. What I want to comment on here is something most of us don't think about in this dialog that includes all of the government programs of this type. I want to look at what we lose. No, not taxes. I'm talking about what we as Christians lose in this configuration.

There is a standard proverbial concept with which most of us are familiar: You generally value more highly those things you work for. When I was a kid, my brother and I wanted to go to summer camp with the church group. We needed $50 each. Dad put us to work. We spent weeks tearing out the dense plant life that owned our back yard. We cut down trees, removed bamboo plants, cut back overgrowth ... it was a summer of work. For that work my dad paid us $50 each. We went to camp. Now, note that my father didn't save himself any money. He could have paid the money to send us, but instead he simply had us earn it. But that camp was different than any other because we earned it. You see, you generally value more highly those things you work for.

We are expected, as Christians, to take care of people in need. Jesus expects His people to feed the hungry, give hospitality to the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned (Matt 25:35-36). (Odd ... He doesn't say, "provide health care for the sick", but rather "visit the sick". But I digress.) Paul commended the believers in Macedonia. He says "In a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality" (2 Cor 8:2). That is, they didn't give when they had much. No, they gave "beyond their ability" (2 Cor 8:3). Love is the mark of a Christian, and giving is one of the marks of love. Further, Paul urges believers, "Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary" (Gal 6:9).

Enter the question of government and charity. Government took over because the Church couldn't bear the load anymore. Why couldn't the Church bear the load? Well, a new, popular teaching told Christians, "You don't need to tithe. That's Old Testament. We are in a new Dispensation." To this day we are generally told, "Tithing is then, not now. You know ... 'the Lord loves a cheerful giver' ..." as if "I'm not a cheerful giver" is a perfectly good reason to withhold from God what is rightly His. We have become increasingly more self-absorbed until some of the commands from Scripture seem ludicrous to us. Take, for instance, this "ridiculous" statement:

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not look out simply for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others (Phil 2:3-4).

"I mean ... seriously, Paul. Regard others as more important than myself? Don't you know that loving others starts with loving myself? And how can it be a good thing to look out for the personal interests of others over my own? Sure, once I'm taken care of I'll look out for others, but I have needs, Paul."

We now see our taxes as performing the charity we are required to perform. Someone else is doing it, aren't they? I'm paying, aren't I? What's the big deal? Of course, we don't know if the tax money we paid went to fix a road or to feed a hungry family, do we? Nor do we particularly care. Someone is doing it. What's the big deal? Of course, the truth is that someone is not doing it. We still have needy, homeless, poor, sick, and imprisoned people. But my point is that what we lose when we hand it over to government care is our obedience. What we lose is that reaping Paul promised. What we lose when we leave these things to the government is the blessing of doing what we ought, the joy of obedience, the peace of participation. Having not worked for it ourselves, we value less the charity we ourselves are supposed to give and offer excuses for not doing it ourselves.

Is it a bad thing that government is helping the poor or feeding the hungry or wanting to fix the health care issue? I would guess not in terms of those being helped. But it certainly is in terms of the loss Christians are experiencing for failing to tithe, to give, to love. My government was never commanded to do those things. I was. When we surrender to others what God has asked from us, we become disobedient children. That is our loss. Is it wrong for the government to do those things? Not really. It is wrong for Christians to require of the government what God required of us.