And They Call Themselves Christians...

Greetings from the Left Coast!

I have several Facebook Friends who are, shall we say, quite a ways to the left side of the political spectrum. Wonderful people otherwise, but definitely part of the group for which the Left Coast is named. On several occasions, I've seen conservative political views criticized as lacking basic human compassion, and heard some variation of, "And they call themselves Christians? What must Jesus be thinking now?" This has always bothered me at a visceral level, but it took me a while to figure out exactly why:

Jesus taught that we should care for the needy personally. He never taught that we should turn that job over to government and let government do it for us. I believe there are two good reasons why personal involvement is better than government involvement.

First, Jesus never taught that anyone should be forced to care for the needy. There is no spiritual benefit in doing the right thing because you are forced to do it. That, in fact, is the essence of the doctrine of human "agency" - that we are free to choose to do what God asks of us, or not to do so. But when the government forcibly takes money from someone (which, after all, is what taxation fundamentally amounts to), even for the best of causes, that person's agency had nothing to do with it. Left to his or her own devices, that person might or might not have chosen to give to the cause in question...but it's a moot point. That person won't get the opportunity to make that moral judgment, for better or for worse.

Second, and this is possibly more subtle, by shifting the responsibility to the government, we don't have to take any responsibility ourselves. We don't have to personally face the poor, the orphan, the widow, the sick, the dying. We can, in fact, ignore them and go on with our lives, because, after all, there's a government program to take care of them.

So I submit that it is not at all a violation of Christian principles to want to place limits on government-imposed income redistribution and the creeping expansion of the "Nanny State." And I find it interesting that conservatives, who tend to want those limits, are, statistically, more charitable personally than liberals. Conservative families give more than liberal families, across the board, in every income bracket. Republicans, statistically, are more charitable than Democrats. "Red" states are more charitable than "blue" states. The residents there volunteer more, both for religious and secular causes. They're even more likely to donate blood.

Does that mean that we should remove all government safety nets? No, not at all. But if I had to judge which philosophy was more consistent with the teachings of Jesus - to say, "We need to raise taxes so we can fund another government program," or to say, "No, it's not the government's job to do this, it's my job, and I'll put my money where my mouth is!" - I would have to say it's the latter.

Thanks for listening.