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Social Responsibility

I am reading a book called What if Jesus had Never Been Born? by D. James Kennedy. In the book, Kennedy, has a short section on Welfare and other government funded social programs in play today. He states that "state-sponsored welfare has not considered what the Bible says about human nature and what it says about economics, these programs have overall been an abysmal failure."

What does the Bible tell us about human nature? Man is evil. [bible]mark 7:20-23[/bible]

What does the Bible tell us about economics? Each person should be responsible for his own wellbeing. [bible]1 Thessalonians 4:11-12[/bible]

I think it is so easy for us to forget these things and start to believe that welfare, workman's comp, unemployment, and other government social programs are working...but are they? Every day in my office I deal with people trying to cheat the system and get a free ride, whether it is to get medications, unemployment, welfare, insurance claims...whatever. And often, their claims are not legit. The majority of my job with these people is more of a detective than practitioner, as I try to weed through people's lies...

Of course, this does not apply to everyone and these programs obviously help a lot of people that need them (and provide my employment). But, I think it is still an interesting question to ask if they are actually benefiting society as a whole?

Kennedy states that most American's settle to pay taxes and make the government our brother's keeper, but in reality, WE are supposed to be our brother's keeper. If a person where to truly believe in this model, the church would then be the source of this aid to the community, not government.

Kennedy points to William Bradford as setting up this model in the United States in 1623. Inspired by [bible]2 Thessalonians 3:10[/bible], Mr. Bradford designed a social system where each man was responsible for himself. The antithesis of socialism.

Just something to think about as socialized medicine and big government become hot topics for the coming election...

posted: 05/17/2008 09:51pm by joshopp View: Backlinks, Permalink Total Views: 602 ShortURL: http://christianblog.com/2be4 Category: Politics & Society	Print This Blog Entry
Blog Tags: bible, government, kennedy, programs, states, welfare,
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Author: joshopp
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Thank you so much for sharing that. My dad tells me all the time that people shouldn't depend on welfare because he who does not work shouldn't eat. But I do understand that some people have illnesses and disabilities... but besides that good blog

Posted 05/17/2008 10:13pm
Author: paprika89

Hey welcome! That's a great point that Socialism simply doesn't work. Socialism is a lot like Communism, or Fascism. The idea is the same, that the government can protect us and that any problem can simply be fixed by passing a law. Benjamin Franklin once said "those who would sacrifice their personal freedoms for temporary security deserve neither." Most of Europe operates under supposed a supposed democracy, which is a smokescreen to cover up a socialist bloc that's morphing into a revived Roman Empire called the EU (European Union) or "Euro zone." Socialism preys upon peoples' fears, mostly fears of violence, and economic instability. The US was founded on the ideal of personal responsibility/accountability and the government has stripped us of our individual freedoms, namely the right to freedom of religion, especially if it's anything Judeo/Christian and even more poignantly the right bear arms, which is the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights. I could go on about this for a long time, those verses of scripture really hit home. God bless you, and thank you!

Posted 05/17/2008 10:58pm
Author: believeinjesus

I can certainly see where you're coming from, as it's well-known that a lot of people do abuse social welfare. As a teacher working in a fairly deprived area with high unemployment and the resultant welfare dependency, however, I do feel the need to ask 'what about the children?' Children are prohibited by law from working for a living in most, if not all, Western nations. If their parents are unemployed, regardless of their reasons for not working, welfare is the only thing available to ensure that children receive food and shelter. Yes, churches and other charities provide some aid (and one could argue that they could provide more), but I know that in my own country only a minority of the population are church-going Christians or give regularly or significantly to charity. Without welfare sourced from taxation of the population as a whole there simply would not be enough money to provide for all of these families. To deny welfare to the adults in a household is, by default, to also deny it to their children. It seems rather harsh to say that a child, who has no control over the situation, should go hungry because their parents won't, or genuinely can't, work?

Posted 07/15/2008 02:46am
Author: tealight

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