What do you know about me? And how do you think I felt about the arrogant social workers demanding I go on welfare for their own job security? I once tried to tell a bunch of men at a soup kitchen about a job opportunity picking berries on a farm. The soup kitchen operator stopped me because if everyone got work, she was out of work.
To begin with you are arrogantly assuming what the motives of people you don't know are. You arrogantly assume you are too good to take welfare yourself. You pride yourself on getting along without help and despise those who are humble enough to admit they need a helping hand.
Is it pride or humility that scripture commends as a virtue?
Those who personally give to the poor have a right to know their money is not being wasted, especially when they give it just as a free gift!
No, they don't. Jesus tells us: "Give to everyone who begs from you and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you." Matt. 5:42
And again:
"Give to anyone who begs from you." Luke 6:30. Here, he even adds "If anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again."
He doesn't say "Limit your charity to those who will spend it as you approve."
How are the majority of people on welfare oppressed?
To begin with, they are oppressed by the welfare system itself. The welfare system is designed to punish the poor for being poor. It is one of the most degrading, soul-destroying systems to get trapped into.
But I wasn't speaking just of people on welfare. I was speaking of all people who live in poverty. Most of them are not on welfare. (And most of those on welfare--other than children and the infirm--are also working.).
That's another oppression: that you can have two adults working full-time and still need welfare to support a family of four.
So an inadequate minimum wage is another oppression.
Unfair wages, price-gouging, refusing adequate maintenance in apartment buildings, there are all sorts of oppressions. One that has drawn public attention in my province recently are the horrendously high charges imposed by Western Union & similar agencies on the financial transfers people on low-income make to their even more impoverished families overseas. These people work very hard for meagre wages and still try to support families in the Philippines, Bolivia or Africa who are in desperate need. (In some poor countries, the major source of foreign exchange is remittance from ex-patriots to their families. So those dollars eventually wind up back in our banks as the country pays off loans made to it by Canada.)
Naturally the wire service has a right to charge a fee, but in some cases they are demanding up to half of what a person managed to scrape together. Can you imagine the pain of seeing most of what you hoped to send to your mother grabbed by a powerful and profitable company?
So, a private members bill (by an NDP MPP) is seeking a legislative cap on how much is reasonable to charge for the service. The company can still make a profit, as is just, but not gouge low-income customers--and that is also just. We are still waiting to see the fate of this bill.
Firstly, the Christians of Alberta and BC who were very right-winged (and Godly and kind and generous) considered the founders of the NDP to not even be Christians or to be very weak Christians.
That's how prejudice can blind you.
When I was on the streets all I heard from the men and women around me was that they were only going to work if they got so much money (which was usually above mininum wage by several dollars).
I should hope so. You can't live on today's minimum wages.
Scripture tells us "the labourer is worthy of his hire." His hire should be enough to live on. When minimum wage won't get you off welfare, why work for it?
I wouldn't associate with them - partly because I ignored the "minimum wage" rule and worked for whatever the employer could afford (there are many, many poor employers out there who want and need help).
So you have so little empathy that you undercut your brothers' quest for an adequate wage. Yet I bet you would scream if a competitor underpriced their goods to drive you out of business. Selling your labour below cost (and illegally at that!) at the expense of other workers is the same sort of theft.
Yet instead of being ashamed, you take pride in cheating your fellows. And vilify them to justify yourself.
Then worst of all, you claim to do so as an upright Christian.
The lifestyle these people were living was shameful.
That is none of your business.
I purpose in my own life to live by faith and not by human rights.
Including, apparently, denying the human rights of others. That you have no right to do.
This verse shows why the NDP were kicked out of Ontario after one term. I met left-wingers who couldn't believe what Rae had done to the province. It was the left that condemned this premier's actions.
Oh, there was a lot of anger about Rae days. But I know some who were grateful to that program because they were able to keep their jobs when otherwise they would have been unemployed. Usually I support unions, but I think they made an incorrect call on this one.
Justice? What about an employer's right to be able to tell their employee what to do in the employer's workplace? What about the shopping mall's right to have a safe environment? What about the policeman's right to be respected when he asks a tresspasser to leave a place? What about the shop owner's right to be able to make money?
