Faith, Hope, Charity and Government

A few years ago, as I was beginning to understand what the message of the Gospel, and our call as Christians to love others and do acts of mercy, I coined the following:

Taxes are not tithes.
Programs are not charity.
Policy is not Love.

An act of charity is not a line item in a budget, nor a bureacracy, nor can it be made automatic like paying bills or renewing library books, nor it is case management; it requires that actual human hands do work, get dirty, touch, and hold. While charity and mercy demand that human souls and human hearts extend compassion, hospitality and care. Too often, we want to create a system that cares, so that no person in need will go without, but forget that only individual human beings can care, only flesh and blood individuals motivated by love can lay on hands and heal, can provide real sustenance for the poor. Social Democracy is not, despite what many of its advocates pine for, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. And it can’t be.

Remember, Caesar’s sustenance is theft and his means is murder. Churches take Caesar’s money, and integrate tightly with Caesar’s welfare state, at the risk of losing their souls and their ability to witness to the truth. Being the church also means understanding that for us, ends and means — love, mercy, grace, salvation — are one in the same. There are no Gospel ends, and no ends the church should be interested in, that can be achieved by Caesar’s means.

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10:48 pm on March 21, 2006