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Love can never be the law

Many legislators or politicians make a fairly simple chain of reasoning. Jesus says help the poor. Social security, SNAP, AFDC, welfare, medicaid, and many other forms of government spending help the poor. Therefore Christians should support them.

The fact which gets left out of that chain of reasoning is that all of those programs are funded by taxation, and taxation is never voluntary. If you get to choose whether or not to pay, it’s not called a tax, it’s called a suggested contribution. No one may live in a country and not pay its taxes.

Taxation is always backed up by the implicit threat that you will be found guilty of breaking the law if you don’t pay. The IRS will accuse you of tax evasion. A court will find you guilty and sentence you to pay a fine. If you don’t pay that fine, the government will take your money and your things without your consent. If you wont give up your money and your things, you will go to prison.

Jesus does not endorse that relationship. Jesus came to set the captives free, not to put more people in prison. Jesus came to allow people to choose, not to force them.

Choosing to help the poor pleases God. Grudgingly allowing a system based on force to take your money against your will and spend it on the poor does not please God.

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God will never force you.

God is love. –1 John 4:8

Love does not insist on its own way. — 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (ESV)

God will never force you. He will always let you choose everything about your own conduct. He may make it very clear to us which we he would go, but he will always leave the choice whether or not to say yes or no.

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Private Property in the Bible

And my princes will no longer oppress my people but will allow the people of Israel to possess the land according to their tribes. –Ezekiel 45:8

A government that does not allow the people to possess land is oppressive. Private property ownership is a scriptural principle, and it is a facet of a government that does not offend him.

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Jesus On Economic Freedom

There’s a very well known parable that Jesus tells, about hiring workers in a vineyard. In the parable, the vineyard owner goes out in the morning and hires some workers at the rate of a denarius for their days work. They go out to work, while the owner comes back to the marketplace at noon and again in evening, hiring more and more workers, promising each of them a denarius as well.

At the end of the day, the ones who started very late in the day are paid, and they get a denarius. When they ones who started at the beginning of the day get paid, they’re angry when they only get a denarius as well.

They protest to the vineyard owner, saying basically “Hey, we worked much longer, we deserve much more.”

Add this is the landowner’s reply, according to Jesus:

But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ –Matthew 20:13-15

It’s hard for me to imagine any clearer answer to the question of whether Jesus is in favor of economic freedom.

1) You agreed to work for it, so this wage is not unfair.

2) I have the right to do what I want with my own money.

And lest anyone doubt, at the beginning of the parable, Jesus specifically says the Kingdom of Heaven will be as described in this parable.

Now, before anyone goes overboard, this is a parable. It’s designed to show through story some aspects of what it’s like when we place ourselves completely under God’s rule. The parable is not about the landowner and his workers. It’s about the fact that God gives eternal life to everyone who chooses to be with him, regardless of how hard they worked or how long.

But the landowner does represent God in this parable, and Jesus would not represent the father with a person of whose conduct he disapproved.

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The Truth Shall Set You Free

I’m going to transfer my very occasional series of posts that I call “The truth shall set you free” over to this blog. For those just joining, the series is a response to the concept of the social gospel, or social justice gospel.

The social justice gospel holds that Jesus’s teaching about helping the poor should lead us to support laws that help the poor.

My response is that Jesus absolutely positively did teach that those who followed him should love and give our lives up to help everyone who needs help — people who are poor, people who are oppressed, people who are sick, and many others.

But he always — always, always, always — charged you to do it. He never said “get the government to help the poor.” He never said “pass a law making sure everyone else helps the poor.” He certainly never said “use the implied threat of force to coerce people into helping the poor.”

You. Yes, you. The one looking down at your smartphone right now. You. Get out and help the poor.

Those who read Taking Jesus Seriously will hopefully remember that posts in this series generally focus on a particular verse or set of verses that I’ve read that day which seem relevant to the question of whether Jesus’ teaching to help the poor is model legislation or a guide for individual people’s lives. This is the one on my heart today:

“If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.” — 1 John 3:17-18 (NLT)

This clearly says “take from what you have and give it to those who are in need.” The showing of compassion is directly and clearly tied to an individual person (“someone” does not indicate a society or class of people) and their personally owned resources.

So get out there and love the poor. Do what you can to help them. Don’t let slips into self-indulgence or acquisitiveness make you feel like you can’t do it. Just get back on the horse and try again.

Don’t wait for, expect, or try to force someone else to help the poor. Help them!