Typical of those who support oppressive powers. Let's have all the might of the law to protect wealth and authority from the just demands of the poor. But none at all to defend the rights of the poor as scripture demands.
Why not both?
And don't you think there might be considerably less incentive to steal or trespass if people were adequately paid, fed and housed?
As a poor man, I have a right to work hard and make my own money and live peaceably in my own place that I have faithfully paid the rent on.
And if your landlord raises your rent while your employer does not raise your pay?
Tell the Rothchilds and the other banking families (Morgans etc.) to forgive our debts. See how far you get.
I expect I would get as far as Jesus did with the Pharisees, Sadducees and Romans.
That is no excuse for a Christian not to follow Jesus' lead. Even, if need be, to a cross.
Our welfare receipients are putting all of us in debt to banks.
Woo! You are really out to lunch on that one.
South of the border, it was unscrupulous financiers that robbed a large swath of middle-class working people of their homes and were rewarded by allowing the public debt to increase by $700 billion. Seems to me it is the banks that are putting the taxpayer into debt.
Those banks will not take pity on the taxpayer and just exact the money from the taxpayee. They will exact the money from all of us. They will not forgive.
Right! So they break God's law of debt forgiveness.
Are you recommending Christians continue to support this at the polls?
The NDP are the leaders of irresponsibility. Many Christians associate the NDP with godless Communism which persecuted Christians. Many Christians fear that when anyone from the NDP gets into power the country will become a dictatorship. What the NDP does wherever they are brings the whole country closer to these realities. Maybe you surround yourself with just left-winged Christians but many or all of the Christians I associate with are completely the opposite.
Clearly there is a significant divide here.
But do you know one thing I have observed.
Christians on the left know the scriptures pertaining to government well; they know about the rights of the poor and the duty of government (usually represented in scripture by the king) to uphold the rights of the poor and protect them from the oppression of the powerful. They ask only that we follow the teachings of Jesus in our politics and economics as well as in our personal lives.
Christians on the right, however, seem to draw most of their political inspiration from the libertarian philosophy (and mythology) of Ayn Rand---an atheist who considered selfishness a virtue and scorned those who believed in the way of Christ.
When I see Christians on the right who display the compassion of Christ for the poor, endorse policies that uphold the rights of the poor, and help prevent poverty, preach sharing our public wealth with all in need instead of wasting it on gigantic subsidies to those who are already rich and rebuke those who set barriers in the way of the poor, treating them as if to be poor is in and of itself a crime: when I see Christians on the right speak about and treat the poor as Jesus did, then I will begin to have some respect for their politics.
When I see Christians on the right start paying more attention to God's calling to advocate for the poor instead of constantly judging the poor by the standards of an atheist despiser of Christ, I will consider their political proposals.
But as long as the Christian right is infested with prejudice, judgmentalism, and more zeal to protect wealth than compassion for the needy, it will not have my support.
(Note, this doesn't necessarily apply to you personally. It is my impression of representatives of the so-called "Christian" right who draw public notice in the media. I see too much hate on the right: both Christian and non-Christian--hate and fear of immigrants, of Muslims, of people of colour, and association of poverty with racism, xenophobia, etc. that leads to supporting prisons as the only "welfare program" to be operated by the state.)
I permanently walked out of a church recently that exhonerated Jack Layton in the pulpit.
I might do that too. Jack Layton needed no exoneration. He was a deeply compassionate man, and I consider him one of my personal heroes, along with Tommy Douglas.
But I didn't take the time to know and understand where the minister was coming from and why he said what he did. Perhaps I should try to do this in the future.
Good idea. Also a good idea to find out the facts about a lot of the poor-bashing that comes from the right-most side of the political spectrum.
God's prophets have always spoken for the poor, not against them. So when you hear bad things said about people in poverty, it is wise to find out who is saying them, and what their interest is in keeping the poor in poverty.
It is just as much a form of prejudice and discrimination as the stereotyping of people by race or ethnicity or gender.
