Legal Plunder and the Church

I just happened to find this funny/really sad. I see so many people forgetting all the pheomenal things that have been accomplished through the love and charity of people. The great "social programs" of the church--hospitals, feeding the poor, caring for the orphans--are great because they come from the heartfelt response of its people. However, when we try to do great things by taking money away from people, the heart goes out of it. That's why I think that the best laid plans of politicians and lobbyists are all ROT: they are based on a policy of legal plunder that deadens the heart of citizens to the needs of the poor and needy.

You surely can build anything you like with other people's money, provided you have a big enough army and a realistic enough threat of jail time to get them to give it to you. But, what the State does with our taxes is not nearly as impressive OR effective as what has been done, or could have been done, through our charity. But that's not the worst of it. The State's social programs are based on the secular notion that if no one makes citizens take care of one another, they won't do it. Lex credendi, lex viviendi. As we believe so we live. If we believe that people will not be charitible without the government enforcing it, then people will live that way--and they do.

The Church leaders would be wise to think harder before cooperating with HUD and accepting various grants from government social services. If we can't get the work of God done with heart money, perhaps it isn't God's work after all. Just because citizens hand over their money each year, under penalty of law, to the government, who in turn offers it in the form of a grant--does this make it free money to the Church? No. It is money that couldn't be gained through love and was taken by force. In this light, the State is NOT a benefactor, but a thief and a money launderer.

We need to take on the responsibility to the poor that our faith requires of us, but not through legal plunder. We should lower taxes and get money for the Church and the poor the right way. The HEART way.