How far does Christian duty go?
[NOTE: This is a repeat of an earlier post that seems to me to be worth repeating, particularly in light of the Pope’s remarks the other day about building walls and Christians.]
A great many Christians seem to be arguing that we Westerners have a duty to accept all the refugees coming from war-torn countries such as Syria, or those in economic distress such as illegal immigrants from Mexico, whether the “we” be individuals here or in Europe. I’ve read many such arguments on blogs in posts and comments, and have seen them offered by talking heads on TV.
To me as a non-Christian, it is a puzzling argument. To me it seems that the prescription to give to charity, to help the needy, never requires that one help all the needy to the point of beggaring yourself. Nor does it require putting yourself in personal jeopardy. In other words, although Christianity has long admired the saintliness of martyrdom, it does not require it of individuals and certainly not of societies.
There is a saying, “charity begins at home” that has these origins:
The notion that a man’s family should be his foremost concern is expressed in 1 Timothy 5:8, King James Bible, 1611:
But if any prouide not for his owne, & specially for those of his owne house, hee hath denied the faith, and is worse then an infidel.
John Wyclif had expressed the same idea as early as 1382, in Of Prelates, reprinted in English Works, 1880:
Charite schuld bigyne at hem-self.
So it seems clear that helping everyone in need is not possible in the real world. Nor does helping people require that you take them into your own home, either in small numbers or large.
Another principle to remember is that generally any behavior that is rewarded will increase in frequency. So, issue an open invitation to your house saying that all who come will be fed and clothed there and given money, and see what happens if you broadcast it throughout the entire world.
In the case of immigrants from a country such as Syria, the current refugee crisis is a golden opportunity for a significant number of terrorists to come in among them. The more immigrants arrive the more difficult it will be to properly vet them (if indeed there’s any effort at all to do so). In addition, a great number of bona fide refugees fleeing a harsh situation in Syria are nevertheless sworn to the cultural and religious overthrow of the West through the demographic change of which they will be part.
So, how far does your obligation to help go, and to accept the stranger into your home? Does it extend to those who want to take over your dwelling?
I am not completely familiar with the tenets of Christianity, to be sure. But I can’t imagine that it requires such self-destruction in the name of good. To me, it seems that limits are necessary, and the proper topic for debate is the question of where to draw those limits.
Those Christians you’re referring to aren’t Christians, for the most part. If they were, they’d agree with you. Charity does begin at home.
If the charge is stinginess, real believers would know that we have an obligation to provide for and protect our own before even giving to God. (Look up what Jesus said to hypocrites who refused to care for their families because they wanted to give it to God). The man who doesn’t provide for his own family is worse than an infidel. We’re to do justice to the widow and the orphan *in our own land*, not import more of them, plus a horde of strapping young men who could easily become an invading army at a moment’s notice. That’s not charity, it’s stupidity. Charity would be going to them in their homes, not bringing them to despoil ours.
If the charge is racism, they ought to know that Jesus himself made distinctions between the Jews he came to save (the Jew first, and only then to the Gentile), and between members of the family and those outside it (do we give the children’s food to the dogs?). He didn’t talk much about immigration, to be sure, but there’s no reason to believe that he would tell poor people (and it is the poor in our own country who are least able to compete and defend themselves against mass immigration) to turn their homes and homeland over to others just because they are somewhat poorer. That’s not justice, it’s mass theft. Thou shalt not steal.
I could go on. I’ve heard a lot of sermons from people who actually care what the bible means in my 36 years as a preacher’s kid.
What those “Christians” are are liberals who took over their churches and ruined them. Don’t believe them when they say they know what Jesus wants. They don’t even know what he said.
Agree with Cindy.
Religion has become politicized.
There’s a story in the Bible about a rich woman bringing perfumed oils to wash Jesus’ hair. Judas steps in and says ‘Lord, we should sell the perfume and use the money to feed the poor.’ The Bible specifically notes at this point that Judas was stealing from the communal purse. He intended to take a cut from the sale of the perfume and give what was left over to the poor.
Social Justice Warriors are all Judas. They aren’t looking to help the poor. They are all looking for their cut of the purse. Billions of dollars in social services grants, seats in the pews, etc. Don’t be fooled by them.
Since I’m neither a Christian nor a member of the Roman Catholic subset, I look up an encyclical letter by the last Pope, Benedict XVI, to see what he has to say [Charitas In Veritate, Charity in Truth].
Oyieef!
It isn’t brief, what he has to say, but it does appear to be thorough. On the other hand, however, there also appears (on a quick scan) to be a heaping helping of “culture” and “cultural” in there, indicating a kind or a species of knee-jerk Kantian captivity (or ought we to call it a hybridization?), i.e. a modern enlightenment or a genetically-indistinct as “Christian” sort of blah blah blah, along with which, as one might therefore expect, all manner of political progressivism insinuated betwixt and between “this” anchor proposition and “that”.
The Ten Commandments, which G-d gave Moses, precede Christianity by some eons, are the foundation of Christianity, and there is nothing in them about charity.
The fifth Commandment is the first to address the human condition, and it is, “Honor thy father and mother”. That is, the nuclear family. Nothing about extended families, nations, tribes or the entire cloud of mankind.
This is not the first time this left-leaning Pope has overstepped his bounds. Progressives tend to do that.
Both the American faith organization and the federal government owe their *first duty* to American citizens.
With $19 trillion spread across 330m (10-30m illegal) people and growing GDP at only 2%, we ain’t rich anymore.
Charity (whether Christian charity or otherwise) is not giving to the needy using someone else’s resources!
And, that is exactly what the Pope (open YOUR borders) and others are doing; claiming that “we” need to be charitable; when what they really mean is YOU need to be charitable.
It is more charitable (more in line with Jewish Tzedakah’s highest level – enabling the needy to become self-reliant) to teach a man to fish than to feed him a fish.
Trump, the pope, and the Bible
By Rabbi Aryeh Spero
In response to Donald Trump’s call for constructing a wall at our southern border so as to stem the illegal migrations into our country, Pope Francis indicated that Mr. Trump is “not a Christian,” since, as the pope says, “Christians build bridges, not walls.”
As a rabbi, it is not for me to decide what is Christian; however, I can speak to what the Bible says about such matters.
More
I can’t say that I followed the Pope’s trip to Mexico, but I wonder if he said anything significant about the drug cartels. The cartels have killed thousands and totally corrupted Mexico. And, frankly, that lawlessness and corruption has probably caused many to leave Mexico for the USA.
I know the Pope doesn’t have an army, but he commands the ultimate bully pulpit. Denouncing the culture of drugs and lawlessness would do a world of good. We saw what John Paul did to communism.
mf:
Thanks for that link. This quote was especially interesting:
One relevant Talmudic principle: when dispensing tithes or charity, the principle is “the needy of your own city take precedence” over strangers – including the amorphous “humanity” of PC multi-culturalism.
You can’t save all the cats.
Not a word to the Christian and Catholic Central American nations who turn their citizens into wandering beggars who must throw themselves on the mercy of other nations. Says everything about this evil – yes, I said it – man that I need to know. He prefers people to be on their knees.
Denouncing the culture of drugs and lawlessness would do a world of good.
The pope did speak to that:
and
and
Thanks for a beautifully written column that reads like a prose poem. A smart reply regarding the Vatican walls, but I doubt that Trump has noticed or cares very much about the fact that the pope has barely lifted a finger or said a word about the assaults on Christians and Christian churches around the world and particular in the M.E. Jorge as a community organizer is much too concerned with what seems to me to be his communist faith. The Castros, Global Warming Crowd, et al are allies in advancing the agenda. If there is a battle in the Church between Christianity and Communism / Progressivism, the latter is winning at the moment and I would not be shocked to hear it when the Church announces that abortion has its humane qualities or that Jorge has long wished to marry his boyfriend. New twist on an old expression of affirmation: Is the pope communist?
neo-neocon:
And the author continues: ” Nationhood, and a nation with secure borders, is a biblically blessed concept.”
And it is a requirement for a person’s security. Maybe the history’s not exact but seems the children of Israel got that message loud and clear after so many of them became stateless in WWII. Israel was recognized by the U.S. in 1949. Would that it had been there before the war. There are no borders to defennd for the stateless and a people can also be rendered such by an invasion.
The first wall was constructed by God in order to exclude Adam and Eve from Eden after violating the established rules of the jurisdiction. Second and third-world nations should not have an incentive to sustain mass exodus of their native born.
God also remarked on the responsibility of men and women to tend their own gardens, be fruitful and multiply, to not commit murder/abortion, etc. First-world nations need to know the consequences of losing faith and violating moral behavior that includes resumption of abortion rites and cannibalistic trials in liberal societies.
As for the refugee crises, they exist either because America was defeated or more likely that Obama et al have ulterior motives. Premature evacuation, preemptive regimes changes, progressive wars have consequences. The social justice movement, “Arab Spring”, in particular, was a humanitarian disaster.
Masochism and feelings of existential guilt dressed up in Christian garb are unfortunately relatively commonplace nowadays.
Christianity becomes altruism without a real purpose. It’s a battle being fought within the Catholic Church itself.
The question that always interests me, and that one which you can never get an answer to, is: if the refugee has the right of refuge, does the refuge provider have a right, in fact even a duty to preserve the conditions which made his destination attractive in the first place? And what about the man, as I have asked before, who can defend himself and his family and is willing to do so. What is his obligation to defend those who will not, defend themselves but flee to him?
It’s akin to asking a socialist jabbering on about a right to a “job”, if they merely mean a right to seek work and/or to labor on their own projects? Or instead, do they mean a so-called “right” to be provided by someone else with a time occupying opportunity for them to be remunerated for doing whatever it is they wish to occupy their time doing.
If you get so far that it is the latter question, and you will not, then we wish to know if there is a corresponding duty under that scheme for someone else to be the entrepreneur, the planner, the directing adult, and to provide such directive services and responsibilities.
Of course you won’t get that far since the socialist – whether he can formulate the problem concisely or not – objects emotionally to the premise that societies are primarily voluntary systems of association; exchange based relationships between property owners or what left-wing critics sometime derisively (sometimes not) call stakeholders.
It is unclear to me what Marxist morality, insofar as it can even be seen has having a traditional ethical component, is actually based on: something about the future, I guess.
But Catholics and Marxists are not the only ones …
These are not Christians, they are heretical Leftists using liberation theology.
My grandfather, who was not a deeply devout man but a believer, told me that each adult person needed to take responsibility for his own well being and livelihood. When a man and woman married they became responsible for each other. If they had children, they were responsible to take care of those children. To be self sufficient and not a burden on one’s extended family or the state was to be the goal of all adults. He pointed out that many people were successful enough that they could share some of their blessings with others and should do so as they saw fit. He didn’t cite the Bible as his authority, just the teaching from his parents and his life experience.
For many years my grandparents gave monetary support to a Christian mission in Africa as they able. They also occasionally gave to family members who were in bad need of a hand up. Although they had the means, they refused to contribute to my college education because my grandfather told me that I was perfectly capable of earning the money. (He was right.) He also told me that I would appreciate my education much more if I earned it myself.(Right again.) He was a man with a fifth grade education but a wealth of wisdom.
There will always be those among us who are really unable to be self sufficient, but there will also always be those who could be self sufficient but are just plain lazy. Determining which is which is the major problem. It is not something that should be done by a distant, rather ignorant federal government. Charity is best done as close to the needy as possible. This nation has so much charitable giving it is astounding. But some of the charities are frauds or near frauds. And then there are the foundations. It seems that every NFL football player, movie star, successful businessman, major league baseball player, etc., etc. have foundations. These are basically tax dodges. Not that some of them don’t do some good things. I’m sure they do. Still, the primary reason for them is to legally dodge the tax man. Then there are the old family foundations like the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, tec., etc. They have all been taken over by leftist social justice warriors and have been instrumental in moving the country to the left. Not to mention the Clinton Foundation, which has been shown to be a possible criminal front for the personal agendas of the Clintons. I think foundations need to go.
The greatest benefactors to all able bodied people whop want to be self sufficient are those who create jobs. To figure out a good or service that people need, invest time and money in it, hire employees and make it work; is the real charity work in a free society. A job that offers honest work is a blessing to those who are able and willing to work. This country used to be good at this. In the last 35 years we seem to have lost our way. Job creators have left the country, decided not to take the chance, and invested elsewhere. Primarily because of a government that smothers them with burdensome regulations and prohibitions.
I graduated college in 1954. I had a bag with my personal possessions (mostly my clothes and some books) and a job with an oil exploration company waiting for me in Salt Lake City. I had to hitch a ride to get there, but that was a small issue to me. I had a job in my field of education. That was a time when the job creators were hard at work. There was lots of opportunity because of them. ( I had three different job offers tom pick from before I graduated.) I didn’t know it but I was living at a particularly providential time in the U.S. It wasn’t Christian charity that provided self sufficiency for new job seekers. it was the entrepreneurs and capitalists. I hope it will be that way again.
“What those “Christians” are are liberals who took over their churches and ruined them. Don’t believe them when they say they know what Jesus wants. They don’t even know what he said.” Cindy
Bingo. Nor do they care what he said. Because… they are either “useful idiots” or “heretical Leftists using liberation theology.” Ymarsakar
Two items –
First, I remember reading a comment during the 2012 presidential campaign. It was in regards to the story about Romney removing the wasp nest from a man’s roof. The commenter thought that what Romney did was stupid and foolish. According to the commenter, Romney’s time was too valuable to be spent doing something manual like that. The commenter thought that Romney should have instead hired someone else to remove the wasp nest.
That indicated that the commenter completely missed the point of providing personal service.
The second is an observation of mine. Libs who are quick to try and guilt you about what Jesus would want you to do typically forget that Jesus is also the one who chased the money changers out of the temple with a whip.
J. J.
We cut our oil, nat gas and coal production to satisfy the believers in the global warming scam when we could be an oil exporter. The Sauds use our money to export terror. We could own the nat gas market in Europe and drive Vlad to his knees.
If Hillary wins, energy costs to consumers triple; just like in Europe.
Trump is right about one thing: We have stupid leaders.
Your final paragraph is quite correct. Christian duty never extends to self-destruction of self, family, community, or state insofar as the wider circle are not destructive of Christianity .
Among other things, there is no looming disaster to be seen from the immigrants because, as unfortunates, they are innocent at heart and could not possibly be a threat.
To say otherwise is racist.
I had heard, not to say I know much about it, that there is a Jewish custom of pouring wine into a glass until it overflows into a saucer and thence, with more wine, onto a plate under the saucer.
Anybody hear about this? Point is to take care of home first and the rest of humanity from the excess, or possibly the interest and not the capital. If you use up your capital, you will need help yourself so that’s not a realistic option.
The progs are trying to use the Judeo-Christian religious traditions against the practitioners. Not likely they give a rodent’s patootie about what happens to the refugees, nor to the rest of us.
The Christian duty for charity is personal. The Christian is asked to trust in God more than himself for the future and to that end not to hold too tightly to his purse and to open his heart to others in need. He is not called on to solve the problem of poverty, the fate of the poor as well as his own fate is ultimately in God’s hands, we are merely to work on our own hearts. Note, also, that it is clear that the Christian’s duty to trust in God does not give himself license to be unwise or careless.
Cornhead: ‘We cut our oil, nat gas and coal production to satisfy the believers in the global warming scam when we could be an oil exporter. The Sauds use our money to export terror. We could own the nat gas market in Europe and drive Vlad to his knees.”
Just so. Much of our economic problems can be traced directly to the Endangered Species Act (1973) and the EPA (1970). The law and the agency were both well meant, but morphed into tools of the Watermelons (Green on the outside, red on the inside.) to destroy those activities that create wealth. Agriculture (Deny irrigation water to farmers in the San Joaquin Valley), mining (Killing the coal industry), logging (shut down in the pacific Northwest because of the Spotted Owl.), oil and gas drilling (No leases or exploration allowed on federal lands since 2009), and nuclear power plants (Only four new nuclear power plants permitted since 1979). Building roads and bridges has become far more expensive and difficult because of all the environmental studies and restrictions. Building factories is more expensive and difficult as well. The AGW scam is a part of it all. These people don’t care about the environment as much as they care about using the tools to amass government power.
Social Justice Warriors, consciously or unconsciously (I hope the latter) understand that social welfare programs are really about providing jobs for the middle class that they are about helping the target population. The repeated commandments in the Torah to help the poor all are directed at the individual. they say, “You help the poor.” They don’t say, “You tax him to appoint her to head up an agency which will hire them to administer a program which supposedly will help the poor, but will actually harm the poor.”