Scripture doesn't command us to create more government programs
It's up to individuals to act with kindness, compassion, and love
In his testimony last winter supporting Medicaid expansion for postpartum moms, Idaho Chooses Life Executive Director David Ripley told House and Senate committees that “Scripture commands us we have a duty to take care of women and babies in need.” He urged legislators to expand the government-run medical welfare program to cover women and babies for a year following pregnancy, and that’s what the Idaho Legislature did.
Ripley’s comments are, at best, a misapplication of biblical teachings, and at worst, an affront to what it means to be Christ-like in that he is indirectly preaching abandonment of our human moral obligations for kindness, compassion, and love,
I’m not sure how a person can conclude that a government program built on theft through taxation and monetary devaluation is supported in the same text that makes a commandment out of not stealing.
The Bible instructs its readers to care for the needy; it does not insist we create government programs that make the poor someone else’s problem so that we are no longer required to care.
Outsourcing interest in the wellbeing of new moms not only breaks the commandment regarding theft but also frees people from ever having to consider their role in improving the lives of people in need.
Supporters of Medicaid expansion are also wrong when they presume the issue is all about moms. It’s not. It’s about money. It’s about the doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies that benefit from a new pool of enrollees.
And Medicaid is often the gateway program for the mass medication of people with fabricated diagnoses of depression, anxiety, ADHD, and other mental health conditions. The use of such medications and the need for doctors’ visits to sustain them will extend beyond the 12-month life of the program.
To meet our spiritual and moral obligations, churches, charities, mutual aid societies, neighborhood groups, and individuals have, historically, done the work of lifting the poor out of poverty, caring for the sick, and defending the weak. This requires individual involvement, a dedication of time, talent, and money. And it worked really well until the rise of the welfare state in the 1930s and 1960s.
Equally noteworthy is the fact that this individual involvement is voluntary and doesn’t require theft to achieve its goals. It requires an allocation of individual resources, much the same as found in another biblical teaching about loving our neighbors as ourselves: that of the Good Samaritan who rendered aid to a stranger beaten by robbers on the road to Jerico, after two others passed by.
“Which of these three,” Jesus asked, “was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers.”
“The one who showed him mercy,” came the answer.
"Go and do likewise,” responded Jesus.
Which of these modalities is the most Christ-like response: The creation of a government program that allows us to walk past people in need without a care in the world, or the voluntary application of our own individual compassion, love, and kindness to those that are hurting?
Let me know in the comments.
Sometimes the problem is too big to be helped by a friend. The past week is an example.
In this case, it will take the whole country. We are not in the year 5784 B C E.
We will need someone to coordinate the help we call this person a politician.