Clarifying a response

A reader going by the name “Anonymous” has raised some issue with my rant about Jim Wallis. I wanted to address those comments and perhaps clarify things a bit.

First is this comment:

"I am skeptical about Wallis' views on what the Bible says about poverty as well. Jesus talked about poor people in the sense that they were blessed, and loving them was a way to share the love of Jesus Christ. I don't recall the Bible commanding us to create social programs to train them in marketable skills."




Yeah, and Paul said everyone should stay in their current state and be content whether slave or free so why did we free all those useful cotton-pickers during the Civil War days?
Are you saying that because Jesus called the sufferers blessed that we should try to prolong others' suffering whenever possible?

OK, Mr. Anonymous uses some interesting logic here. I made a statement outlining what the Bible DOESN’T say, and Anonymous twists around something that the Bible does say.

Think about this: What is the theme and subject of the entire Bible in a nutshell?
The entire Bible is the story of God’s plan to redeem his people (that is, us). When you are reading the Bible, you are not only reading what God wants of his people in general, but what He wants of you specifically. Therefore, when Paul is talking to those who are slaves, he is telling them to stay in their current state and obey their masters. But nowhere does he say that it’s OK for Christians to hold and keep slaves.

Again, this is about the individual Christian. When the God or Jesus talks about compassion and caring for the poor, he is speaking to YOU, the individual. What’s in your heart? What are you doing personally to help the poor? How is your personal relationship with God Almighty?

When you create government programs to take care of what Christ was expecting we would take care of personally, or with our own wages, we are avoiding the problem. We are also requiring everyone to give to that government program whether they want to or not. That’s not a Christian response to poverty.

Another comment from Mr. (or Ms?) Anonymous:

One side says there should be no free ride, that you should keep what you earn, we only give to the 'deserving' poor. This seems more Republican-y. The word on the street is that most mainline Christians are Republican.

The other side says we need to share the wealth, that there should be a 'free' ride' (grace?) for everyone, that we should be willing to sacrifice our owned 'earned' luxuries to lift the level of others. This would be a more Democratic stance.
So how come the "democratic' view sounds so much more Biblical? If God is truly our source, then our resources are unlimited, why can't we try living that out?

OK, in the first part there is this: “…we only give to the ‘deserving’ poor” is not a statement I’m familiar with. I’m not really sure what the commenter is saying there. It is a very conservative value that you should be able to keep what you earn. The Bible, however, lays down a pretty firm command that you should give of your own wages to the Church and charity. Which is different than the government telling you where your wages should go.

In the second statement, I think the reader doesn’t quite get what Biblical Grace is about. God’s grace is found in Christ, that knowing he could crush us at any moment due to our constant sinning against him, he instead offers up his Son as a propitiation for us, so that faith is all we need to be forgiven by God.

What the reader is talking about here is socialism. Equity of results. That no matter how much you slack at home, the government will take care of you. It’s all about economics and not about God at all. You are not showing grace, you are allowing people to rest on the burden of taxpayers.

If people get caught up in the welfare of the state, they lose the motivation to work for themselves, and therefore have no wages earned of themselves, and therefore have less to give to God when the time comes. It’s been a problem for the last 30 years, that people on welfare have a hard time getting motivated to get off of it.

You want to give to the poor the way a Christian SHOULD give to the poor? Give of your own wages (charity or someone you know who is struggling), drop it anonymously (which shouldn’t be hard for the commenter) in their mail slot in an envelope with nothing on it except the words, “From: God.”