The notion, here, is that the church ought to take in the homeless, feed the hungry, and help the sick who can't afford treatment. It's a fine idea, but one that has flaws; namely, why isn't it happening, already?
If we want the church to take over this function, there's nothing stopping us. In fact, if every homeless person was allowed to stay in a local church, then we would have succeeded in taking that responsibility from the government. Problem solved.
But that's not what's happening. Instead, I commonly hear argument that demand the church take over these functions, but only after they have been relinquished by the government. They want the government to hand over this responsibility to the church, even though "the church" doesn't have centralized leadership of any sort. (Particularly here in the U.S., where I hear this sort of thing argued.)
You know...this is a boring blog entry and I'm surprised you're still reading. I'm boring myself as I type it. No wonder no one reads my website. I've got to find some better topics. Come back, next week, and I'll try to have something better. Sheesh.
She just read my blog.
9 comments:
I read it all the time. Didn't find this boring til you told me it was, either. ;)
I read it too... but I'm more of a back row reader.
I'm not sure I buy the argument that the church isn't doing this job already. All of the churches I've ever attended had significant part of their budget for benevolence, and most soup kitchens / homeless shelters in the Bible belt are religiously run.
She just read your blog, and that's why all the people are intently leaning in to hear her report on what she read!
And agreed. The church SHOULD do it. But the church isn't doing it on any sort of scale that is necessary.
There's also the inherent problem with separation of church and state, since churches would almost invariably end up receiving government funds to help defray costs.
It's been proven that the state's with the highest taxes have the lowest charitable donations and vice versa. I realize correlation does not prove causation, but if people think that the many tax dollars they're giving to the government are taking care of the job, they'll think "I've taken care of my responsibility to the poor" and will not be disposed to give charitably. This switch from private to public "charity" has happened gradually enough that I do believe that people have adjusted their mindsets.
Well, crud. The blog entry that bores me to tears is the one people want to talk about. I have no idea what I'm doing.
I wasn't bored, but I began to be truly entertained when you thought you were getting boring.
I think we all agree here that the Church should be doing this.
We probably also agree that any Christian who wants the government to stop doing welfare but isn't actively looking after welfare in his own neighborhood through his own local church, isn't doing his job.
The real question, I suppose, is this: Until the whole church does its whole job, should the government should do more, less, or just the same amount of welfare?
(I have heard of statistics that say that the church does a better job when the government gets out of the welfare business, but I don't remember where I heard this.)
(Not wanting the government to do more is not the same thing as wanting them to do less. Some inarticulate Christians may be in this category.)
I gotta agree with Jared. There's lots of complaints though from people who haven't shook hands with a homeless person in there life. One of the biggest complaints against shelters though are the rules. *shrug*
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