As Easter approaches, I am reminded of the Great Divide.

During the healthcare debate, we were constantly reminded by Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the usual tax-and-spend suspects, that this healthcare bill was not only going to solve all of our collective problems, but that it was also going to provide healthcare coverage for those who don’t currently have coverage.  We were collectively asked how we could continue to let people in this country go without healthcare insurance, as if it was a right ingrained in the Constitution.  The implied judgment, at least of the left, is that if you are unwilling to pay your fair sure, so that others less fortunate can have health insurance, then you’re just not as righteous as they are.  Of course, coming from the crowd that thinks discernment in anything is akin to damning someone for all eternity, this implied judgment reeks of hypocrisy. 

However it does expose a certain religiosity that liberals adhere to.  I think they truly believe that they are doing a good work when they consider ways to get the government to take care of people.  Unfortunately it only proves how shallow their understanding of all things religious really is and exposes some serious questions that should be answered.

Does the righteousness of providing healthcare for the poor outweigh the theft that must occur before that healthcare can be provided?  If you have to fund a social program at the point of the gun, that is equivalent to theft.  If I’m not willingly handing the money over, you are taking it by force.  Liberals will of course counter that the ends justify the means.  But if you are making the case that the ends are righteous, should the means to get there be righteous as well?

That leads to the second question, is virtue still virtue if it is coerced?  While it may be virtuous to help those in need, the virtue is in doing so voluntarily.  When I give money to my church or a charity, I do so voluntarily and out of a desire to help others and please my Creator. When the government takes money coercively, even for supposed virtuous ends, it removes the virtue because I have no choice in the matter.

That in turn leads to another question.  Why is it so important to help people using the power of government when there is such pathetic accountability of how the funds are disbursed?   I can choose to personally give money to organizations that I know are going to wisely use the funds that I worked hard for.  The government removes the virtuousness of being a wise steward of the resources that I have.  We all know that government wastes money.   Recent stories of stimulus waste barely cause a raised eyebrow from the mainstream media because it is simply assumed that government wastes money.  But when I give to a charity directly, I can hold them accountable for how those funds are used and choose to spend my resources elsewhere if they are not good stewards.  Unfortunately, complaints of federal agencies abusing the public trust generally fall on deaf ears.

While using the power of government to help people seems like a noble goal, in reality it is just a pathetic attempt to assuage collective guilt for not personally helping those in need.  After all, if you can get the government to take care of someone who has made a mess of life, without being personally involved in the dirty details of their mess, even if all you did was coordinate the theft of resources, at least you’ve done something good, right?  Who needs real compassion when you can force others into corporate benevolence? 

The book, “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism” by Arthur Brooks, a professor of economics at Syracuse University, makes a strong case that liberal claims of compassion are really nothing more than that – just (unsupportable) claims.  For example, in 2004, 25 states’ charitable giving was above the national average.  Of those 25 states, Bush carried 24 in the 2004 elections.  If you use that ever popular distinction of red versus blue, in the 10 reddest states, which went for Bush by margins of 60%, the average charitable giving was 3.5% of income.  But residents of the blue states, where Bush got less than 40% of the vote only gave 1.9% of their income.  Statistically speaking then, red states gave 84% more of their income to charity, which is amazing considering that according to Brooks, liberal households on average make 6% more than their conservative counterparts.  Brooks also points out that on average, conservative households give $1600 a year, while liberal households only give $1227. 

Which brings me back to the Great Divide.  Why is there such a discrepancy between liberals’ talk, who claim the mantle of good, Christian benevolence, and Conservatives’ actions, who are supposed to be greed-driven capitalists?  Conservatives, especially those of us who call ourselves Christians, help the poor and give to charities not because we are trying to meet some government quota, but because our faith compels us to.  Scripture, in the book of James, says that faith, without works is dead. Liberals love this verse and I have heard them use it as an excuse to mandate government social programs.  But they take it out of context - scripture refers to individual faith, not corporate faith.  And it also says in Ephesians, that we are saved by faith, not by works so that no one has the ability to boast that they did anything themselves to earn eternal salvation.  The key in both of these verses is faith.  The question is which action shows truth faith – a conviction of personal sacrifice in order to provide for those in need or government mandated charity?

Strangely, II Timothy, a book of the Bible that was written over 1900 years ago, eerily explains the behavior that went on during the healthcare debate almost perfectly – “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.”   At least half of the actions described here were vividly portrayed for us in new stories covering the healthcare debate and the backroom deals and arm-twisting that went on to make it a reality.  Scripture follows that with a warning – “From such people turn away.”

Lastly, while giving to charities and helping those in need is most definitely a good and noble thing, no manner of good works, no matter how many you do, is going to bridge the Greatest Divide of all – the distance between imperfect man and a perfect, holy God.  Fortunately, we don’t have to do anything to bridge that divide ourselves.  I urge you, if you weren’t planning to already, to drop into a local church this Easter weekend to hear the Good News about how we can safely bridge that gap.  If going to church makes you nervous but you still want more information, feel free to contact me at EasterInfo at evidentlynot dot com.

Happy Easter and God bless.