The president also believes that these charities can change even more lives if they receive money from the federal government. He has said it is unfair to discriminate against “faith-based” organizations simply because they worship an authority higher than the state. About his desire to subsidize faith-based charities with federal funds, he is wrong.
There are at least four concerns I have when government comes to the church house door and says it is there to help. One is the almost certain erosion of the base on which the life-changing faith has been constructed. Already members of the administration have acknowledged that no organization receiving federal funds would be able to share its salvation message with people in need. There have been suggestions of setting up separate entities. One would be free of federal support and could preach to its god’s content. The other would be “secular” in the sense that the “faith-based” organization could feed, clothe, and house the body, but bypass the soul. This, it seems to me, is nothing more than a glorified welfare program that some of the more conservative groups now itching to take federal money used to criticize when liberals were on the receiving end of federal largesse. If faith becomes a choice and does not permeate all that the organization does, one might as well continue to support the existing programs, which are already devoid of faith.
The second concern I have is that churches and other religious institutions and organizations will see charity as a corporate responsibility, instead of a personal mandate from God. In our TV-Internet-cell-phone-Palm-Pilot-exceed-the-speed-limit culture we seem to be constantly looking for ways to maximize our work and minimize our time for the things that matter most in life. Charity is not only about receiving and what money, food, housing, and clothing can do for a needy person. It is also about giving and what such an act can produce in the giver. When Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35, NIV),* He was talking about the “spiritual angioplasty” that charity brings to a hardened heart. Giving of one’s self, as well as one’s means, produces a spiritual blessing in the heart of the giver, which can also be used by God to truly touch the heart of the person on the receiving end of the gift. But it is the giver who receives the more important blessing, according to Jesus.
We already have too many religious professionals who will, in exchange for a contribution, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, and care for widows and orphans. The call to do such things is more personal than corporate, and the blessings that come from personal obedience were designed for individuals, not organizations with the proper 501 (c) (3) tax-deductible status.
Third, when Jesus said in Matthew 9:37, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” (NIV), He didn’t follow up by advising His disciples to go and ask Caesar for some denarii. Lack of money was never a problem for Him, because He owned (and had created) everything. Lack of will by His followers was the problem. He says so in verse 38: “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (NIV). It wasn’t about asking Caesar. It was about asking God.
Fourth, what about the political implications? Will a future Democratic president decide to pull the financial plug on organizations that have received federal funds during the Bush years in order to “reward” faith-based programs of his choosing that may be more in tune with his political worldview? What is to stop this becoming a political football? Furthermore, who will decide which faith-based program is a success, and what standard will be used? And then there’s the problem of religions, sects, and cults that are out of the mainstream. Will they sue if they don’t get money? And how will the courts deal with such litigation?
The problem for faith-based organizations that want government help is not that they lack money. The problem is a lack of will on the part of those who should feel motivated by the love of God to reach out and touch the life of a person caught in difficult circumstances. Jesus instructed His followers to take nothing with them when they went out to preach His gospel. That seems foreign in the age of direct mail and preachers on TV who imply that the work of God will be thwarted unless you send them $25 or more. Millions of people attend worship services every week in America, but what they give (or, more accurately, don’t give) to the work of God is pathetic.
According to the Barna Research Group, reported giving to nonprofit organizations and churches was down six percent last year from 1999. The average giving per person last year was a paltry $886, 15 percent less than the previous year.
Barna reports that among churches, six out of 10 adults put money in the collection plate, with the average donation amounting to just $649, down from an $806 average in 1999. Some of those raising the biggest ruckus about the decline of culture give the least. While 39 percent of all adults gave nothing to a church last year, nearly one quarter of them were people who identified themselves as “born again.” Since the standard most often preached is the tithe (donating 10 percent of annual income to the church, a custom only 12 percent of the born again practice, says Barna), it appears that those commanded to do the most are actually doing the least.
The reason we have so many poor and needy among us in this prosperous nation is not that government isn’t doing enough. It is that people who claim to follow God are not doing enough. Allowing government to step in where only angels should be treading will diminish, not enhance, the work of faith-based groups. That’s because of the inevitable restrictions government will place on their activities. That the “workers are few” is not the fault of government. It is the fault of a disobedient church population. Government cannot kindle a flame in the heart of individual worshipers, but government can help extinguish whatever spark might be fanned into a flame.
Not very many years ago private and religious charities were honored and promoted in our country, and those who engaged in charitable work were revered in their communities. We need more sermons about our responsibilities to the poor, not more help from the federal government, which has enough problems of its own without bringing it through the door of the church house and causing many believers to submit to the will of the state instead of bowing to the will of God.
Cal Thomas, whose latest book is The Wit and Wisdom of Cal Thomas (Promise Press), is America’s most widely syndicated op-ed columnist.
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Although HR 7, the Faith-based Initiatives Bill, passed in the House back in July, it has yet to pass the Senate. In the meantime the debate continues and, given the larger aspects of the discussion, will probably continue regardless of the Senate outcome.—Editor.
*Texts credit to NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
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