I think Mother Teresa (were she still alive) might disagree with you.

Yes, too many Churches have turned into a comfortable sunday ritual for their members, but there are still a lot of Christians doing charitable works; e.g. The Salvation Army, The Gideons, countless missionaries…

A 13 yr old with a baby? I suppose she does need help- but remember it’s better to teach a man to fish, than to just give him one. Welfare sucks. Charity is good.

Especially since the Christian churches have pretty much ignored Christ’s many commandments to feed the hungry and cloth the poor
and have abdicated that job to the government

I’ts great that any government wants to help the poor, but let’s not be dishonest and claim it’s charity to try and make oneself look good. Especially since so many politicians are giving away other peoples’ money, but still drive around in cadillacs, go on lavish vacations and wear designer clothes.

Then there’s the issue of which is better- welfare or charity? Morally, charity is better. Someone helping others less fortunate, through personal sacrifice. Welfare on the otherhand, pays people to do nothing, and is handed out with little oversight and lots of fraud.

Overall you’re correct- as a nation, we should be more charitable. But we should also not be communist and redistribute wealth and create a class of lazy tax sponges.

And people who are living in cars or under bridges really could care less if the church or the government gives them something to eat and even less if it was a voluntary donation or someone else’s money.

My take is, if it OK to force people to pay for war…I’m not going to get all upset when the government forces me to pay to help a starving family living out of their car in the middle of winter.

I think your comment should have read “…too many churches are too busy building…” Because even one church more interested in expansion over charity is one too many.

And I agree with you (and Jesse Ventura) about Church being more social club- far too many people robotically go to church without really thinking about why they should be going.

But as for Government stepping in… it’s not charity if it’s not voluntary. And it’s not chairty of you’re giving away someone else’s money. If it is, then I’d be inclined to stop giving to anything- even the girl scouts cookie drives. I gave at the W-2.

So Government has had to step in where the Churches have failed.

The "welfare" system did not even come into existence until the last 60 or so years…….we have been a nation since at least 1776 ? Go figure. Up to then, it was every man for himself ? Or was it the Christian charity that got those less fortunate to make it thru each day ?

When the welfare system was established, it was intended to be only a temporary system. That did not occur as the world has continued to progress in economic fashion, which leads to duress for the lower sections of society on the tails of the higher classes of society's failures/setbacks in economic progress. Do you see, it is just a confusing and agitating mess we live in ? Yet, the point is that the governments of our society can easily and readily take tax-dollars from us, but never have they shown the ability to responsibly spend those dollars.

That is the "Conservative" gripe. It is not to prevent the ability to help those in need, but the "needy" also must use given resources to get back into society as a positive functioning person…….this agenda is never on the "so-called" government-party's mind. Certain government peoples wish welfare to be a permanent fixture, with no recourse to the recipients. It's like establishing birth control instead of teaching responsibility……which is far more important than abstinence. Easy solution : let teens be sexually active, thus result in more need for "welfare-type" programs.
My personal opinion is that it all leads to a 2-class system, with the so-called "middle" becoming a nonentity except for the provider in tax funds to the State/Feds.
We mostly have no quarrel with paying taxes, just the abuse of said funds given. They always want more.
Look at us now and the debt this nation is in……….when we Christians just wish our Government to be as responsible with OUR money as we are with what they let us keep at home. !!!!!
Christian ethics teach responsibility. Christian charity gives out of love. Christian desire is for the recipient to receive and learn to be fruitful……….not maintain a "needy" status. The "needy" status is the government-run program set up to continual tax the "not"-needy progressive. Christianity has no merit system for heavenly blessings……..save those psycho-church peoples……..Government funded welfare takes dollars and has no self-preservation beyond taxation and political motivation.

Chad is right, for the world we wish, our G'ment cannot get the job done. Christian peoples can, by their merit and value. (oops, must say that is the prob with the political peoples).

But regardless…….in a nutshell, quit frieking taxing us so damn much for more programs for the poor when their should be programs to help them but MORESO to make them (help them) get off their azz and become a productive citizen instead of a welfare-bum lifer. Most "real" Christian peoples are not bums : from that sentiment, I rest my case. Some have no choice, I understand, but the entirety of the situation is not the minority.

For those who wish Christianity to have nothing to do with the problems in the world………no wonder your world is so troubled as to need such help. If you "need" welfare for yourself or your friend or whoever, maybe try Christianity instead.
If everyone was out here giving………..their'd be none in need. Government needs those "needy" to sell a vote to. That is why the Dems push for all kinds of social reforms………..they reform nothing, just add a taxable program to deal with it. Keep the needy needy and they are in business. If they cured every illness there'd be no need for a health-care reform.

I do believe that the sentiment you express is noble, but ultimately bankrupt, because it robs people of their autonomy, and their personal responsibility. What follows from that is a situation where people are made to support the poor (and anything else Uncle Sugar deems appropriate) on the basis of coercion. Such a system never produces the humanity we want.

Your assertion also assumes that it's the place of the state to provide this support for the poor a priori, and that the state is capable of being the best arbiter of truth when dealing with the poor. As such, your conclusion is erroneous. It was never the government's job to make love compulsory through the legislative power of the state. Moreover, the government has shown over and over again that is it utterly inept at providing this support in an effective manner.

It doesn't take much digging to see how this view of mandated charity has impacted our culture. Has it produced a heart change in those participating in this system? Are things much better in terms of the spiritual condition of the nation and thus our ability to help our fellow man? Are those who "benefit" from this system finding a way out of it or are they hopelessly dependent on it? The answers to these questions show us that such a philosophy doesn't work.

Good intentions aside, your view actually makes matters worse, because it robs people of their autonomy in the area of giving and replaces that autonomy with the weakest form of "charity" imaginable–one where man-made government is God, and Jesus is relegated to the philosophical scrap heap. Ironically, it is the latter who is the only one capable of producing the kind of world you and I both want.