5/30/2005

Christianity And The Welfare State

I have written several posts about the traditional relationship between politics and religion in the United States here, here, and here. I have rightly pointed out that the words "separation of church and state" do not appear in the constitution and that the constitution merely prohibits Congress from establishing a state church or restricting religious freedom. It is very much impossible to keep religion out of government because religion is a part of our culture. Even Congress opens every session with a prayer, given by a chaplain paid with public money. Many in the Democratic Party often accuse conservatives like Bill Frist of violating the mythical separation of church and state by showing up in a church and appealing to religious people. But we all know those accusations are just politics, because when it comes to justifying the welfare state that the Democratic party has used to create their constituency, the Democrats seem to have no problem mixing religion and politics. Roger Banks has written an excellent commentary on the subject of the Democratic party and their use of Christianity to further their agenda, which is to create an underclass of people and keep them dependent on the government. Here are a couple of excerpts but I highly suggest you read the whole article.

Failed presidential candidate John Kerry, for example, persists in appealing to the New Testament's book of James. "Faith without works is dead," Kerry intones, suggesting that "works" here includes the works of lawmakers as they spend other people's money. n a similar fashion, Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, is wont to quote the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus teaches that "[i]nasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Pelosi says doing unto the least means raising more taxes for entitlement programs.

Even DNC Chairman Howard Dean, who kicked off Bush's second term with "I hate Republicans," recently accused the ones he hates of violating the biblical command to "love thy neighbor as thyself"

Personally, I have never understood the virtue in the idea of an extremely rich person like John Kerry telling a working person like me that he is a better man than the other candidate because he believes in taking money from one group of people and giving it to another. Would it not say more of his character if he was to convince his wife to liquidate all of her assets and give the money to the poor? Remember Jesus told the rich man that he should sell everything he owned and give it to the poor. He didn't tell the rich man to keep all of his wealth and then convince the Romans to tax the heck out of everyone else so that the supposedly poor could keep both of their vehicles, air conditioning, cable television, computer, and high speed internet access.

Also, is all of this so called "help" really doing anybody any good. Think about it. Say you have an adult son whom you love so much that you are willing to give him anything he needs. You provide him with a place to live for as long as he wants to live there. You give him all of the food he wants. Since you have so much and he has so little, you also give him a little cash to spend. Since this adult child has always had his needs provided, he never develops any skills, he never gets an education, and because of this he never develops any self respect. By keeping him dependent on your aid and taking away any incentive for him to better himself, have you really helped him. Did you really show him love of God? No you did not.

No comments: