So now we have financial institutions using taxpayer money to provide bonuses to their employees, to the tune of 6-7 billion per company. That’s an example of redistributing the wealth upward.

The tax package Obama promotes only allows the current tax break for the wealthy to sundown, returning them to Clinton administration rates. This is nowhere near as draconian as the 70% tax imposed prior to Reagan.

McCain wants to tax middle class Americans receiving insurance benefits, as well as their employers, and redistribute the money to big Insurance companies. How is that fair? McCain also proposes even larger tax breaks for the wealthy, who are not struggling financially, along with tiny tax breaks for the middle- and lower classes who are.

And who is advocating euthanasia? I haven’t heard that one yet.

This didn’t start out to be a partisan response, but I think what you are seeing from the far left is a backlash against the far evangelical right, who want to impose their values on the rest of us via legislation. We would do well to ignore both extremes.

I think you’re right about several points. Christians have a duty to meet the needs of the oppressed, the poor, the sick and all the rest of society’s lost and broken. I just read the parable of the ’sheep and the goats’ to my children last night. It’s a powerful warning to ‘be about the work of the kingdom.’

On the other hand, the tacit assumption that increased taxes will automatically go to the poor is, as you know, far from true. Taxes go to good programs and ridiculous programs; the madness of our recent economic bail-out is evidence, given that there was some $150 Billion in pork in that bill. I may want to be taxed to help the poor, but the taxes that pay that behemoth won’t necessarily accomplish anything but re-elections.

There is another assumption you make: that Christians, who are opposed to increased taxation, are not already giving. I go to a very active church where much money is given to the poor, locally, nationally and internationally. Good friends of ours are missionaries in Zambia; they are successful business owners who donate not only their money but their very lives to others.

Some recent research suggests that social/religious conservatives give considerably more to charity than average social and religious liberals. Admittedly, I haven’t read the studies so they may be flawed.

Personally, I’m fine if we stay where we are. I home-school my children, and still pay property tax for the education of others. Most home-school families are probably content with the same. We don’t want a voucher, since it allows government into our education, which is working just fine. So, I’m funding my own kids and others as well. Likewise, I’m paying for my children’s health-care, including one child with diabetes. I give to the church, I give to my family members when they need. So, by resisting increased taxes (wherein someone else determines how to do ‘good’ with my money), am I actually failing to follow the Biblical mandate?

I think conservatives are also sketchy about whether increased taxes really help the poor or just keep them in poverty. I mean, from the standpoint of the ER, I see lots of families on welfare for multiple generations, because they can get by due to government aid. Have we helped them?

You’re right about the early church; they were very socially conscious. In fact, that was one of the factors that made the church grow so exponentially in a hostile setting. They cared for their own, and embraced all, in the name of Christ. (There were also wealthy members, whose contributions to the cause were doubtless helpeful). But, they did not ask for any government intervention. They did it themselves. Christ calls us to give, but did not say that it was up to political processes to meet the needs of the community.

Can we do better? Absolutely. Do Christians focus, sometimes, on the wrong things? We can. But even as we give, we really don’t want to give anymore to government than we have to because we already have a higher compulsion to serve; and taxation is not intrinsically connected to that cause.

Thanks for writing!

I look forward to hearing from you again,

Edwin

I mostly agree with your post (possibly a surprise, given that I’m a liberal Canadian[and therefore probably a Communist] ex-Pentecostal), but I will play devil’s advocate a bit.

I am perplexed by the vitriol expressed by many Rebulicans when talking about the Democratic tax proposals. What happened to Biblical ideas of “the love of money is the root of all evil,” “sell all you have and give it to the poor,” “it is harder for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven,” and “they shared all things in common”?

Christ’s message, and the practice of the early church was definitely suspicious of wealth, and could probably be characterized as socialist. Christ calls us to economic sacrifice, at the very least, to help the poor. It is always ironic to me that religious conservatives who want to ban abortion are also the ones who want to cut welfare and kill criminals. Where is the love?

Christ’s message was, as you point out, a message of social justice for widows and orphans. But it was also a message of economic justice! As St. James points out, it doesn’t matter if you take care of matters of the soul, and ignore food and shelter; you will have failed to live up to Christ’s example. And as Christ himself said, “where were you when I was hungry, needed shelter, needed clothes?” As this parable indicates, Christ considered damned those who did not take care of the economic needs of the poor.

If Christian conservatives ignore economic justice, then they are cherry picking the feel good, no-action-required parts of Christ’s message.